Been reading: John Cosper - The Ballad of Cousin Elvira (2020)

 

   The Amazon desciption:

"In the golden age of grappling, the ladies took a back seat to no one. Champion Mildred Burke worked the main event every night for nearly two decades. Throughout the 1940s, no one pushed the champ to the limit quite like Elvira Snodgrass. A redheaded firebrand from Varnado, Louisiana, Gutherine Fuller left the farm life behind for the glitz and glam of the squared circle. As Elvira Snodgrass, she catapulted to fame alongside Burke and the other queens of the ring. Elvira won the fans over with her “aw shucks” demeanor and scufflin’ style. Then she broke their hearts, transforming into rule-breaking heel who would do anything to win. Once lost to history because of her early death, the tale of Elvira Snodgrass is a rollicking ride through one of the most exciting eras in professional wrestling and the inspirational journey of a fiercely independent woman.  From her surprise early title win as Betty Nichols to the tragic car accident that ended her career, you’ve got a ringside seat to rediscover one of the biggest and brashest stars of the 1940s. Just remember to stay in your seat and keep your hands to yourself. This is one lady you do not want to cross"

Betwen the blurb and the cover picture showing wrestling legend Mildred Burke getting tied by a cheerful looking redhead, I was immediately sold.

 I have to admit that although I'd heard of Elvira Snodgrass - really, who is ever going to forget that name? - I didn't really know much about her and had always assumed she was one of many women who had a career in wrasslin' but never made it into the top ranks. 

 As this book makes it very clear, Elvira Snodgrass was kind of a big deal and may have been one of the biggest draws of the 1940s, male or female. 

  Gutherine Fuller grew up in a dirt poor part of Louisiana and left husband and family behind to find a better life as a lady wrestler. After several name changes Gutherine became  Elvira Snodgrass a "scuffling" hillbilly grappler with a mean right hook and a tendency to beat up opponents and referees alike. Even when she glammed up in later years Elvira was still a one woman wrecking crew and all this made her the #2 woman wrestler in America, right behind Mildred Burke, and guaranteed to put bums in seats wherever she went. Elvira Snodgrass and Mildred Burke headlined all across the country which is something that seems astonishing these days, when it's only recently  that the WWE have allowed their latest generation of women wrestlers into the headline slots. 

  So yes, this book does go some way to restoring the repuation of a woman that was a genuine pioneer but seems to have slipped through the cracks of wrestling history. 

 If I have one criticism of "The Ballad..." it's that the book does tend to lean heavily towards a listing of Elvira's travels and opponents and it would have been nice to get some more personal moments from the lady herself or her opponents.  Still, from little snippets here or there, you do get a sense of  what a bonafide tough nut this interesting lady was. My favourite spot in the entire book is when she's in her hotel, heading back to her room, the lift doors open and Elvira spots a fan who'd laid hands on her during that night's match.  Dragging the man into the lft, she proceeds to have words with him, leaving the foolish fan shaken and alarmed without her ever laying a single finger on him.   

 Definitely a formidable woman and I think I'd have liked to meet her.  

 To sum up: maybe a bit dry but if you are interested in old-school wrestling, you might find this well worth a read. As a bonus you get a good selection of vintage  photos you won't see anywhere outside a newspaper library

                                                                                              The back cover. 

 

That's all folks

 

 

 

Been Reading: El Bandito - The Autobiography of Orig Wiliams

 "In Pakistan he was stoned by the crowd at a packed Lahore Cticket Stadium and had to flee for his life. In Turkey the crowd burnt down the stadium where he'd been performing. Wherever Orig Williams, or El Bandito (as he was known in the ring) took his wrestling shows abroad there were always complications and tribulations"

    This is a book I picked up on a whim and I'm glad I did.  Orig Williams was definitely one of  wrestling's characters. Born in a small, fiercely Welsh town full of hardcases, Williams was conscripted into the RAF, spent a lively career as a pro footballer, culminating in  becoming chieftain of a football team that terrorised Welsh football , then moved into Pro Wrestling as a performer and promoter. All the while being an ardent champion of Wales and Welsh culture. 

