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With so many years since the demise of the traditional post war British wrestling style it now really is all about the memories. Manchester’s Terry Downs holds a special place in our memory. He was one of the participants in the first live Joint Promotions show we watched back in 1966. Admittedly we hadn’t paid our money just to watch his opening match against Michael Bennett, and we doubt if anyone else in the hall had too. But that’s the thing about the wrestling. The big names pulled us in but it was often the supporting players that gave us the most enjoyment.
You’d be hard pushed to find the name Terry Downs in large letters on a wrestling poster. He was one of those supporting role players that often opened a show and entertained us with the best wrestling of the evening. That was certainly the case on that winter’s night with a classic eight round draw against Bennett. Okay, Don Vines raised our emotions, Leon Arras made us laugh, and the Dennisons raised our temperature, but it was Downs and Bennett that demonstrated what wrestling was all about and made us believe.
Manchester welterweight Terry Downs turned professional in the early 1960s and seemed one of the welterweight divisions hot prospects for a time. The young Downs, unable to use his real name because there was already a wrestler called Jim Hart, turned to wrestling after working in an abattoir. Pun alert, no one could accuse him of lacking the killer instinct.
He trained as an amateur at the Manchester YMCA with the professional touches added at the Wryton Stadium under the guidance of Francis St Clair Gregory and other Wryton professionals. As an amateur James Hart had lost out against Ken Stephenson in the Bury Open Amateur Championship. A few months later Stephenson went on to wrestle in the Rome Olympics, while James Hart took the name Terry Downs and turned professional.
Terry Downs was a textbook wrestler who was not one to smudge, let alone, bend the rules. That’s not to say he was dull; far from it. A 1961 win over the more experienced Al Brown was the start of a rivalry that produced some enthralling contests. Another 1960s rival was fellow Mancunian Colin Joynson and the two of them produced some cracking bouts. They wrestled with ferocity and endeavour and the results were often controversial. It was Joynson in the opposite corner when Terry made his television debut in March, 1963. In the seven years that followed he wrestled on television around twenty times with opponents that included Eric Cutler, Keith Williamson, Chic Purvey and Alf Cadman.
Fellow wrestler Eddie Rose told us, “I knew Terry quite well and did some gym sessions with him. He was single minded and very competitive.”
Terry Worked almost entirely in the midlands, north of England and Scotland with the (seemingly obligatory) weekly tour of Dale Martin land (the deep south for non UK readers).
Comparisons were made with Bert Royal and that one day Terry would replace Bert as the golden boy of the middleweights. Such predictions failed to materialise. It wasn’t for lack of ability, the 1960s wrestling scene was just very crowded with skilled men and it was difficult to break through. Terry Downs retired from wrestling in 1969, though we have found a couple of later appearances in 1978 and 1979. . Eddie Rose remembering Terry again, “He looked quite like film star Paul Newman and was a favourite with wrestling fans. I watched him give Jack Dempsey a good run for his money one night at Bradford.”
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