Also known as Dr Blood
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Another tough Northerner, born in Scotland to Irish parents, but latterly from Southport, and one half of the Liverpool Skinheads tag team.
Terry and partner Roy Paul entered the ring wearing denim shorts held up with braces. He combined the courage and stamina of days as a coal miner with the discipline developed as an amateur boxer and put it all to good use to become a professional wrestler with a career spanning twenty-odd years.
In the 1960s he would sometimes pull on a mask and adopt the persona of Doctor Blood, a villain who was finally upended, and unmasked by that other good doctor, Death.
To be honest, Terry was almost ignored on the Talk Wrestling Forum until wrestler Paul Mitchell revealed that O’Neill was, in his opinion, the best opponent of Kendo Nagasaki. “Nagasaki didn’t know what to expect and always performed better under the circumstances. Terry hurt Nagasaki …. no respecter of reputation or bill position, strong agressive and never gave less than 100 per cent. Terry was a very underrated performer, as well as seeing him wrestle Kendo Nagasaki I saw him wrestle Ray Glendenning once, strangely the only time I saw him win in singles matches. Like many baddies, the in ring and out of ring persona was totally different. A lovely guy to speak to”
Wrestling enthusiast Frank Thomas then told us that he had witnessed a Terry O’Neill versus Kendo match at Birkenhead, and it was a “Riotous affair that looked near to a genuine shoot match and ended in a double disqualification. Genuinely feel that Kendo knew he was up against it, and resorted to underhand tactics, and got himself disqualified, the crowd roared for him to unmask, but the MC quoted at the time that he wouldn’t have to unmask if he lost by the disqualification route.”
Terry O’Neill was an all action wrestler with a career that began in the late 1950s and spanned both the independent and Joint Promotion organisations. As was often the case Terry started out working for independent promoters, often in the clubs and smaller halls, By the end of the decade he was working in the bigger halls and travelling further afield, covering much of the country and working for the top independent promoters such as Jack Jefferson, Cape, Matsport and Paul Lincoln. Opponents included The Ghoul, Black Butcher Johnson and Reg Williams.
Maybe it was the 1961 film that gave rise to the name Doctor Blood, or maybe it was intended to capitalise on the success of the better known Doctor Death. If that was the plan then it was one that failed to fulfil any of its hopes. The white mask, rule bending tactics and lighter weight was never a serious contender for his nemesis, Doctor Death, who did eventually, and inevitably, unmask him. Beneath the mask was Liverpool’s Terry O’Neill, though we have little doubt that there were other Doctor Blood’s on the independent circuit.
By 1963 Terry was working for Joint Promotions He was a frequent worker at the two big North West venues, the Liverpool Stadium and Belle Vue, Manchester. He was also the second opponent for a young Kendo Nagasaki, following in the path of Jim Hussey and losing by the KO route at Birmingham’s Embassy Sportsdrome on 17th November, 1963
Although he wrestled a wide spectrum of opponents from Bobby Barnes to Ski Hil Lee it is probably for his 1970s appearances as one of the Skinheads (and no, he wasn’t) that he is best remembered.
Page added 15/11/2020
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