Ron Historyo Goes On The Trail
Wrestling Heritage welcomes memories, further information and corrections.
Lists of great wrestlers come and go, and here on Heritage we have unearthed a lot of new 1930’s history about the birth of modern wrestling in Britain. We have had top wrestlers and top overseas wrestlers and articles on pioneers, great ones like Pojello and Sherry and some not so good but memorable.
Some came not at the start like Irslinger and Boganski did, but later like Carl VanWurden. At times some only had a brief stay, not always long enough for us today to appreciate their greatness. But the people of yesterday got to witness a lot of wrestlers who in some cases we have not yet identified, some masked, some that we just do not have a photo of or enough information. Some perhaps did not do enough here for us to appreciate their world fame, but today I have come up with a man who slipped the net.
This is the story of Tommy Nilan.
Australian Tommy was born in Victoria, probably in 1909 and was a good amateur wrestler, who moved on to Sydney as a professional. He married Maida Madelaine Jones in Brisbane, she too had a degree of fame working on stage in the theatre.
I have seen Tommy billed from New Zealand but this is wrong. He was however billed on and off as Paddy Nilan, and another point of interest is that although I have seen travel documents for him as Nilan, I also have a Newspaper report stating his real name was Tommy Williams.
Nilan fought all the Australian greats, even the champions such as Meeske, Lurich and one man who he was in particular entwined with, George Pencheff. Starting out at about 13 stone and ending up at about 15-10, there are some vivid descriptions of Tommy. Pocket Hercules was one, and that was probably the best way to envisage him. He had a great career in Australia and he was no jobber, he actually beat the men I talk about on some occasions.
Australia had some good wrestlers and plenty of colour and character. There was The Mysterious Ghost. A difficult legend for me to crack, with a probable false clue as a giant American. The rumor was that he was actually a New Zealander named Lofty Blomfield. Perhaps one of our Australian readers .knows the answer. One night the mask came off but the Ghost had anticipated that and covered his face in sticking plasters.
Before Tommy Nilan ever came to Europe he had a stint in America. In March of 1936 he sailed on the Makura from Sidney with a contract to wrestle based in San Franciso. But here I find the link again with George Pencheff.
I have to remind some of our readers that wrestling is not boxing. Yes it is a very hard game for very tough men, but it is also an entertainment, where the script is played out with results being within a spectrum of worked ideas to be shown in a large number of places. Nilan and Pencheff had plenty of practice.
Nilan returned to Australia after about 200 bouts in the USA. Highlight was a victory over Gus Sonennburg. His tour took in Los Angeles, Hollywood, New York, Boston and New Jersey. In 1937, towards the end of the year Tommy Nilan and wife set sail on the Otranto to England. Nilan was destined to join up with Pencheff who was already in England.
Tommy Nilan had his first bout in England on 27th October 1937 at Earls Court and incredibly on the bill also was George Pencheff fighting Jim Londos.
London was still having problems with the branding and licensing for “All In” wrestling and the way forward at this point was to re-invent the term Modern Catch-as-catch-can. A bigger shock for me was to find the following week Nilan was best man at George Pencheff’s wedding in London. So if we did not know before, we do now, they were great friends.
Not only all that, but that bill was one of the most historic in Wrestling history, our man Tommy Nilan was wrestling that night in front of 6000+ people. Londos in England was monumental.
I am not going to attempt to give an itinerary of Tommy Nilan’s movements because he was away from home for four years with an odd trip back. During his time in the UK I have read that he made twelve trips back and forwards to Paris. I also know that he met up with Henry Irslinger in 1938 in South Africa, where Irslinger was a successful promoter. So he was moving everywhere, and getting hold of him was a bit special.
He did fight Jack Pye at Blackfriars on 11th November 1937, and I picked him up at Bristol in February 1938 with Tony Baer. Also on the 9th March I found him at Plymouth Drill Hall with Joe Devalto. Also that month he was on at Portsmouth.
On 14th April 1938 Nilan and wife sailed on the Winduk to Cape Town and if there was to be a another solid period for Nilan to be based in the UK then it was in early 1939.
Perhaps the promoter with the biggest pre war territory was George Relwyskow, a man who it seems was not afraid to pay decent money to bring short term big names into his roster. For sure Nilan did some work for Relwyskow. Stands to reason really as Pencheff had already been working with Relwyskow.
Relwyskow took the Nilan v Tasker bout to Aberdeen.He did lost at Leith to Tony Baer on 16th March. And later that month he got a time limit draw with George Gregory at Nelson. In April at Dundee with Cocky Night and George Rel the referee, Nilan gave away three stones in weight and had a fierce battle with his opponent. Knight played the bully, gouging, whilst Tommy had a good chew on his fingers.
To show the colourfulness of Relwyskow 1930’s shows it ended with Knight forcing a ruthless Boston Crab onto Nilan who had to submit, but Knight would not break the hold after such a bitter battle. Consequently George Rel back handed Knight and stunned him, and for pure theatre Cocky slowly got up a staggered about and puled out a tooth. A wild affair.
As always with wrestling though, well worked bouts had that repeat flavor, and the same bouts in the north also were taken to the south. Why find a new opponent when something was so well practiced?
What I found in the south was another promoter Harry Williams, who I covered in Exeter Grappling. Williams was promoter at both Exeter and Southampton. Opponents were again Bert Mansfield and Tony Baer. Harry Williams pushed the boat out with the advertising, proclaiming him champion of New Zealand. For that matter I don’t think Australian Tommy was ever champion either. A lot of traveling, Preston on Tuesday that week in April 1939 and by Friday Nilan was in Southampton.
The story of Tommy Nilan in Britain ends there really, but he carried on to America where he did a lot more.
In 1944 Nilan’s wife left him for another man and in 1953 he went through a second divorce after breaking a door down to catch another man with his wife, Elsie.
In 1947 Nilan was tagging with his great friend George Pencheff in California. The final sighting is from Albuquerque in 1955, as far as I know the last year of Tommy Nilan’s career. By trade back in Australia Tommy had been a poultry farmer and also a welder. When bulked up to his biggest weight he became a bodyguard to boxers.
Yes, some grapple fans over in the UK saw this man and it seems to me he was a bit more than a journeyman. These were the kind of guys that were needed to make wrestling in the UK in the 1930’s the spectacle that it was.
His friendship with Pencheff has been another eye opener for us. Nilan wrestled some of the very best and got some results, and he appeared on bills with the best in all sorts of places. A man of many continents.
Hope you enjoyed the story.
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