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Wrestling fans who watched televised wrestling from Sheffield may remember a regular reminder that wrestling in Sheffield was subject to specific local restrictions which forbade certain holds.
It all seemed so odd. Why should the scissors be deemed so dangerous in Sheffield yet perfectly safe up the road in Doncaster? Ditto for the full nelson and the headbutt. Had the powers that be actually witnessed the delivery of the headbutt and the visible hand over the forehead?
SaxonWolf confirmed the existence of the rules and that their adherence was monitored by the Council.
Heritage reader Ohtani’s Jacket remembers the local stipulation, “Today I was watching a match between Barry Douglas and Johnny Peters where Walton mentioned that the Sheffield Watch Committee had banned three moves in Sheffield — the back elbow, the arm lever over the top of the shoulder joint and the headbutt.”
Dave Sutherland recalled, “I once saw Johnny Kwango (I think against Clayton Thompson) on television getting a warning for headbutting in a Sheffield venue.”
The local rules were displayed in the entrance of the Sheffield City Hall. They had been imposed by those custodians of public morality, the Watch Committee, who were local government bodies that oversaw policing until abolished in 1968. They had enormous power and could have shut down the wrestling should they wish, as they had done in many towns in the 1930s and 1940s Wrestling was certainly a contentious sport through the forties and local councils were there quickly to take umbrage at everything and anything. Promoters were in an impossible position as they couldn’t exactly come out and admit it was all smoke and mirrors. Ray Hulm, “Perhaps the Sheffield Watch Committee were offered a compromise of having some moves banned. The promoters would have loved it. Think of all the spin that they could put on this.”
The Sheffield restrictions went back to the death of George Johnson, who died after a match with Carl Romsky on 3rd March, 1933. On 1st November, 1937, Sheffield Watch Committee were given control of professional wrestling. Their previous powers were strengthened and fro, and importantly, place demands on the granting of those licenses,
Ruslan Pashayev was able to provide a copy of the 1904 rules referred to in the article.
He noted, “No submissions. No hammerlocks, no scissors, no full nelsons, no strangle holds obviously or hangs of any sort.
I can explain why all those holds were abolished – simply because most of them do not lead to a pinfall, which means that they are useless for wrestlers since pinfall is an ultimate goal of any wrestling contest. It was a time when everyone wanted to see fair wrestling not an all-in fight.”
Let us know of any other towns with local rules.
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