Wrestling Heritage welcomes memories, further information and corrections.
Boxing promoter Lionel Bettinson played a small but pioneering role in the development of 1930s wrestling by virtue of promoting the inaugural All-In wrestling tournament (at the time described as New Catch as Catch Can) in Britain.
He had a wrestling pedigree with his father, Arthur Frederick “Peggy” Bettinson, promoting wrestling at the beginning of the Twentieth century at the Alhambra Theatre in Leicester Square, London. In 1891 “Peggy” had co-founded the National Sporting Club, which brought respect and legitimacy to professional boxing.
Lionel Bettinson took over as manager of the National Sporting Club in 1925. In December 1930 the first All-In Wrestling match was held at Olympia under the auspices of the National Sporting Club, promoted by Bettinson as N.S.C. Manager. The wrestling match, Henry Irslinger defeated the Yugoslavian, George Modrich, was added on to a boxing programme.
Bettinson turned his attention to wrestling again three years later. in January, 1934, when the National Sporting Club was unable to sign up sufficient boxers to put on a show he announced that they would put on a wrestling tournament instead. Bettinson called upon the services of William Bankier, known to a generation earlier as the strongman Apollo, to arrange the tournament. The tournament was described as Freestyle wrestling, and not the All-In style that was gaining popularity. Bettinson stressed would be clean, healthy and exhilarating. This was apparently not what the public wanted and only 1,000 fans paid their money, making little impresssion in an 8,000 seat arena. Newspapers reported good wrestling but the fans watched the contests in gloomy silence.
As far as we know this was Bettinson’s second, and last, flirtation with professional wrestling.
19361
Wrestling Heritage 