Also known as The Black Owl
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When Jules Kiki descended onto the British wrestling scene in the mid 1930s he was said to be a famous Spanish bullfighter embarking on a world tour. As always with professional wrestling the truth was less romantic but no less interesting. Jules was a regular feature of the British wrestling scene from the mid 1930s until the late 1950s, adding muscles and poundage as the years passed. An imposing figure and reputed to be a skilful wrestler. Jules served in the Royal Air Force during the war and continued wrestling when service commitments permitted.
We asked our intrepid time detective to go on the trail
On The Trail of Jules Kiki by Ron Historyo
As always with wrestling, can you really believe some of the advertising?
Jules Kiki from Spain, sometimes a former bull fighter
Among my bills one of his earliest experiences were multiple bouts against an opponent called Spike Smithers. In January 1937 Spike gets disqualified at Plymouth and it leads to a return early in March. Kiki is off to a good start winning 2-1.
A couple of days later and it is Chick Rolfe and another victory. Within weeks they are on at Nottingham and Rolfe disqualified for hair pulling, and onto Derby in April at the opening of Wrestling at the New Skating Rink. It was Pantomime with more hair pulling and the referee getting his trousers ripped off. Another victory chalked up for Jules Kiki though.
In the Spring Tarzan Bill Hunter was beaten and also Vic Hesselle. That first summer saw a draw with Charlie Green, a defeat to Jack Atherton and a win against Dick Rogers (The Dormouse) all at Plymouth. College Boy and Cab Cashford fell but a loss to Ted Tonkin. Other early opponents were Guardsman Wilkinson, Jack Dale and Harold Angus.
Such is the nature of wrestling though that I have chosen Chick Rolfe to illustrate that he was clearly someone that Kiki worked well with. Even in 1937 there was some team wrestling. This was not Tag though, but Rolfe and Kiki met so often.
Fast forward two years and they were still working their bout in 1939. 1939 is a key year to stop and take a look at what is really happening here. The war was coming and the work in the south was drying up. Hardly seen in the north Kiki was introduced to New Brighton with a newspaper article.
I can’t go on any longer with this deception. Jules Kiki was no more Spanish than Vic Hesselle was from Austria.
My interest in Kiki was started by a chance Forum remark by Anglo stating that Kiki lived in Brighton and Anglo’s father had known of him. James Morton had pointed out that there was a connection with Kiki bookmakers. James had mentioned Sid Kiki in Gangland Soho and he thought Sid’s real name was Nathan Mercado. Perhaps brothers.!!
Was Jules Kiki a Mercado?
It took a lot of unravelling, but Jules Kiki was Moses Mercado born in London on 5th October 1911. At that time the family was at 11 Grafton Road Plaistow.
Father was David Mercado a Fishmonger working from home. Mother was Sophia Cohen. Whose parents were from Russian Poland. Moses was to be the last of four children, Rebecca, Solomon and Martha.
As was the way in those days the family had moved about short distances. Mum and dad born Aldgate, siblings born Canning Town, Mile End and Bow.
The connection with the Kiki Bookmakers is there though. For a few decades before the family had been at Spitalfields and the Grandad was also a Moses Mercado, an Iron Monger who said he was born in Spitalfields along with Grandma Rebecca. As I double checked back though I found that the family had come to London in the late 1860’s from Amsterdam. There were quite a lot of Dutch families in Whitechapel where I found them in 1881.
By 1891 Grandad had ten living children. One was George Isaac Mercado. Jules’s uncle George Isaac made the papers as a well known Bookmaker known as Captain Kiki, who also was an Iron Monger and losing money on a Billiard Hall venture which he leased and was unable to get out of. This drove him in 1930 to commit suicide by taking Rat poison and jumping out of an upstairs window at home fracturing his skull. Captain Kiki had a son Nathan known sometimes as Natie, who ran his bookmaking business as Syd Kiki Ltd.
Jules’s cousin Nathan Mercado, bookmaker made the papers in 1952 when he went down for twelve months for smuggling American Nylon Tights through customs on a huge scale.
He lived at Kiki Lodge, Hartswood Road, Hammersmith. The trial had 82 prosecution witnesses. Another cousin of Jules Kiki (Moses Mercado) was another Moses Mercado just six months older than Jules. He was son of Ralph Mercado, another uncle. He made the papers by falling off a cliff in Brighton in 1935 accidentally ending his life.
It was a huge family with at least one other cousin Moses making it difficult to spot if Jules Kiki ever got married(1). Certainly by 1939 he was still single and working full time as a wrestler.
1939 was a key year because I found Moses Mercado the wrestler living with his brother Solomon and the family at 71 Goldstone Villas in Hove. Even mother Sophia lived with the family unit in this large Edwardian style three story house with cellars, probably five bedrooms. He was listed as a wrestler and his date of birth given.
That date was confirmed at his death in 1998 when he was registered as Jules Kiki, indicating maybe that he had deed polled his name. As Anglo had indicated he had died in Brighton. Without the James Morton Mercado Clue I would never have sorted this one.
So there we are, almost certainly Jewish but Spanish Bullfighter …..NO.
The name Kiki was used by the family, why I don’t know but it is the reason for the choice of Jules Kiki. Of course historically Mercado is a Spanish name and Holland was part of the Spanish empire a few Hundred years back with Spanish and Portuguese Jews being expelled to Holland.
Stretching a point Moses Mercado probably had distant Spanish Ancestry, but through his mother a closer tie would be Polish.
Despite being billed as in the Royal Air Force Kiki wrestled through the war and no doubt with home in Brighton secure he was able to lodge anywhere he needed to when not tied to the Airforce. He was now a northern player and able to find plenty of work for many promoters.
One highlight was a run as The Black Owl, in particular at Preston.
The usual sort of thing, builds up an unbeaten run in a mask and then ends up being unmasked, in this case to another masked man. Interesting that they give the clue as London. This was 1940.
You may well ask who was this Red Devil? So many people donned the mask. In this case I would not look a lot further than Jack Atherton, Billy Riley or Bob Silcock, but I don’t know.
It is true that Mercado is a Spanish name and it may be that his ancestors were so, he certainly had that dark look, but as far as wrestling goes his parents were born in London and he is yet another wrestler who adopted a colourful cosmopolitan image.
Jules Kiki wrestled into the 1950’s and lived his life out in Brighton. I have chosen a bill showing him in 1952 fighting a young Alan Garfield in the South.
Jules Kiki was a light heavyweight showman type wrestler probably never better than being tossed around the ring by his hair by Chick Rolfe, who was probably no American. He was a fast and clean popular wrestler.
It has taken all this time but we now have it on record that Moses Mercado was Jules Kiki and that he was born London.
Historyo
(1)
(1) Since the publication of this article we have received information from a descendant of Moses Mercado.
“My mother’s aunt, Anne Glock, was married to him during the years of the 1940’s and 1950’s and he lived with her in her house at 11 Silwood Road, Brighton (3rd floor). They didn’t have any children. After they got divorced, my mother said he got married again and had four children with wife number two.
My mother has a picture of her on his knee when she was (probably) 8 or 9 (meaning 1945/1946) on Brighton Beach.”
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