Also known as The Yellow Streak
Wrestling Heritage welcomes memories, further information and corrections.
Two Sides To The Dodger
Short dark hair and good looks didn’t prevent Brixton’s Chris Bailey becoming a bad boy on the South of England wrestling scene. Although a regular in the late sixties and early seventies, and not being short of ability, he failed to break through to the top echelon, which didn’t prevent frequent outbursts describing what he was going to do to Jackie Pallo and Mick McManus.
The fact was that in the 1960s and 1970s competition was very fierce and even capable workers often failed to stand out in the crowd. Chris was eighteen when he turned professional in November 1966. His unruly style frequently led to disqualification, making him a good value support on any bill.
Chris made his television debut in May, 1968, against popular Len Hurst. It was to be the first of around a dozen television appearances, but in terms of his win-loss record the promoters never allowed him to shine.
His profile stepped up a gear when he formed a tag partnership with fellow Londoner Dick Conlon. They called themselves the Artful Dodgers. The Artful Dodgers had what must have been one of the most nondescript gimmicks of British wrestling, calling out numbers to one another (they described it as an elaborate code) which was allegedly a secret way of communicating to outwit their opponents. Oh yeah!
But there was another side to Chris.
His sallow skin and moustachioed scowl were concealed by the full-length yellow garb of a welterweight masked man who was active for a couple of mid-seventies years in southern rings only.
The Yellow Streak first appeared at the start of 1975. Initially the promoters treated us to exotic translations of his name: “De Gele Rechter” in Dutch and “El Verdugo Amarillo” in Spanish. Whether he had actually tried out his routines in Holland and Spain we may never know.
The Yellow Streak made an impression around the halls but was denied television exposure. In all honesty we can understand why; he spent so much of each bout play-acting amongst the audience. Entertaining for the fans but hardly in-keeping with the more serious side of tv wrestling at the time.
The maniacal Yellow Streak wrestled most of the lighter weighted under-carders in the south, admittedly losing to Johnny Kwango, but never unmasking. Most interesting was a result from Walthamstow early in his run, when, we understand, The Yellow Streak defeated Chris Bailey. On paper, this would have been impossible, but as we know, in wrestling even the impossible comes true.
Although his Yellow Steak creation failed to rise from a strictly undercard role we will give him full marks for originality and his comic role. We admit a little disappointment when The Yellow Streak just slipped away after doing the rounds for a couple of years.
In an age when competition for main event status was so fierce Chris Bailey was one that got away. Our last sighting was in November 1981.
Page added 14/09/2023
Page reviewed 11/04/2025
3754
Wrestling Heritage 