Nationalism in Wrestling: England
Hackenschmidt to Big Daddy
For 100s of years there has been a strong sporting tradition in the Kingdom of Britain; one that is ultimately championed by football, tennis, and boxing, sports seen as pastimes and veritable talismans of English world superiority. It's no surprise then that along with those other athletic competitions stands Pro Wrestling. The subtle coupling of epic athletic bouts and the comparatively Shakespearean morality plays of theater which are pro wrestling's calling cards, are in the 1950 these rings would become as thrilling as the sacred premiership football grounds. In 1955 ITV first began to air televised matches (much in the style of the American NWA and affiliate groups) but wrestling didn't really take off until the 1960s and the famous program World of Sport. Before then, it was sideshow. Now it was a true main event, worthy of the pageantry and pomp of the FA cup or Wimbledon Final. What followed this increase in television viewers, and concurrent with America's own wrestling boom, was the formation of a cast of Englishmen who would become UK icons.
Georg Hackenschmidt was a legitimate shooter. Trained in Greco Roman style in the Russian Empire, he was brought over to bolster the overall legitimacy of British wrestling by the promoter Charles Cochran. After teaching Hack the finer points of showmanship, Georg would go on to be probably the most legendary heel of all time, and definitely the first. This is an important moment for the sport, a sort of philosophical turning point where pro wrestling decided to be more show and less "fight." In fact, Cochran was just covering himself; Hackenschmidt was such a dominant wrestler that Cochran rightly felt he could win the belt and simply decide not to loose it. Essentially, Georg could decide every match on his own simply with his power and ability. The other thing that is perhaps most notable about what Hackenschmidt brought to pro wrestling was the development of the nationalist gimmick; one that goes right up through Hulk Hogan and John Cena. However, Hackenschmidt was the wrestling nationalist heel; a stranger in a foreign land more akin to Iron Sheiks and Nakita Koloff.
But Hack was of the era of real wrestling. This was a time when legit shooters could (and did) take over matches that were intended to be staged; or even that two legit wrestlers could have a real match for a world title (more on that later.) To give you a better idea of Hack's dominance and ability, while he was working with Cochran, Hack would regularly wrestle (and defeat) five opponents in one night. What followed was the first real wrestling boom as people flooded music halls to see the world first Wrestling superstar lay waste to the worlds first legion of jobbers. He was also the worlds first world champion. At this point however, I will diverge from his career (which relocated to America) and pick back up on British Wrestling. The titanic battle between Hack and American wrestling legend Frank Gotch will be covered in the next chapter.
This tradition of wrestling that began with Hack goes back to wrestlers like Adrain Street and Mic McManus, all the way up to Davey Boy Smith and Dynamite Kid; but maybe the most influential of them all (other than of course Hack himself) was England's version of Dusty Rhodes; the British Dream, Big Daddy.
Shirley Crabtree Jr was a wrestler; like his father before him. In the 1950s he began to gain a small stardom as the babyface, "Blonde Adonis Shirley Crabtree," working for the big time British promotions and feuding with over the top heels; however he did not appear on ITVs World of Sport. This can be attributed to an event that happened as his early career was gaining significant momentum; and that was a non kayfabe dispute over the British Heavyweight Belt while wrestling for the British Wrestling Federation that turned into a (also non kayfabe) campaign of harassment from the former champ, Bert Assirati. The harassment was significant enough that in 1966, Crabtree quit the BWF and "retired." That retirement however would last only six years.
