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For those fans of the good old days who only watched wrestling on television Fred Woolley may well not be the first name recalle, but here at Wrestling Heritage we contend that here was one of British wrestling’s best welterweights. Okay not Jack Dempsey or Alan Colbeck, but not far behind.
Salford’s Fred Woolley turned professional in 1949 and within a year was travelling the country meeting the likes of Alan Colbeck, Jack Dempsey, Chic Purvey and Johnny Stead. Norman Morrell rated the young wrestler and in July 1953 gave him a tilt at the British lightweight title against champion Eric Sands.
Throughout the 1950s Fred worked regularly for Joint Promotion members in the north and midlands, but in 1959 left the Joint Promotions camp to work for the opposition promoters, and set up his own promotional business. Fred went into partnership with fellow wrestler Danny Flynn, and began promoting throughout the country under the Cape Promotions banner. Cape Promotions were one of the most successful of the independent promoters, putting on programmes every night of the country until the untimely death of Danny Flynn.
For most of the 1960s the Wrestling Federation of Great Britain recognised Fred Woolley as British Welterweight champion. We last came across Fred wrestling in February, 1968 against Jack Dempsey at Chester.
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