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A scowling, tough guy of a wrestler who worked the rings of usually southern England during the 1960s and 1970s.
Our earliest discovery of Dick was in 1951, which was before he turned professional. He was a member of the Physical Culture Section of St Swithun’s Guild in Lewisham. The members would put on professional style wrestling shows in the locality. Dick was the Senior Champion of the Guild before losing it to another Lewisham lad who also went on to turn professional, Bob Taylor. Dick avenged the defeat and a win over Bob gave him the title once again. Good grounding for the professional career to follow.
Dick turned professional for one of the independent promoters, but was later taken on by Dale Martin on behalf of Joint Promotions. A welterweight born in Lewisham he was a good worker who failed to make it into the top notch in those days of immense competition.
Not so much a villain, but the look of a villain who knew how to rile the fans. Probably mostly remembered when he joined forces with Chris Bailey as the Artful Dodgers tag team. It was then that the villainy began and Graham Brook remembered: “I particularly recall their match with The Borgs because it was good, fast, clean wrestling for the first ten minutes before The Borgs got the first fall. Then the rule-bending began. But Conlon and Bailey were fast movers and showed that they could hold their own with the best of them.”
In those days when wrestling was believable the innocent fans were easily intrigued. The unique gimmick of the Artful Dodgers was that they claimed to have invented an elaborate code system which enabled them to bamboozle opponents by calling out numbers. Er, erm, yes well. We’ll leave you to make your mind up on this one.
Dick Conlon rarely travelled north and he worked almost exclusively for Dale Martin Promotions throughout southern England. The rest of the country had to rely on television to become acquainted with his art of skulduggery. Fortunately he took part in around twenty televised matches between 1961 and 1974, Surprisingly two of those televised matches were not working for Dale Martin Promotions. Norman Morrell included Dick on two televised programmes; in October, 1966, from Coalville, opponent Mick McMichael and in September 1973 at Leamington Spa with Alan Dennison.
As a sports teacher at William Penn School in North Dulwich 1959-1964, one of the pupils recalled “If sport was called off because of the weather he would tell some great stories of when he was in the Merchant Navy. A great bloke.”
Richard Martin Conlon was born on 15th March, 1934, died 11th June, 2001.
Page added 25/05/2023
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