In 1972, our story really begins. Joint Productions employed him with a heel gimmick known as The Battling Guardsman. He came to the ring adorned in his British Imperial military regalia and many boos. He began to win matches, appear on ITV, and slowly develop the persona that would define his wrestling career. At some point in this time his brother Max would become Joint Productions northern booker and begin to mold Shirley from a guardsman into what is essentially a loving homage to the Burl Ives character of the same name from Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He debuted the character, still as a heel, sometime near the end of 1974 and began to build the heat that naturally leads to a face turn. Wearing a singlet emblazoned with a large D (apparently sewn by his wife Eunice and crafted from their chintz sofa) and tag teaming with fellow future legend Giant Haystacks Calhoun, Daddy caught fire in 1975 as he began his first big time feud with masked heel Kendo Nagasaki; even unmasking the villain during a televised bout in December, which Nagasaki would win only moments later. As the heat built, he turned face on his old cohort Haystacks and the two began a feud that would become the stuff of legend. While it would begin in 1977, this feud would last until the mid 1990s and in many ways defines what British wrestling is all about. In the beginning of the feud and face turn, Daddy began to come to the ring wearing an oversized Union Jack jacket or an oversized Union Jack sequin cape, and his trademark top hat; catching that same fire of nationalism that Hulk Hogan would channel years later in WWF. This made him a firm favorite with kids mainly, just like Hogan, but even such British mainstays as Queen Elizabeth have admitted to being huge fans of Big Daddy. His appeal to England was widespread, as he embodied the beer bellied, working class spirit of the British wrestling fan; a precursor then too to the antics of one Stone Cold Steve Austin. He feuded with Haystacks and Canadian "Mighty" John Quinn, headlining two major Wembly Stadium matches in 1979 and 1981, respectively. He also helped lead such veterans as Dave "Fit" Finlay and Drew MacDonald into the business with feuds in the early 80s. All of this lead him to the Hippodrome Circus in Great Yarmouth, August 1987.
The match was a simple one, a common one. A tag team affair between Daddy and his real life nephew Steven (billed as "Greg Valentine," most likely to trick people into buying tickets to see "The Hammer,") taking on King Kendo and King Kong Kirk. The match played out normally, and up until the final moments not a spot had been missed. Daddy set up his signature Daddy Splash, no doubt readying to get the pin and win, when he noticed that Kirk had turned an, "unusual colour." Likely Kirk hadn't tucked his chin while taking the splash, or perhaps the repeated body blows from years of being a wrestler (and prop forward for Featherstone Rovers Rugby Club) had finally taken its ultimate toll. Whatever the reason, Kirk never made it to the hospital and was pronounced dead on arrival. Further inquest by Police and medical staff would reveal a heart condition to be the ultimate culprit, clearing Crabtree but not removing his guilt. The match would stay with him years and years later. He continued to make appearances into the 1990s before completely retiring to be home with his family; after which he would soon die from a stroke in 1997. When he died, wrestling was just reaching the end of its zenith. Ten years before, while Wrestlemania and Hulkamania ran wild in the US, King Kong Kirk was dying in a ring from a big splash; and arguably Big Daddy's career also came to an abrupt end that night. Though he was still active in the years when wrestling reached its most popular, he always seemed to serve as merely a footnote; a reminder of the bygone era. Big Daddy wouldn't translate to American stardom, but he would be the spiritual forefather of cousins and future British Bulldogs, Davey Boy Smith and Dynamite Kid; so his influence lived far beyond the borders of the Kingdom. In fact, Big Daddy teamed with a young Davey Boy Smith in his formative years and perhaps in a sense gifted him the idea to use his famous Union Jack tights and trunks.
Both of these men lived very different lives and had very different impacts on the business. Hackenschmidt is admittedly the more important wrestler (at least in terms of worldwide appeal) and his career will be further expanded on in further installments. But what is so important about these two men is the influence they had on the game itself. Hackenschmidt's motif of the Monster World Champion (Hogan, Cena, etc) was that unstoppable force of babyface nature, and would become a major part of the pro wrestling landscape. Big Daddy's motif of the Patriotic Nationalist People's Figurehead (Hogan, Cena, etc) would be imitated but never quite so effortlessly and perfectly personified as the beer gutted blonde brute with the physique of a boilermaker; there is something opposite here, yet something alike. While Hackenschimdt is the thing we know we can never be, the physical specimen that we want to be like; Big Daddy is what we are. While Hackenschmidt is the progenitor of wrestling's Hulk Hogan's, Big Daddy is the precursor of The American Dream Dusty Rhodes. Therefore it is also interesting to note that when Hackenschmidt wrestled in his homeland of Russia, he was a conquering hero. But when he wrestled in American against Frank Gotch, what we saw was the creation of the Foreign Heel. More on that next time.
