All Star Wrestling is one of the longest-running promotions in British Wrestling, entering its 55th year in business next year.
Not bad for a company that formed in the shadow of the almighty Joint Promotions who dominated British wrestling since their formation in 1952. Six promoters joined forces to create a monopoly in the business that could not be beaten.
Their goal was simple: keep the wrestlers hungry and give them no option other than to work for you. These promoters in some of the biggest wrestling towns came together and gave the wrestlers an ultimatum. Either work for us or you have no career.
Anybody who worked for a company outside these promotions was blacklisted by the others. Hundreds of Joint Promotions events were put on weekly, so you’d be giving up countless amounts of work if you worked for what was called “The Opposition”.
Their monopoly was huge, but the sport was so insignificant that the monopolies commission did nothing about it. It was the perfect crime and it worked perfectly for nearly two decades before Brian Dixon came along.
Brian Dixon Formed All Star Wrestling In 1970 As Wrestling Enterprises
Brian Dixon was a promoter and referee who decided to go out on his own in 1970. He had been a fan of wrestling since he was a child, visiting the Liverpool Stadium every Friday and even running the “Crybaby” Jim Breaks fan magazine.
Dixon was already working in the wrestling business by this time, both as a referee and backstage for Welsh promoter Orig Williams. He worked behind the scenes, dealing with the publicity and advertising for all of the shows for the British Wrestling Federation.
The Englishman would help promote the shows which took him all throughout Wales and Ireland. He dealt with a huge amount of running the business but always wanted to be a promoter in his own right.
One day, Brian Dixon was working for Orig Williams and answered a phone call from the office, as he usually did. It was a venue ringing and asking him to get in touch with Williams to run a spot show (an event not part of the regular circuit). Dixon agreed to the show but kept it a secret from his boss.
He ran the show himself, giving him his first taste of running his own wrestling promotion. It went well and he decided to do more, although keeping it a secret from Orig Williams came too much. He discovered that Dixon had been going behind his back after just the second spot show and the pair parted ways (whether this was amicable or not is unknown).
Following the break-up, Brian Dixon formed Wrestling Enterprises in 1970, which would later be known as All Star Wrestling from 1985 onwards. Things started slow at first for the Birkenhead promotion, with just the odd show here and there. While he had been a good referee and knew all the wrestlers, nobody had any idea how good he could be as a promoter.
He ran a few smaller shows before realising that he couldn’t run a promotion on his own. Brian Dixon teamed up with Monty Swan, who had left Joint Promotions two years ago, to run the wrestling side of the company.
Other stars like Count Bartelli, Syed Saif Shah and Roy Bull Davis soon jumped ship too. He also found great success in rebranding the larger-than-life Luke McMasters into a character that fans still remember to this day in Giant Haystacks. Dixon took inspiration from the American Haystacks Calhoun for the name, and it was one the wrestler kept until his move to America in 1996.
but it was none of these men who would become the star that set All Star Wrestling apart from Joint Promotions. That would be one of Britain’s greatest-ever female wrestlers in Mitzi Mueller.
Mitzi Mueller Became A Headliner For Joint Promotions
Mitzi Mueller and Brian Dixon had a very close working relationship – in fact, they were married!
The pair met as all good couples do, as she screamed out in pain during a wrestling match. Brian Dixon refereed one of her matches in the early 1970s in Wales while working for Orig Williams. He accidentally stepped on Mueller’s hair, causing her great pain.
After the match she scalded him in the locker room, warning him to never do that again if he ever refereed her. This incident seemed to endear them to one another and the pair started going out and eventually married.
When Brian Dixon formed All Star Wrestling, signing up stars like Mitzi Mueller was a no-brainer. Despite the ladies regularly drawing in big crowds as a novelty act, Joint Promotions refused to book them. In fact during their entire televised run from 1965 to 1988 on ITV, not a single women’s match was ever shown on TV by Joint Promotions. (You can learn about why women’s wrestling wasn’t show on TV here).
Mitzi Mueller became a big draw for All Star Wrestling as well as the stars that swapped Joint Promotions for The Opposition. One of these was Kendo Nagasaki, who actually had a stake in the promotion at one point.
He left Joint Promotions in the early 1970s and was offered a full partnership in All Star, along with his manager Gorgeous George. The pair’s acceptance meant All Star could grow further and run multiple shows a night. Dixon would run one with Kendo and George manning the other.
