Also known as Arion Manousakis
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The Iron Greek
Spiros Arion, The Greek Colossus, who had been born in Egypt on 3rd September, 1940, to Greek parents, stood 6 feet 6 inches tall, and was a successful wrestler around the world. A powerful, muscular heavyweight he looked every part the world champion that he was recognised as at various times in Europe, Australia and America. The twenty-five year old made his first visit to Britain in March 1965, known in those days as Arion Manousakis, and a professional with around four years experience. He had moved from Athens to Paris where he received further training from Andre Bollet..
Within the first few days of embarking on his three month UK tour he had beaten Bruno Elrington, Ian Campbell, Paul Vachon, Gordon Nelson, Ramon Napoliatno, and drawn with John DaSilva at the Royal Albert Hall. Heritage member Tom H told us, “I saw him at West Ham baths in the 1960s. He was Arion Manousakis then and he lost by a KO to the Zebra Kid.“
Leaving Britain in June he went to to Australia where he settled. His career flourished in the international arena during the 1970s (known by then as Spiros Arion) when he travelled throughout Europe, the United States and Australia. In Australia April 1972 saw him crowned the first Austro-Asian champion by defeating Killer Karl Kox in Sydney. Further success came in the United States, with wins over top Americans that included his mentor and WWWF World Champion, Bruno Sammartino.
He returned to Britain in 1979, this time using the name Spiros Ation and dubbed the Iron Greek. He appeared on television three times with opponents Romany Riley, Colin Joynson and Lee Bronson.
Spiros was a welcome addition to the British heavyweight scene and wrestled here for most of the year. He came with a World Heavyweight Title of sorts. There has been a great deal of speculation about the origins of the belt. Said to be the WWA title it had no connection with the American based World Wrestling Alliance. The narrative given was that having toured Australia and New Zealand Spiros had returned to Greece and won the “Wold title” in a tournament watched by 35,000 fans at the AEK soccer stadium. The more popular consensus is that the title was the creation of promoter Max Crabtree for the sole purpose of him losing the title in Britain.
Various rumours have flourished around the internet that Spiros Arion deliberately lost the belt to Bridges in order to avoid instructions from the promoter to lose to Big Daddy Shirley Crabtree. Which, if any, variation of this rumour is true, we wouldn’t know, but we can report that in his last interview, by Martin Campbell for Wrestling Heritage, Wayne told Martin he and Arion discussed things before the match and went to the office together threatening to pull out if either were required to job to Daddy. As this was on the afternoon of the match Max had to let it go on. This does not quite correlate with Max’s version of events. He said he was in Yorkshire that day and there was no such meeting but he was angry that the result was not the one he planned.
We have it on good authority that Max Crabtree believed Spiros Arion to be the greatest heavyweight he brought to Britain.
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