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A Right Wigan Grafter
Tommy Walsh was brought up in a wrestling environment, the Lancashire town of Wigan at a time when every boy aspired to being a wrestler or a rugby player. Britain was recovering from six years of war when Tommy was born to William and Ellen Walsh on 25th February, 1948.
Tommy was quite late in life becoming a professional wrestler, following a variety of occupations that included slaughter man, fireman, dustbin man and doorman at the Monaco Ballroom in Wigan. Most of his working life, though, was spent working for an undertaker, especially enjoying his work at Howe Bridge Crematorium.
Known in the wrestling ring as Bob Walsh he was one of the last generation of real wrestling grafters from the home of Catch as Catch Can. He was a graduate of Billy Riley’s gym and one of the last Mountevans style wrestlers to quite literally rub shoulders with legends such as Bill Joyce, Jack Dempsey and Billy Riley. This trio of old masters were instrumental in training when a twenty-something Tommy Walsh turned up at the Whelley gymnasium demanding that they teach him to wrestle. Teach him they did, and Tommy was one of the minority who returned time and again to learn more about his chosen sport.
It was heavyweight champion Billy Joyce in particular who took to the youngster and arranged a daily 3.45 pm rendezvous at the gym for Bob’s next lesson in learning to wrestle, the Wigan style, with Tommy also acknowledging his gratitude to Roy Wood, Jack Cheers and Ernie Riley. Tommy recalled that in his earliest days at the gym the old maestro Riley would sit in the corner offering advice whenever he thought it necessary, which seemed to be very often.
With Tommy’s preparedness for the wrestling ring edging closer Billy Joyce arranged for him to go along to Ted Betley’s gym In Warrington, where he would encounter wrestlers with a different style, less hard edged but more athletic, men like Steve Wright, Mike Dallas and Davey Boy Smith.
Turning professional in the late 1970s he wrestled for both Joint promotions and the independents, with opponents including Honey Boy Zimba, Sid Cooper, Bert Royal and John Naylor. It was Naylor in the opposite corner when Bob made his only television appearance, narrowly losing by the odd fall. A technician at the start Bob soon learned to mix it and a harder-edge found him often the object of fan’s abuse. The role of villain was one that he enjoyed immensely.
Bob retired from wrestling in the late 1980s, around the time wrestling was taken from the tv screens. He made the occasional appearance following 1988, the last we discovered being in 1992 at the Monaco Ballroom in a Wigan v The United States Tournament.
In late 2006 Tommy was diagnosed with cancer. Following treatment he returned to work in the crematorium. However the cancer returned and Tommy spent many weeks in Christies Hospital battling the disease. His son told us, “He really was tougher than old boots; it must have been the wrestling background in him.
Tommy died on 18th August, 2008 at Wigan and Leigh Hospice. Wrestler Steve Fury said, “Bob was a very fit and strong wrestler who trained with the very elite in Wigan. A nice man, another sad loss to the wrestling business.”
Page added 18/06/2024
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