Robinson Billy - Physical chess: my life in catch-as-catch-can wrestling

You hold in your hands a treasure. As someone who has very sincerely devoted the last decade to researching the sport of catch-as-catch-can (and to learning its secrets first-hand from the tough old-timers who practised this sport), I realize how lucky we are to have this piece of history from the most successful of the last Lancashire catch-as-catch-can wrestlers, Billy Robinson. Studying this art has been frustrating because those seeking their fortunes in the scripted world of twentieth-century professional wrestling have manipulated the history so much.

Kayfabe and the mentality of protecting the business, while perhaps entertaining, have taken us far from the facts. This book stands nearly alone as a true testament to those wrestlers who risked life and limb practising the dangerous sport of catch-as-catch-can wrestling without ever achieving the fame or fortune associated with worked pro wrestling.

I am going to assume that you havent heard of the majority of the people mentioned in this book. Here Billy does the memory of many a tough wrestler, as well as the history of wrestling, a tremendous service in familiarizing the modern reader with little-known greats from the past. These are the men who broke their bones, spilled their blood, and bet the wages they earned after a long day in the coal mines, steel mills, or lumberyards, merely to see who was the better man.

Billys story is absolutely fascinatingfrom his encounter with Hemingway in Spain and his travels the world over, wrestling all comers, to his life as a professional wrestler and his pivotal role in the birth of the modern Mixed Martial Arts movement. How many people can say theyve travelled the world all expenses paid, starred in a Hollywood movie, been a pro wrestling and amateur wrestling champion, and trained some of the greatest MMA fighters the world has ever seen?

Having Billy as a friend and resource over the years has changed my view not just of wrestling, but also of the world, and it is my earnest hope that this book will bring you closer to the kind, smart, and tough man better known as the British Lion, Billy Robinson.

JAKE SHANNON

I come from a fighting family. My great-great-grandfather Harry Robinson was a bare-knuckle boxing champion of Great Britain, which in those days really meant world champion. My uncle Alf boxed with the world heavyweight champion Max Baer and wrestled another world heavyweight champion, Jack Sherry, in Belgium. And then theres my father, a street fighter turned pro who fought the black American boxer Tiger Flowers and was once world light heavyweight champion. Tiger told my father that he was the strongest man Tiger had ever fought.

Alf Robinson after turning pro in wrestling upon retiring from boxing.

In those days, fighters were known around the country. They were the stars, not soccer players, not rugby players. It was fighters and wrestlersBilly Riley, Joe and Bob Robinson, Charlie Carroll, the Carroll brothers, the Belshaw brothers, Pop Charnock, and too many others to namethat people revered. Those guys were legends, and they were unbelievable athletes. Unfortunately, nobody really kept fight records that long ago, so the names of so many great wrestlers have been lost forever.

THE TIMES WERE TOUGH BACK THEN!

I was born in 1938. We had just gone through two warsthe Boer War and the First World Warand the third was about to begin. Life was rough. My siblings, both elder to me, would die in bombings during the Second World War. I never got to know them. My granddadthat is, my dads dadhad died in the trenches during the 19141918 war. My dad had to take care of his family when he was about 11 or 12. He got into the green grocery business (green grocery means fruit and vegetables, certain canned stuff and fish and fowl). I remember that I hated Christmas as a kid because my job in those days was plucking and cleaning turkeys, geese, and chickens. Thats what I did all through Christmas. I didnt want to look at a table and see a turkey or a chicken that Id plucked. At one time, my dad had a number of shops. He put all his brothers and sisters into the business, and he would buy for all the shops.

The number of forgotten wrestlers, let alone champions, is staggering.

Its difficult to explain today how tough it was then just to survive. The industrial age had started, but the unions had not yet got enough power to make life and conditions easier for the working class people. On the average day, a major meal was beans on toast with a fried egg on top, or fish and chips, or a sandwich with a mug of tea. Maybe, on a Sunday, youd be able to afford a roast, and that was considered a family feast. The average life expectancy for a male in Wigan in the 1920s and 30s was about 23 or 24 years, and for a female it was not much more than 30 (I read this in an old Wigan newspaper when I was training there with Billy Riley). People had huge families, but a lot of children died from diphtheria and other diseases whose cures we now take for granted, and this kept the average size of a family down. There were also a lot of coal mine accidents.

Billy Riley with the Championship Belt.

People would do anything to make money. Back then, betting on anything was legitimate. Theyd bet on barrel jumping (standing jumps into lined-up empty beer kegs), ratting contests (killing rats with their teeth), or purring matches (kicking eachother wearing coal mining boots or wooden shoes with metal rims until one gave in or broke a leg).

Wigan, 1930s

Hop, step, and a jump was a big deal at the time. Theres this funny story about an old-timer who had retired as the champion of hop, step, and a jump. The new champion came up and was ridiculing him and his accomplishments. Finally, the old-timer said, Okay, Ill tell you what Ill do. We will make the bet that you cannot out-jump me, if I can pick where we jump. The young kid and his backers said, Yeah. So the bet was made. The old-timer took them to the top of a seven-storey factory, and he jumped a hop, step and a jump, and his toes were hanging over the edge of the building. The only way the kid was going to win was if he jumped over the edge and killed himself. Thats a true story. Thats how people were back then.

Wrestlers had private matches on bowling greens on weekends. Most pubs had a bowling green because in England we play bowls on the grass, and on Sundays everything was closed. Side bets on these matches supplemented wrestlers incomes; they had private matches for a weeks wage or whatever they could afford. That meant one guys family was going to eat next to nothing the following week. Only the wrestlers friends and people making private side-stake bets were allowed to watch the match.

Then there were street fights, which were private matches in locker rooms. Men would go in and lock the door. People bet on whod come out. My dad was the number one street fighter during his day. I learned so much from him.