While it made business sense, it didn’t work for the Kendo Nagasaki character. He would don his mask before he got to the venue and refused to speak to anyone bar his opponent for the night and the promoter. Suddenly giving orders and collecting money would remove his aura and kill the Kendo Nagasaki character dead in its tracks.
Monty Swan eventually had enough and left All Star Wrestling and Kendo and George followed suit soon after. Brian Dixon went back to running the promotion solo, to great success, while Kendo Nagasaki contacted Wryton Promotions (a part of Joint Promotions) and went back to work in the syndicate.
Mitzi Mueller would wrestle until her final match in 1987. She helped get women’s wrestling unbanned in London and ended her career after a show at the Royal Albert Hall, promoted by Brian Dixon.
All Star Wrestling Got A TV Slot With ITV In The 1980s
In 1987 All Star Wrestling achieved something it never expected – a slot on ITV’s wrestling program. This was no longer World of Sport, which had been cancelled two years prior, but a whole new show dedicated just to wrestling.
However, it wasn’t as grand as it seems. Joint Promotions, who had previously had sole ownership of ITV’s wrestling slot, were given two weeks a month to show their events. All Star Wrestling were given one week, while American giants the WWF (now WWE) had the fourth.
This weekly alternation did nothing for the fans, who disliked the changing schedule and missed out on seeing their favourites on a weekly basis. Ratings began to drop and the show was eventually cancelled in 1988.
However, All Star Wrestling continued on, having changed its name from Wrestling Enterprises in 1985. Stars like Kendo Nagasaki, Mark Rocco, William Regal and Fit Finlay deflected to the opposition. Regal in particular was a damning one, as he turned down the chance to team with Big Daddy to work with the top wrestlers in All Star Wrestling.
They continued to run live shows into the 1990s, although business continued to drop. Big Daddy remained the biggest draw in the country and shows with him on sold higher than any for Joint Promotions.
Meanwhile, All Star Wrestling began to struggle with the retirements of Kendo Nagasaki and Mark Rocco and William Regal heading off to the United States with WCW. Brian Dixon sought to bring back a star from the past and signed the Dynamite Kid to be the face of All Star Wrestling in 1991.
While Joint Promotions and All Star were sharing more and more talent by this time, Dynamite Kid remained loyal to Brian Dixon(and occasionally Orig Willaims), especially when his ex-partner British Bulldog joined Joint Promotions in 1994.
Sadly, Dynamite Kid’s injuries were horrendous and he retired from wrestling in 1996. All Star had few stars, especially with Finlay following Regal to America in 1996, although they have managed to stay in business running occasional shows and holiday camp tours until this very day.
Well, not Butlin’s anymore.
All Star Wrestling Lost Their Butlin’s Tour In 2016
All Star Wrestling had been running the Butlin’s tours for years until it all stopped abruptly in 2016. This was the same tour that Bryan Danielson raves about, and he has constantly said that if they had paid better he would have happily wrestled there for the rest of his career.
However, it came to an end on April 3rd 2016. During a show at the Butlin’s camp in Skegness, the nightly wrestling show saw Tony Spitfire facing off against an unfamiliar opponent called Hakim
Spitfire was the typical jingoistic British character, as the name would imply. He was the good guy to Hakim’s “baddie”, but the crowd found his opponent’s gimmick in very poor taste.
Hakin was described by the BBC as an “Islamic flag-waving baddie”, with the match called a “an horrific race hate-filled 10 minutes with everything wrong on racial stereotypes”. Butlin apologised for the event and tore up their contract with All Star Wrestling.
Brian Dixon told the BBC that he had not been aware of the change of the show and Hakim’s character should not have been so racially charged, and offered his apologies to Butlin’s and all the guests at the resort.
“Saturday’s wrestling show was different to the agreed content, and Butlin’s were not made aware of the change. We regret this clear error of judgment, as well as the obvious offence and upset caused. We wish to apologise to Butlin’s and their guests, and stress that this will not happen again.”
Despite this pitfall, the company is still going strong. They are the fourth oldest company still going in wrestling, after CMLL, WWE and ECWA. Brian Dixon has since retired (and passed away in 2023), leaving control of the company to his son Joseph Allmark.
