Even More British Lady Wrestlers

   Since I seem to be creatively bankrupt at the moment and since I had some pics left over from teh alst post, how about I drop another load of UK grappling gals on you all?

  Some of these may have already appeared on Sabreblade's blog: http://womensprowrestling.blogspot.co.uk/

  Nicky Monroe gets her arms stretched by Tina Starr. 

I have a soft spot for "Naughty Nicky" because she was the first lady wrestler I ever got to see in action.

Nicky was also adept at switching between Face and Heel depending on the audience.

Tina Starr was always a face and with her slim, athletic figure might have done well in the USA. 

I say "Might" because for some reason British girls don't seem to have done well over the Atlantic-

 although some got to work in Japan, Europe and Nigeria. 

Kathy "Busty" Keegan twists her prone opponent's arm while Nicky Monroe has a go at refereeing. 

I remember that TV:Am once had Mitzi Mueller and Busty Keegan (in leotards) on to demonstrate some moves. 

Sadly neither of them kicked the shit out of Roland Rat although Brian Glover came close to 

gettting a punch in the gob when he decided to have some fun at Mitzi's expense. The look on her face... 

I wonder why they used to bill Kathy as "Busty Keegan"? 

Oh. Right. I get it now.

That's Mitzi Mueller looking ferocious as she tries to squeeze Busty's guts out of her nose.   

 Mitzi Mueller was easily the biggest name in British women's wrestling all through the 1970s & 1980s

I think that's Lolita Loren really wanting to be somewhere else right now. 

Meanwhile the referee is politely explaining that whatever she's planning is probably illegal. 

I do love the grandad in the front row looking at the camera as if to say "This beats darts, hey?"

Actually let's take a moment to talk about the guys in the front row.  With one possible exception they are all blokes, 

not the kids and grannies that became associated with UK wrestling towards the end of the World of Sport days. 

 I wonder why that happened and how I can blame Big Daddy for it? 

Mitzi didn't always have it her own way. At the moment her immediate future looks 

unpleasant courtesy of  the she-colossus that was Hellcat Haggerty. 

Hmm. Naughty Nicky...Mitzi Mueller..Klondyke Kate..Hellcat Haggerty..

British women wrestlers seem inordinately fond of alliterative names. 

Angel McManus (No relation to Mick) throttles Klondyke Kate.

By this point Kate would have spent the entire bout battering Angel and winding up the crowd 

so when the babyface snapped and openend a can of woopass I guarantee the punters would have gone utterly nuts.  

Technically breaking the rules but *shrugs* anybody that bothered? 

I think the villain in white is the UK version of Lady Satan. (Sue Brittain under a mask IIRC)

No idea who the girl in blue is. It is entirely possible this caused her to have some doubts about her career in wrestling. 

British wrestlers could be quite hard on newcomers. William Regal spent the early part of his career 

getting battered by the old guard who wanted to establish their place in the pecking order. 

If you survived that, they might start respecting you. 

  I doubt the UK girls were much different. 

  "Leather" Lena makes a young Paula Valdez howl.  

I'm so used to seeing the late, great Princess Paula as this arrogant heel that I was

astonished to discover that she spent the early part of her career as a babyface. 

Going by the beerbottles on display, this may very well have been taking part in a Working Man's Club.

Have a few beers with the missus, have a game of darts with your mates, watch two girls try to maim each other then finish with the Meat Raffle!

Bygone days indeed. 

Lena with a scary face and a scarier haircut tries to rip her opponent's head off.

Even the ref looks horrified.

Lena Blair is now an artist and by all accounts quite a good one.  

That's all folks. 

Some British Ladywrestlers For You.

  I rather enjoyed the World of Sport wrestling revival the other night. I used to sit and watch the old programme religiously every Saturday afternoon so it was nice to be able to see British wrestlers on British TV working for a British company.  Thankfully nobody involved in the godawful Celebrity Wrestling was allowed anywhere near World of Sport so the result was pretty good. There were a few snags that could do with being worked out - cutting away to the crowd just as a big spot happened was a bit dumb - but I liked the matches and the variety on offer.

It would be nice if WOS Wrestling became a regular thing but ITV can't make money off it through phonelines so I won't hold my breath.

 Congratulations are in order for the two young ladies who had the very first women's match on World Of Sport.

  Alexis Rose

 Viper

  Sadly British women wrestlers were banned from TV and although the ban was lifted in the Mid-80s that was only in Wales.  S4C used the likes of Nicky Monroe and Klondyke Kate on their Reslo programme while the rest of us got the odd valet appearance from Princess Paula. 

   Or to put it another way, I think you could put every single bit of existing 1970s/80s footage on to one Youtube playlist and watch it while waiting for the Sunday joint to cook.  Depressing or what?

  Luckily there are slightly more photos around so I thought I'd share some that I found  over the years.

I don't remember where I got them all, so if I don't cite references it's more incompetence than deliberate malice.  I'm pretty certain I found some on Sabreblade's various sites so if you want to see more, go check out his blog  which is very, very cool.

 http://womensprowrestling.blogspot.co.uk/

   Jean Hackenschmidt - probably no relation to the more famous George - toured the UK with a troupe of Lady Wrestlers in the 1930s.  This may have been one of the reasons why so many town councils banned Pro Wrestling. (British wrestling was always a lot more rowdy than World of Sport would have you believe.) The GLC didn't allow women wrestlers to perform again until decades later.

 Sue Brittain twists her unknown opponents foot (1970s) 

British girl grapplers were lumbered with some horrible, horrible outfits over the years.

Baggy leotards, unflattering tights and generally looking like something a middleaged housewife would wear  to keep-fit. Ugh.

There were a few exceptions. Step forward  "Leather" Lena Blair. 

That actually looks like something American or Japanese  wrestlers would wear but then again, Lena did work in both countries. I wonder if somebody puller her aside on her first day on tour and told her to ditch the granny gear?  That's Rusty Blair hurriedly moving out of the way.

Fun fact: If you watch early trailers for women's wrestling movie All The Marbles Rusty can briefly be spotted in one shot.
Apparently her and Mitzi Mueller filmed some stuff which was cut out of the final movie. 

That's a young Nicky Monroe getting choked by a young Leather Lena. 

Viv Martell was one of British wrestling's great pinups in the 1970s.

This pic is from her interview in Mayfair magazine. 

I have this forlorn hope that there's a small stack of film cannisters somewhere that has action footage of Viv,
 Mitzi Mueller, Akala Jan, Leather Lena and Blackfoot Sue.  There's plenty of footage around for American and Japanese women
so wouldn't it be nice if the Brits had the same archive?

It was nice to see Klondyke Kate getting some respect on the World Of Sport Special.

I got to see her in action a few times and she was a fantastic heel. 

  Two British legends get ready to duke it out. Rusty Blair and Mitzi Mueller were both champions at the time: Rusty the World champ and Mitzi was British & European champion.
  I can remember Mitzi doing a few TV programmes back in the day  - quiz & talk shows - but I never got to see her wrestle.

  What the hell. Let's finish with a brace of  clips.  

Mitzi on a TV talk show. 

 And four of the top women stars in a tag match. 

That's all folks.