By Graeme Cameron
Wrestling Heritage welcomes memories, further information and corrections.
Graeme Cameron follows the career of Jacob Grobbe
Jacob Grobbe use many identities all over the world. Most of them were combinations of his first name, various nationalities and his two favourite chararcters, Tarzan and Zorro He was Dr X in Japan and the Mid-Atlantic territory in America (1970-71), Mr X in Montreal (1973) and Jungle Boy Hewlett in Ohio (1951) to name a few. In total, he used 22 different names and characters during his 25 year career, some of which I outlined in Part 1. Here now are some of his best known characters and identities
DUTCH HEWLETT
As mentioned, Dutch Hewlett was the first name Grobbe ever used. In 1948 in Minnesota, he had his first main event against Abe “King Kong” Kashey and met his first big name opponents, Irishman Steve Casey and “Sailor” Fred Blassie. He spent most of the next two years working in Illinois and Ohio. It was Ohio where he won his first title, teaming with Hard Boiled Haggerty to defeat Lucky Simunovich and Jack Kennedy for the Ohio version of the US tag team title. As well, he challenged Chief Don Eagle for the Chicago version of the world heavyweight title. It was also in Ohio where he started to explore other characters, working in the town of Mansfield as Jungle Boy Hewlett, a name he never used anywhere else. Other major opponents were Argentina Rocca, Gorgeous George, Johnny Valentine and Sandor Szabo and Jim Londos)
TARZAN ZORRA
As noted last time, Grobbe first introduced this masked blue-eye character in Buffalo, New York in 1951, taking him to Boston, Quebec and Nova Scotia (the latter being the only place this character was a villain). It was a character Grobbe was to revisit often between 1953 and 1963, particularly in Quebec where his ability to speak French got him over with the French-speaking fans. Tarzan Zorra was a semi-regular main eventer during his first two tours, headlining with Edouard Carpentier as both opponent and tag team partner. He also challenged Carpentier for the interim version of the NWA world heavyweight title in1957 and Killer Kowalski, Yvon Robert and Buddy Rogers for the Montreal version. Later tours were less noteworthy and he mainly worked mid-card matches, with the occasional main event. Grobbe revived this character in1973, the final year of his career, in Quebec and finally Ontario where he was unmasked as Hans Mortier
THE GREAT ZORRA
The Great Zorra was a masked villain whom Grobbe debuted in Rochester, New York in 1951, then taking him to Ontario and Tennesee in 1953. It was in Tennesee where he three times challenged Lou Thesz for the NWA world heavyweight title, losing twice by pinfall and once by knockout but in each case taking a fall from the champion. He also had a wild series of matches with fellow villain and former 3-time NWA world heavyweight champion, “Wild” Bill Longson, culminating with the The Great Zorra being unmasked as Dutch Hewlett. As mentioned in Part 1, after some time back in Quebec, he returned to Tennesee for the last quarter of 1953 working either as an unmasked Great Zorra or as Dutch Hewlett. This was the final time he worked as this character.
MIGHTY/GREAT ZORRO
In West Texas in 1958, he recycled the Great Zorro name from Australia in some places but went by Mighty Zorro in others. This was one of his most successul tours, winning the West Texas version of the North American title in a tournament final from Don Curtis (who became a lifelong friend), eventually losing it to Mike DiBiase (step-father of Ted DiBiase) in Amarillo. He also teamed with Kurt Von Poppenheim to win the Southwestern States tag team title, losing to The Great Bolo and Tokyo Joe. He challenged twice unsuccessfully for the NWA World heavyweight title against new champion Dick Hutton.