 So there's plenty of interest here: Orig Williams comes across as a smart man with no time for fools, especially fools in suits, as well as a man who made a career in wrestling the hard way.: wrestling and promoting where 

other men feared to tread. If that meant touring Ireland at the height of The Troubles, recruiting lady wrestlers and  wrestling in a ring overrun with giant insects, so be it. 

 My one criticism is that this is quite a slim book and there must have been hundreds of stories left out.

If you fancy a look at the old days of British Wrestling - the days of tent shows, village halls and old-school hard-nuts - you might want to give this a go.  

Heavy Metal Cover Girls - Made In Japan

  In my last "Cover Girls" feature I looked at some artwork that was inspired by Japan's great gift to the world: Anime. Which got me thinking.  While I'm in the neighborhood, so to speak, why not look at something else that seems to be unique to Japan.

  When I say "Female Metal Vocalist" what's the image you get inside your head? Close your eyes for a second and let it come to you.
  Depending on the sort of Metal you listen to, what popped up was either the classic Rock look - jeans, leather, spandex, studs - or what seems to have become the uniform for Symphonic/Gothic Metal vocalists these days -formal gowns and corsets.

  Of course the Japanese would have to do things a little differently, wouldn't they?

 Step this way and let me show you what I mean.

 Mary's Blood - Bloody Palace (2015)

Sticking fairly close to the Metal template so far.  Lots of Black which is always very metal.

Been reading: David Hofstede: Wrestling- A Pictorial History

 This isn't quite what I expected as it is really just a coffee-table book of wrestling photos, loosely grouped by theme. Having said that, most of the pics I'd never seen before and the book concentrates on old time wrestling - there's surprisingly little in here from the 1990s and after.
Maybe not essential but worth getting, methinks.

A book that changed my life: The Pictorial History of Wrestling

  I first got into Pro Wrestling when I was about 12 or so and from then on I would make a point of sitting down every Saturday afternoon to watch World Of Sport.
 But one day, circa 1984,  I happened to wander into a cheapo bookshop just off the high street and found a book that would maybe not change my life but certainly changed the way I looked at wrestling forever.

 

 Now at the time the biggest star in British wrestling was this man:

Shirley "Big Daddy" Crabtree

 Kids loved him.Grannies loved him. Serious wrestling fans --me, for instance -found him embarrassing. Aside from anything else, he never lost. Ever. Even at the age of 13 or so I was struggling to understand how a fat blob could be wrestling's own Superman. 

 So it was a bit of an eye-opener to see who the big star was over on the other side of the Atlantic.

 Hulk Hogan

 

 Now Hulk and Big Daddy were both pushed as all-conquering supermen. Both men had a repertoire of 4 moves. However, Big Daddy was a fat pensioner who's main offensive move was the belly-butt. Hogan was 300 pounds of tanned muscle who could actually get into the ring without a forklift.

Hmm. Wonder who's more believable?

 It wasn't just Hogan either. As I've mentioned earlier, wrestling in the UK was pushed as family-friendly entertainment for the kids and grannies. So you certainly weren't going to see anything comparable to , say, a bloody Dusty Rhodes strangling Billy Graham with a rope. Or Abdullah The Butcher sticking a fork into somebody's head. 

 British wrestlers mostly looked like what they were: Working class blokes in OK shape. Some were great technicians, quite a few were legimately very, very hard. But the guys in the book were off another planet entirely. They were bigger, more muscular, more colourful. They fought in front of thousands, hit each other with chairs and battered their opponents to a bloody pulp.   

 Once I'd bought the book, watching two ex-brickies trading armlocks in a Lancashire Town Hall didn't seem quite so ...dynamic as it once did.