Also known as The Katt
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Trained at Billy Riley’s Wigan gymnasium John Foley was one of the hardest and most skilful 1950s and 1960s middleweights. He came into wrestling after working as a coal miner, making his professional debut against Tommy Milo.
Well regarded as a one of the country’s top middleweights, journalist Charles Mascall said John was one of the world’s best middleweights of all time.
He started wrestling professionally in the early 1950s, with our earliest documented reference being a match with Joe Egan at Bury in February, 1953, Even at that early stage he was being predicted as a future champion,
His greatest notoriety came in the 1960s as a member of the Black Diamonds tag team, partnering Abe Ginsberg. Distinguished with black leather helmets, which Kent Walton was forever telling us he was inundated with letters saying these should be illegal and removed, the two villains had memorable clashes against the Stewarts, The White Eagles and the Royal Brothers.
For a short time John Foley also wrestled in northern England and Scotland as the masked wrestler, The Katt, with the real mystery being why a wrestler of his calibre chose to have his identity concealed.
Well travelled throughout most of Western Europe later in his career he travelled to Canada and Japan, achieving further success. John’s son in law was Ted Heath, and when the two of them wrestled as a tag team in the USA in 1975/6 they called themselves “The British Bulldogs,” and carried a large stuffed bulldog (called Winston) into the ring, pre-dating another higher profile British Bulldogs team by quite a few years.
John Foley died on 24th June 1988
Page added 19/06/2026
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