TARZAN ZORRO/ZORRO
Grobbe moved on to the Eastern part of Texas later in 1958 as yet another masked character, working as Tarzan Zorro in some cities and simply as Zorro in others. Starting out as a blue-eye, he had victories over Fritz Von Erich and Enrique Torres, both of whom held versions of the world heavyweight title during their careers, as well as another legend, Johnny Valentine. He again twice challenged NWA world heavyweight champion Dick Hutton unsuccessfully, losing by the odd fall. He teamed with Mexican El Medico and the two challenged unsuccessfully for the Texas tag team title. Tarzan Zorro turned on the Mexican, becoming a villain. They had a series of matches in which Grobbe failed in his bid to take the Texas heavyweight title from El Medico who ultimately unmasked him in a mask v match in Waco (a photo of one ot their matches can be seen on page 215 of Graeme Kent’s book). He was unmasked again the following night in Dallas by Duke Keomuka. He then briefly went by the name Hans Schneider a precursor to his most well known character, Hans Mortier. Grobbe revived Tarzan Zorro for a 1966 tour of Japanese promotion JWA, where he wrestled the legendary Giant Baba and teamed with various partners to challenge Baba and Michiaki Yoshimura for the promotion’s tag team title
HANS “THE GREAT’ MORTIER
It is perhaps one of the great ironies that the teenager who hid from the Nazis should have his greatest success as a stereotypical German villain. As mentioned above, this character first appeared as Hans Schneider in Texas in 1958. Grobbe debuted in 1963 in the WWWF as Hans “The Great” Mortier. Managed by the original “Wild” Red Berry and distinguished by his gold-painted World War I leather flying Helmet, he played a significant role in the first two years of the newly established World Wide Wrestling Federation (now the WWE). As an early challenger to WWWF world champion Bruno Sammartino in 1963-4, it can be argued that he helped establish both the credibility of Sammartino as champion and the newly-created promotion itself. This is demonstrated by the fact that Sammartino and Mortier had over 30 title matches in that two-year period
In April 1964, Hans Mortier was joined by his “brother” Max. Max was in reality Frenchman Gilbert Voiney, better known in the UK as L’Homme Masque. The Mortier Brothers worked as team for four months, headlining in some smaller cities against The Kentuckians (Luke Brown & Grizzly Smith, father of Jake Roberts) and The Gorgeous Grahams (Eddie & Dr. Jerry), as well as Sammartino or Bobo Brazil, teaming with each other or other partners
Grobbe continued to use the Hans Mortier name for most of the rest of his career, moving through Hawaii, Los Angeles, The Caribbean Islands (part of the Florida promotion) and the Mid-Atlantic region (Carolinas and Virginias), capturing the Hawaiian tag team title (with Johnny Barend) and the Florida Heavyweight title along the way. He had another WWWF run in 1967 which included a reprise of his title challenge to Sammartino’s world title
In 1973, he made his final ring appearances as reformed villain Mortier in Ontario after being unmasked as Tarzan Zorra. He retired shortly after this.
SIR/LORD CHARLES MONTAGUE
In 1969, after almost a decade, Grobbe returned to the Dallas-based promotion in Texas, now run by Jack Adkisson, better known as Fritz Von Erich, for a 14-month run where he transformed into the aristocratic and devious British manager/wrestler, Charles Montague. He was Sir Charles in Dallas and San Antonio but gained a peerage in Houston, Fort Worth and other cities, working as Lord Charles Montague. He served as the manager and tag team partner of Boris “The Great” Malenko (Joe Simon), with whom he had previously teamed in Florida, and the two held the North American tag team title for two months. Both as a singles wrestler and Malenko’s partner, his Lordship appeared in a number of main events against the likes of Von Erich, Wahoo McDaniel, Ernie Ladd and Thunderbolt Patterson.
In his final year (1973), Grobbe appeared in Quebec as Mr X and won the Grand Prix International title (the new name for the Montreal version of the world heavyweight title) defeating Jos Leduc and losing it four months later to Abdullah the Butcher.
During his 25 year long career, Jacob Grobbe appeared in 11 countries on 4 continents and had more than 500 opponents. The list reads like a who’s who of wrestling for the period and includes 30 wrestlers who held a major or regional version of the world heavyweight title. Whichever of his 22 names you knew him by, he was a reliable and entertaining performer. With his work in the fledgling WWWF, he played a small part but significant part in wrestling history.
After Grobbe retired, he returned to The Netherlands and lived out the rest of his life with his wife on his family estate in Leiden, making trips to America to see old friends a number of times. For the last several years of his life. he was in poor health, and for the last 18 months, he was bed-ridden.
Jacob Grobbe died 15th December, 2010 in Leiden, aged 83
Page added 07/08/2022
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