Also known as Jack Tulley
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The Red Menace
Our earliest sighting of Red Staranoff is in November, 1950, an Atholl Oakeley Promotion at Harringay Arena. The following month Staranoff was in Belfast wrestling Frank Mantovich in a match billed as a title eliminator for Alex Cadier’s European Heavyweight titles. Staranoff was billed as a “Russian Menace” and “Strongest man in Russia.”
Descriptions are of a bald headed wrestler who favoured wearing a crimson dressing gown adorned with a hammer and sickle on the back, and long black woollen tights. Once in the ring there was much bowing and hand shaking from Staranoff followed by all sorts of skulduggery. Opponents included Alex Cadier, Mike Marino, Tony Mancelli and Bert Assirati, with our last sighting in August 1953. Clearly a man who could rough it up with the best of them.
Where had this “Russian Menace” emerged from? Where did he go? It was a mystery, as wrestling enthusiast The Ost put it, “What makes things tricky as all these names were borrowed/inspired by promoters who had good memories: e.g. Stanislaus Borienko – Yuri Borienko. In the 30’s there was a Count Zarynoff/George Zarynoff in the USA. There was also an Ivan Zarynoff in the UK at the same time. Zarynoff being a name that promoters remember then reuse. Zarynoff, Staranoff, Zaranoff. I’m not even sure Staranoff is a Russian name”
Another unsolved mystery. There are so many in pro wrestling’s history. That is until John Tulley contacted us:
“Red Staranoff was my father, John (Jack) Tulley, born in Oldham Lancs. February 1900ish, and died 1986. He was a boxer first and then moved to wrestling, and picked the name Red Staranoff. He stopped wrestling around 1960, and became a London taxi driver.“
This got Ron Historyo on the trail.
“Based on Oldham, I started looking for a John Tulley birth from 1895. It was to be 4th February 1909 before a John Alfred Tulley was born there. (A date later confirmed by son, John). Tulley grew up at 54 Manchester Road Oldham, son of a Hairdresser. I found Tulley mentioned and boxing in the early 1930’s and this in 1937,
If you believe the write up, he may have been living in Leigh by 1937. I believe by 1939 he was living in Staines in Middlesex and a brick layer. By 1947 Tulley lived at Richmond and was up in court for dishing out a beating to John Pluck who allegedly owed him money. It cost Tulley about £10 in fines and bound over for six months to be of good behaviour. Crucially it was stated in court that Tulley had been a wrestler
Looks like he came back to wrestling after a break, including of course the War, he would have been maybe 40 plus on his return which explains a short looking career. I even wonder if he wrestled under any other names as I only find Tulley once thus far, he certainly wrestled some of the best and something maybe took him south, work I assume. As a Russian he gets big billing here, not support cast.”
Jack Tulley occurs numerous times in the records of historian Ray Plunkett. These are mostly unverified records but do give a fairly accurate pattern of a wrestler’s appearances. He wrestled nationwide from 1933 onwards, opponents that included Jack Atherton, Carl Van Wurden, Vic Hessle, Wild Tarzan; all big names at the time.
Following seven years of activity Jack Tulley disappeared in 1939, World War Two was inconvenient for many.
He resurfaced in 1950, working for Atholl Oakeley, and was now the Russian Menace Red Staranoff. No evidence, but the Staranoff persona may well have been an Oakeley creation. A star was born. Certainly a man who deserves remembering.
Red Staranoff (John Alfred Tulley) died in 1986.
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