These are our shorter Biographical portraits which we would like to extend if you can provide information or memories.
Pablo the Gypsy (Worcestershire)
What is it about wrestling and gypsies? We had Pedro the Gypsy, Gypsy Benito, Gino the Gypsy and at least three of Pablo The Gyspy. Of course the one thing they had in common was that none of them were actually gypsies. Do not confuse any of our Pablo trio with Pedro the Gypsy, he was Gordon Allen and a different person.
Just one of our Pablo collection had the distinction of a few years of Joint Promotions work in the mid sixties. He even made it on to the cover of The Wrestler magazine and was seen four times on television. Working for Joint Promotions we have been told he was Pablo de Aluarez who came from Worcestershire. Presumably he was the one featured on the cover of The Wrestler magazine.
Pablo the Gypsy (Bradford)
For the independent promoters there was another Pablo from Yorkshire, Tony Kaye remembers, “I wrestled him a few times, the one from Yorkshire that is. A good lad and a pleasure to work with. It was said that he was the uncle to one of a pop group from Bradford.”
Tony was right. The lad from Yorkshire was Ronnie Uttley of Bradford. And yes he was the uncle of a pop group member; Terry Uttley from the band Smokie, whose most popular hit was Living Next Door To Alice.
Ronald Uttley died in 2014.
Pablo the Gypsy (Kent)
It was Wrestling Heritage member Barry Smith who alerted us to the existence of a third Pablo. This Pablo was from Snodland, a small town in Kent. His name was Bob Bartholomew. We tracked him down and found a quiet, modest man who, by his own admission, wrestled only a handful of times, always using the name Pablo. Bob worked with wrestler Peter Gurr in a cement works, Peter being a lorry mechanic and Bob working in the stores. Bob had been a big wrestling fan for many years, Jim Breaks being his favourite. It was Peter who suggested that Bob took up wrestling. Peter trained him, gave him the name Pablo and introduced Bob to Danny Lynch who was promoting at the time. It was 1970 and the new Pablo wrestled only a handful of matches before deciding his heart wasn’t really in the performance side of the sport. It’s outside the ring that Bob Bartholomew made his mark, working for more than thirty years behind the scenes for promoters in the south.
Ken Page
A part time wrestler around for a couple of years in the early 1960s Ken Page also promoted his own shows and worked as a Remedial Gymnast at the Berry Hill Miners Rehabilitation Centre in Mansfield.
Jim Pantobe
Flore Alfred Joseph Pantobe was born on 24th November, 1915 in the French overseas territory of Guadleoupe, a Caribbean island in the Leeward islands. He was a successful professional boxer before turning to wrestling, where he was a big name in France and Spain. He came to Britain in 1951 and again in 1952 with opponents that included Jim Armstrong, Bert Assirati, Ernie Baldwin, and Bill Verna. After retiring from the ring Jim Pantobe became an optician in Paris.
Bill Parky
When it came to muscles Manchester’s Bill Parky had them in abundance. Yet it hadn’t always been that way. The muscular Bill Parkinson, who came into wrestling after winning the Mr Britain competition, was not particularly muscular or strong when he served in the R.A.F. It was there, in 1951, he and a friend, Henry Downs joined up as training partners. They devised their own training routine and the results were remarkable. Working with weights and eating a naturally high protein diet Bill, who began the routine weighing just 8 stones 10 pounds, gained almost nine stones of pure muscle. Just four years later Bill Parkinson won the Mr Britain competition. For the following four years Bill toured Britain posing and demonstrating his strength in halls and on television. In 1959 he joined the ranks of the professional wrestlers, working for the independent promoters, opponents included Jack Rowlands, Earl Maynard, Flash Lee Edwards and Terry O’Neill. Name recognition from his body building pursuits gave him instantaneous top billing.In 1962 he was signed by Joint Promotions. For a year or so he worked with big names such as Billy Joyce, Gerry DeJaeger and The Mask before returning to the independents in 1963 and fading away.
Les Parry
Welterweight Les Parry worked for the independent promoters in the 1950s and 1960s, mostly for Jack Taylor’s International Promotions, and was a regular at the Saturday night shows in the huge Granby Halls, Leicester. Les, from Ilkeston in Derbyshire had a reputation as a very rough wrestler with little regard to the finer details of rules. Opponents included veterans such as Jack Taylor himself and newcomers Zoltan Boscik and the Lapaque brothers. Les Parry passed away at his home in Chesterfield in July 2009.
