Bert Mychel v Bruno Elrington
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Amateur Wrestling. We knew it existed because The Wrestler magazine dedicated a page to it every month complete with its unspectacular unhousehold names and British successes in qualifying for European championship qualifiers: not much seemed to get said about any further level of achievement. Mind you, we didn’t get much beyond the opening paragraphs before nodding off.
Other evidence of Amateur Wrestling’s existence was harder to detect. Every four years it would win the Gold Medal for being the only Olympic sport to manage to get through a fortnight’s competition without even a fleeting second’s coverage on BBC or ITV. The professional code still managed to outstrip the amateur in terms of press coverage, admittedly largely as a result of Mr T.V.’s latest pantomime appearance, but column inches did count.
Even acknowledging Amateur Wrestling’s ghostly existence, we were left in no doubt as to its status: a training ground for the professional ranks, just like in boxing. We knew this because grapplers like John Hall and Lee Bronson turned pro only after making the grade as amateurs; and even then, all their regional and national titles were not enough to guarantee them success in the squared circle. And didn’t.
Amateur Wrestling. The name said it all, amateur. A handy arena for those that didn’t make the grade. Every now and again, however, we would have cause to sit up and take notice and move by total surprise through the Wardrobe into the Narnia whose very existence we had doubted. Never was the case more strikingly placed in front of us than when Belgian Olympian Bert Mychel appeared on World of Sport.
This was his second and final televised showing and we should be thankful for the small mercy that any footage still exists at all. The mellifluous tones of Charlie Fisher gave every due prominence to the feast that lay ahead as he introduced, at his pleasure, the Heavyweight Champion of Belgium and, for once, and once only, he correctly pronounced the surname of the proudly sashed Southern England Heavyweight Champion, Big Bruno Elrington.
Mychel had been an on-off visitor for the best part of the preceding decade, ever since just missing out on the bronze medal in Tokyo in 1964. He had challenged Mike Marino for World honours and featured at the Royal Albert Hall. We wondered how he fared in Belgium – or rather, we wondered whether our heroes had lain unreportedly down for him in Flanders Field …
We witnessed an array of moves, some known, many novel, and Bruno’s pain at the treatment of his knee in a succession of twists and stretches seemed well-founded. We saw Mychel virtually the sole aggressor, delivering drop-kicks galore, taking the fight to the Pompey giant and showing neither fear nor respect.
This bout was as much a test for Bruno. Wouldn’t Tibor or Steele or Roberts have been the more logical opponent for the continental stylist? We didn’t want to see the familiar villainous spoiling tactics, we wanted to see the best of Belgium.
But Bruno was up to the task, contenting himself and us with glimpses of his well-versed routines – frustratedly completing the incomplete pin-fall for the referee never failed to please – but in general wrestling clean and certainly up to the challenge of allowing the undeniable skills of his opponent to shine through. Bruno was an ageing greying fossil from a time when even giants had to be able to wrestle, and he showed this in every bout. He would also be required, sadly, by virtue of his size, uncomfortably to straddle the successive era when girth was more important than technique.
We witnessed from Mychel the sweetest of rollover arm stretches; a knee drop on the 19 stone 12 pound ex-Marine; even a monkey-climb by the Belgian, as a counter hold would you believe, on a man so heavy, and sadly overlooked by the commentator. Not once did Mychel repeat a move or a hold and we had the pleasure of watching a tremendous bout in which he also showed his skills as a brawler and ability to mix things from the ring apron.
A passing word of praise, too, for referee Tony Mancelli, the previously sashed Southern Champion, who had enjoyed a career sufficiently glittering as not to feel the need to steal the show from the wrestlers in the way other bow-tied fools often did. He remained unobtrusive and unnoticed throughout and contributed in no small measure to the successful flow of events.
We wondered at the circumstances of this bout. Why had Bert come to Britain for one bout? Why was it televised when it was leading nowhere? Why did he have to lose? We worry too much, enjoy it for what it was, one of the most enjoyable re-runs we are privileged to enjoy over thirty years on, when other Olympians, even gold medalists, had struggled to combine their amateur skills with newly acquired professional bravado.
Bruno scored,the Belgian was bowed, and as if to signal the return of the status quo, in announcing the winner by a really rather slick reverse Nelson, Charlie Fisher reprised his idiosyncratic enunciation which we knew and expected at our halls, Big Bruno “Erlington”
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