Wrestling Heritage

You get many exotic names with wrestlers, like Vic Hesselle from Vienna, Anaconda from Sweden  and Van Dutz from Holland. All the above are total fiction and are Englishmen. Padvo Peltonin is probably an example of a halfway house. I did not discover it because Heritage already told me that his real name was Martin Bucht. Where he was from is a little more complicated, but I have come across another wrestling pioneer here. One of the few men like Jack Pye and Bert Assirati that wrestled in five different decades.

​If there is anyone out there that ever saw 1930’s wrestling in the days before TV then that person is yet to speak out but I am going to push the picture that wrestling before TV was full of colour and entertainment and did have most of the tricks of Golden Age Wrestling. Of course it did not have ladder matches or even tag as we know it but the showmanship, yes I believe it had it all.

​At the dawn of All In Wrestling America was ahead of the rest and Henry Irslinger was over there but he also undertook a massive project to expand the game across the world. In the middle of 1928 he was in Australia trail blazing there and late in 1930 he did England and also at this time was expanding South Africa. What we are now discovering is the extent to which a lot of pioneers met one another on several of these continents. Yet again by the time he came here Padvo Peltonin,  real name Martin Bucht, had already faced a lot of names that we will recognize whilst over in Australia. So before he popped up here he had knowledge of the routine with the likes of Boganski, Irslinger, Pergantes, Sherman, Nilan and many others.

The Australian promoters had DEMON Bucht from Finland and he was pushed as Champion of Finland. You could hardly make it up; he was on with Tommy Nilan (Belgian Nugget), an out and out Aussie that I have covered with his own story.

By 1933 Bucht had won the light heavyweight championship of Australia in Brisbane  and was described as The terror of the Mat. They were also sticking with Finland. In 1934 Bucht was fighting in South Africa along with others such as Boganski. Wrestling was going global. This time he was Marty Bucht. Martin Bucht’s route to England is complicated but for sure he toured Europe visiting many countries  writing the odd letter back home.

​There is a lot of conflict about Bucht’s nationality with Lithuania, Latvia, Finland and Estonia being mentioned in different newspaper reports. I can reveal that he is Estonian as I have seen this recorded in the ships log on one of his journeys. His age I can be accurate, born 13th June 1904.  in  Kohila in Rapla county. (Some docs have his birth as 1907.) His grave says 1904. Said to have run away to sea as a youth (it was actually March 1924)  he ended up in western Canada working in a bakery and then toured America.   The USA deported him back to eastern Canada and he ended up on a boat back to Liverpool and then London and then dropped in Finland. (end 1924).

I had not realised but the language in Estonia is similar to Finland and it is only a short crossing between the two. Conflicting stories that his father had a farm in Estonia are confused as his brother had a farm there and left it to Martin. Bucht jumped on a ship again and ended up in Sydney Australia.

​In 1936 the husband of a Marie May Latcham was in the divorce courts and cited two men that his wife had committed adultery with. One had been Bucht in February 1934. Bucht was not there and was missing and even reported dead. As it happens he was now married to a young Swedish teacher who was an accomplished musician. Some of 1936 had been spent in Spain and this news had come from Switzerland. 1935 though seems to be the year that Padvo Peltonin was thought up.

​By his own admission Martin Bucht named many alias’s claiming that it changed with each country he went to. The spelling also varied. The list is The Estonian Gorilla, Finnish Horse Breaker, The Laughing Rubber Man, Wrestling Doctor, Padvo Peltonen or Dr Martin Bucht Peltonen.

Starting back in 1929 at about 12 stones and five pounds Peltonin was destined for over 14 stones as his career progressed. Bucht was five feet ten and a half inches. He had the gimmick of being double jointed and like rubber to handle. Losing his cool at decisions and attacking the ref was one trick, even holding the referee in a headlock until he was rescued. In one bout enacted in Australia through a chain of events the referee was changed three times meaning four referees were used all to portray the dangers of reffing a Bucht bout.  Bucht did comedy violence, controversy was strong  and most of all he was an example of an early showman.

​The travel itch continued as on the 1st July 1938 Martin Bucht and his young wife  Sylvia set sail from Southampton to Durban South Africa on the Watussi. They had been living at Cambridge Terrace near Hyde Park in London. It was to be February 1939 before they came back.

​On his travels this time Bucht  managed to escape from Spain during the civil war with some winnings he had in Republican currency, which then proved to be worthless. In Estonia his brother died and bequeathed him a farm so he went there. The British Consul in Tallin in Estonia contacted him to say that the Russians were coming and he managed to escape in a fishing boat across the Gulf of Finland, probably about thirty miles or so, and got eventually to Bergen in Norway. The consul paid his passage to England. The intention was to join the Australian army as he was a naturalized British citizen. For whatever reason Padvo Peltonin re-emerged again in England this time living in Manchester.

The reason for this was simple . During the war the north, especially Lancashire, was the hotbed for wrestling. The war may have all but destroyed wrestling in London and much of the south but at Belle Vue Manchester there was twice a week wrestling supported by Liverpool, Morecambe; Blackpool many other places including Hull in Yorkshire, Newcastle and Dundee. Many wrestlers were in the forces but life went on for others and they were busy.

I will just do a tribute to his war effort. Wrestlers like these were badly needed. Carl van Wurden was another example of an early pioneer who propped up wrestling in the war, he too living in Manchester. 

The war a steady living for quite a large number of wrestlers. After the war Padvo Peltonin can be found every year into the 1950’s fighting in patches and then going missing from the papers.

Towards the end of his career I found him using the name Martin Bucht working for Dale Martin.

Martin Bucht retired from Wrestling in 1952 and did a lot of traveling but basically went back to Australia to settle.

On the evening of his retirement he was interviewed by the Australian newspapers and did a Jackie Pallo.. Yes he blew the lid off the fixed nature of wrestling. Calling himself a Knockabout comedian who could not wrestle he said that some wrestlers could not throw old Auntie Ann. One opponent accidentally swallowed a blood capsule and they had to have a quick conference on the floor what to do next as that had failed. Things were  worked out in the dressing room before the bout. He bitterly stated that he was glad to finish as all wrestlers got was about one penny for every five shillings of public money spent cauliflower ears and a busted nose..

​Martin Bucht (Padvo Peltonin) died 30th July 1972 in Wentworth New South Wales and is in Rookwood Cemetery Sidney.

A great example of an early showman. But what is more and more evident it is becoming clear that a lot of these early pioneers had met on several continents and their displays were well practiced.

Historyo