Wrestling Heritage welcomes memories, further information and corrections.
Blond, curly haired Pat Kloke was ready and willing to help revive professional wrestling following the Second World War. Born in Dublin teenager Pat came to live in Croydon towards the end of the Second World War.
As soon as he arrived in Britain Pat joined the Croydon Amateur Weight Lifting Club. Already an amateur wrestler from his days in Ireland he made great efforts to establish greater opportunities for amateur wrestlers in Croydon. We have found a handful of professional matches as early as 1944, a couple of years earlier than we expected, with our first documented outing being a win over Arthur Fisher in March, 1946. Pat obviously saw the opportunity to make money from wrestling as the sport began to re-establish itself and established a good working relationship with Jack Dale and Les Martin that was to last many years. Following the war he went into business and opened his own barber’s shop, but he told the press in 1952 that cutting hair was not enough to satisfy him. His aim was to snip one last hair, which he did in the early 1950s and turned full time professional.
For the next twenty years Pat wrestled all the lighter men and established himself as a top welterweight. There may have been no “Everest moments” but Pat Kloke was in demand and found no shortage of work mostly in the south of England for Dale Martin Promotions. He didn’t receive the “push” to reach the higher profile of McManus, Pallo, Dempsey, Logan and Royal but there was no doubt that he was up there ranking alongside them in skill and had his fair share of wins over each of them. Pat defeated Stefan Milla at the Royal Albert Hall in February, 1956, which must have ranked as one of those memorable moments.
In the summer of 1958 he left Joint Promotions to work for the independents. This was not because his career was reaching it’s twilight, which was often the case when wrestlers made the move, but because Pat was one of a group of the most highly rated men who left Joint Promotions at that time, including George Kidd, Eddie Capelli, Black Butcher Johnson and Joe D’Orazio. Pat remained as busy as ever working for independent promoters Paul Lincoln, Matsport, Cape ,Tony DeMarto and others. Pat continued to work for the independents for the remainder of his career.
Although his wrestling in the UK was based mainly in southern England Pat had extensive experience around Europe, wrestling in France, Belgium, Germany, and Austria. Pat disappeared from our rings in 1966. We would welcome more memories and information.
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