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Discovery of an Invisible Man

Johnny King is the sort of name that sounds as though it was just made for professional wrestling. Yet surprisingly John George King was the birth name of this Yorkshire based wrestler who has undeservedly become something of an invisible man in our wrestling history. He is an almost forgotten hero with a short but distinguished career.

John King was born in the Derbyshire town of Bolsover on 22nd April, 1920, the son of George and Sarah. George worked as a coal hewer at Bolsover Colliery, cutting coal at the coal face. It was a hard and dangerous job, but George and Sarah had six children to support, John being the second youngest. Two miners also lodged with the family, so that two storey terraced house in New Bolsover must have been pretty full. New Bolsover was a model village of some two hundred houses built at the end of the 19th century by philanthropic colliery owners to improve the lives of the workers.  The King family lived at 106 New Bolsover; around the corner from the village school that educated John and his siblings.

By 1939 the family had moved to Doncaster where father George was still working below ground, now at Armthorpe Colliery. He had been joined in the colliery by John, who was working as an apprentice fitter.

With the outbreak of war John served in the Royal Navy on board the destroyer HMS Meteor, where he was Petty Officer in the Engine Room. On 18th March the HMS Meteor, and a second destroyer, the Lookout, intercepted two German torpedo boats and a destroyer as they laid mines in the Mediterranean. The British destroyed the two German torpedo boats and seriously damaged the destroyer, in what became known as The Battle of the Ligurian Sea.

At the cessation of hostilities John returned to Yorkshire where he resumed work at Markham Main Colliery in Armthorpe.

1946 was also a milestone year when John married Rose Allen. By that time John King was interested in wrestling and preparing himself for the post war revival of the sport. Our earliest verified sighting of Johnny King the professional wrestler is the night he knocked out Lew Roseby in Dundee on 16th April, 1946. This was for Relwyskow Promotions with Chick Knight and Harry Brooks in the main event.

Johnny was a busy worker in the second half of the 1940s and early 1950s, travelling nationwide to tangle with the likes of Jack Dempsey, Cab Cashford, Jack Beaumont and Count Bartelli (in the days Bartelli weighed around 13 stones), and just about everyone of note in a career that seems to have lasted no more than seven years.

But there’s more to the story. In 1948 Wryton Promotions introduced a Masked Marvel to the rings, the usual story of a man who would unmask when defeated. Not the original (or even 2nd, 3rd or 4th) of course, the earliest Masked Marvel wrestled in New York in 1915, long before Johnny King was born. The Wryton Promotions Masked Marvel cut through a swathe of opponents that included Tim McCoy, Rex Maxine, Frank Manto and Terrence Ricardo.

Now call us sceptical. Okay, we are sceptical, but then this is wrestling. Wryton Promotions had a record of creating masked men with the purpose of eventually falling to their main masked investment, Count Bartelli. The fateful day came. Not once, but at least twice, and most likely more. In Liverpool and then Chester the Masked Marvel against Count Bartelli, loser to unmask. An effort described as “super human” by the press saw the exhausted Masked Marvel propel Bartelli out of the ring as he applied a Boston Crab. Both men were counted out, which would normally result in a draw. On this occasion both men were given time to recover before continuing the battle. The end came after twenty-two minutes when a ferocious punch knocked out the Masked Marvel. The hood was ceremoniously removed to reveal the features of Johnny King. From that time on Johnny worked maskless under his own name.

Common amongst all wrestlers are the humorous stories they tell of their life whilst wrestling. One that Johnny enjoyed telling was the time he and a car full of wrestlers were on a long journey when the radiator began to leak and overheat. Without water the enterprising grapplers took turns to urinate into the radiator; you can imagine the smell for the rest of the journey!

In 1952 Johnny King disappeared from our rings. Still working at the colliery and bringing up a family meant something had to go, and daughter Linda believes that was the reason he retired from wrestling.

Linda also confirmed another significant moment in the history of British wrestling. She recalled a man knocking on their door and asking for her father. He told Johnny he was interested in wrestling and asked him to teach him. Johnny agreed he would give him a try. They took a gym mat to the local park and when the man proved himself Johnny continued the lessons at a local gym. That man was no other than Albert Wall, who went on to become British heavyweight champion.

After leaving the pit Johnny served as a policeman and was a swimming instructor. His final job was working at the ICI factory in Doncaster.

Only seven years a pro, but he certainly made his mark.

Johnny King died on 15th September, 2008, aged 88.

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