Chato Pastor
The short, acrobatic Spaniard whizzed his way over to the UK for a doomed televised European middleweight championship attempt at Mal Sanders in 1979 at Wembley. Two weeks previous an earlier televised contest against Gary Wensor gave Kent Walton a further opportunity to practice his exaggerated Spanish accent with a strong emphasis on the second syllable of the surname. The Spaniard had style; flying around the ring surprisingly acrobatically for his stocky build. These were not his only visits as he had previously come to Britain for two months in the winter of 1966, billed as Spanish Lightweight champion. On that occasion he had wrestled many of the top lighter men, going down by straight falls to Jackie Pallo at the Royal Albert Hall. A fast, high-flying mover who worked within the rules he was a popular visitor to British shores.
Gaucho Patino
American based Columbian Bill Martinez Patino came to Britain for a handful of matches in January 1961 following on from a visit to Germany. A background of of jiu jitsu and boxing eventually led to the lights of the wrestling ring, where he worked for three decades. Highest profile bouts were a televised contest against Steve Logan and a Royal Albert Hall match against Johnny Czeslaw. Although he returned to Germany numerous times in the 1960s and 1970s we are unaware of return visits to Britain. In Mexico in 1974 when Warrington’s Steve Wright removed the mask of Tigre Columbiano the face revealed was that of Bill Martinez
Pat Patton
Ian Stenner adopted the name Pat Patton when he turned professional wrestler in 1977. Pat Patton was one of the better new breed taking over from the post war stalwarts in the 1970s. He got into the wrestling business after being trained by a work mate, John Holt, who wrestled as Johnny England.
Pat was a familiar figure wearing brightly coloured judo outfits and a busy worker for promoter Max Crabtree during the 1980s. He made an ignominious television debut in February,1979, the gallant loser inevitably going down by two submissions to nil against the skulduggery of Jimmy Breaks in a British welterweight championship eliminator. This was to be the first of around forty television appearances right up to the end of televised wrestling in Britain.
Whilst his favour with promoter Crabtree brought a busy engagement book and television exposure the downside was that Pat was regrettably overshadowed by his tag partnership with Big Daddy. In July, 1982, Pat was one of the last group of British wrestlers to work in Zambia.
Born in Wolverhampton and living much of his life in Cannock, Staffordshire, Pat followed many other wrestlers into the pub trade when he retired from wrestling, running the Apple Tree Pub in Bilston, near Wolverhampton, the Samson Blewitt in Hednesford and the White Hart in Cannock.
Pat Patton died on 2nd April, 2015.
Roy Paul
Liverpool’s Roy Paul was rough and tough when we first watched him in the second half of the 1960s. He was on one of the first shows we attended, knocking around Ireland’s Kevin Coneelly. He was no less rough or tough when he gained more widespread recognition as one of the Liverpool Skinheads tag team (alongside Terry O’Neill), looking the stereotypical part wearing denim shorts and braces. Never one for the niceties of wrestling techniques Roy was an underrated wrestler and a great villain, who progressed from working for the independents to mostly working in the north and midlands for Wryton Promotions.
Gaylord Steve Peacock
Adrian Street led the way and others followed. In the case of Gaylord Steve Peacock he followed with some style and class. The Peacock could strut his stuff.
A Scotsman who based himself in Blackpool, which was something of a hotbed of the 1970s wrestling scene. Steve made his way into wrestling following a chance meeting with Steve Fury whilst he was working in a Blackpool amusement arcade. Steve introduced Steve to wrestler-promoter Bobby Barron. The rest, as they say, is history.Gaylord Steve Peacock is remembered as a very entertaining wrestler of the seventies capitalising on a gay character that could enrage fans whilst bringing a smile to their faces.
He worked for both Joint Promotions and the independents. When working for the independents he formed a tag partnership with both Adrian Street and The Gay One.
Steve Peacock sadly died in February 2006, believed to be in his fifties.
Phil Pearson
Leeds mid-heavyweight from an impressive amateur background, active as a professional throughout the seventies, seemingly on a part-time basis. We have a World of Sport re-run to refresh our memories of his in-ring skills as he clashes with Vic Faulkner and manages to make a great bout with an awkward opponent. Phil had been Yorkshire’s amateur light-heavyweight champion and originally turned pro for the independent promoters before being booked by Relwyskow & Green Promotions. Never seemed to travel far south from that Leeds base, though worked the Scottish halls for Relwyskow and Green. A popular, clean wrestler he remained active throughout the eighties and one of several we would have liked to have seen more of.
Rocky Pearson
Harry Pearson from Wakefield was a heavyweight working mainly for Cyril Knowles and Ron Farrar in the 1970s. Not to be confused with Phil Pearson.
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