Tony banger walsh

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Curiously that was exactly the same market that American pro-wrestling had attracted back in heyday at the turn of the 1950s, an era recalled in Whatever Happened To Gorgeous George? The father of author Joe Jares was himself a wrestler (often appearing as Brother Frank, the Mormon Mauler) and Jares has a clear love of the tradition.

He had the stature and aggression to appear a credible opponent to Big Daddy, and had the wrestling ability to sell the whole bout through his interactions with his smaller opponent. Single-handedly, George turned wrestling into a branch of showbiz. He would go wrestling then at like 2am he would pick up a lorry and drive it to Wales and back because he could not financially make ends meet otherwise."

Soon after Tony sold his story to The Sun, he decided to leave the industry and started working as a store detective at Woolworths in Coventry.

On the contrary, he humbly assumed the action role which lies at the core of all professional wrestling, or, at least, should, and saw to it that the Big Daddy show, in spite of highly questionable substance, was delivered and received as well as it possible could have been.

In his later years Banger Walsh generously shared his thoughts with wrestling fans through internet sites such as Wrestling Heritage.

He had the versatility to wrestle as an out-and-out villain or to wrestle cleanly, sportingly and above all extremely capably as has been evidenced by television re-runs thirty years later.

All fans, however, will forever associate the name of Banger Walsh with Big Daddy, and their very apparent and regular association perhaps gives us the clearest and most obvious insight into the role of the undercarder.

Big Daddy was a big name, but national fame had arrived late in life and his ring mobility was limited, and deteriorated in parallel with the demise of the sport as a whole.

Meanwhile his personal valet was busy spraying perfume around the ring, so that the smell of sweat wouldn't upset Georgie. Coarse but effective promotion meant that he could fill halls by his very presence, and it cannot be denied that he travelled extensively and reliably to allow the fans to see him live, at an age when he should really have been relaxing on a Blackpool beach.

However, if we are to achieve our aim of providing real insight into the wrestling business in its heyday, we must not be seduced by fame as it was served up to the fans.

At its heart is the legend that was George Raymond Wagner, a man who wore his hair long, blonde and styled, who wore fabulously expensive robes and who entered the ring to the sounds of 'Pomp and Circumstance' to be announced as 'The Human Orchid, Gorgeous George'.

His willingness to answer fans’ questions directly was well-known. He wrestled Big Daddy on TV more than any other wrestler.

"He loved it -it was his life. For the format to work, as well as the referee, three suitable co-workers were required: a super heavyweight villain to share the headlining with the Halifax giant; a popular young athlete to partner Big Daddy, to be the victim of dubious tactics, to be cruelly victimised, but ultimately to share the glory in final victory; and a fourth, a villain, who did not need to be well known, but who could be involved for much of the bout, taking punishment from both his opponents, tagging in his equally immobile partner for a few choice moments, and ultimately being on the receiving end of one of Big Daddy’s so-called special finishing moves, the body splash or the double elbows.

Tony Walsh comfortably assumed this fourth key role, and made it all his own.

Even if you have only the vaguest of memories of wrestling, you should have a look. Just to give a flavour of who we mean, let’s cite Leon Fortuna, Colin Joynson and Larry Coulton. In Simon Garfield's book there's a fantastic photograph of Street in full lurex glam gear posing with his dad, a South Wales miner, at the pit-head.

He absolutely loved his celebrity friends, he loved networking, he loved doing what he did. He would always be able to sort anything out for us. The results, even though they tell us little about ability, do provide us with further evidence of the pecking order in place in Joint Promotions rings at that time, with the likes of Tornado Torontos and Tug Holton scoring victories over the local novice.

Actually the modern American incarnation of the grapple game is probably okay - I don't watch it myself, but if you're a 12-year-old seeing this stuff for the first time, it might well be quite fun. It ran over the course of five days and was 'the beginning of the end of British wrestling on TV', his daughter said.

Tracy revealed that wrestlers only used to earn around £25 for each match.

But just as boy bands nowadays are all interchangeable and all seem to spend way too much time hanging out at the gym (compared to the pigeon-chested malnourished types we had in the 1970s), so it seems to me that the sheer variety seems to have been lost in the range of wrestling characters. They had the poster inches, the press coverage, the sensational television bouts, in short, the talking points.