We all know the first thing that pops into your mind when you think of Jimmy Savile, and it’s likely not wrestling.
The Leeds-born entertainer was one of the most famous men in the country for half a century. He became one of the country’s top DJ’s, a famous TV star and even earned himself a Knighthood.
His charity work was legendary, raising millions upon millions for various hospitals and medical facilities. However, it wasn’t until he died that his status as one of Britain’s most notorious paedophiles was finally revealed.
However, to keep it light, we’re going to look at his time as a professional wrestling. The blond-haired, wiry DJ with a thick Yorkshire accent is not what you imagine when you think of what makes a wrestler.
But, that is who Jimmy Savile was, and he ran with it. He became a wrestler in a mix of chance and arrogance. A promoter in the late 1950s asked him to referee a charity benefit for a wrestler who died in the ring.
Savile, claiming he didn’t know how to referee, instead demanded to wrestle instead, putting his Judo practise to good use. He was said to be trained by Les Kellet, undertaking a six-week crash course in professional wrestling.
However, Kellett’s involvement in his training was likely minimal. He started training back in 1964, at the Athletic Institute in Hunslet.
This was advertised as being run by the World of Sport star. However, the Clown Prince of Europe was only a part-time trainer, and had very little involvement in Jimmy Savile’s training.
That honor went to Jack Taylor, a relative of Kellett who really never made his mark on the wrestling business.
Jimmy Savile Was ‘Very, Very Bad’ As A Wrestler
Jim Savile’s first match was a disaster, and it didn’t get much better. Savile lost his debut fight against “Gentleman” Jim Lewis, and went on to lose his next 35 bouts as well.
While in the ring he was, in his own words, “very, very bad”, the punters still lined up to come and see him. This was before he was a famous DJ and TV presenter, but he was known as the “Mecca dance-hall manager” of the 1950s.
According to Jimmy Savile in the book “The Wrestling” by Simon Garfield, he wrestled 107 matches in his career. He claims that 106 of those fights were sell outs, with a bus strike in Leeds being the only reason he missed out on the full house of full houses.
His career continued throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, as his star grew. He became a regular presenter on Top of the Pops, transforming television in the UK in the process.
Jimmy Savile also began to earn some respect from the British professional wrestlers for his work in the ring too. Max Crabtree called him “box office magic”, complimenting his matches against “Cyanide” Sid Cooper.
The DJ would enter the ring to “Twist and Shout” by the Beatles. This must put him among the earliest stars to have their own entrance music in the UK wrestling scene, although that is not quite as well documented as we might have hoped.
However, not everyone liked sharing the ring with Jimmy Savile. He claimed that Jackie Pallo would beat him up for getting cheers more cheers than him, even when the pair were tag team partners!
There is some surviving footage of his matches, which mainly showed Savile getting his arse kicked.
Adrian Street Ripped His Hair Out During A Match
In what was said to be Jimmy Savile’s last wrestling match, Adrian Street took it upon himself to throw the DJ out of the wrestling business for good.
The Welshman had two sides to him. On one hand was his “exotic” gimmick. He pranced around the ring in dresses and make-up, riling up the crowd with his aggressively homoerotic character.
On the other side was the son of a coal miner from Cwmbran, who turned to fighting to escape the mines. He was a hard man, and one wrestler you did not want to mess with – as Savile found out.
In a 2013 interview with WalesOnline, Adrian Street revealed how he hated Jimmy Savile, dropping him on his head and tearing clumps of hair from his head during their match.
He claims this was Savile’s last match, and Adrian Street never saw him again.
“The promoters were trying to put Savile across as a bit of tough guy in those days and they were trying to get other proper wrestlers to throw their matches with him – it was all part of some big stupid gimmick. And when I found out I was up against him next, I wasn’t very happy, not least because I’d just beaten world lightweight champion George Kidd at Nottingham Ice Rink the night before. In fact, I’d put him in hospital.”
“His cronies were telling me, ‘Don’t underestimate Jim, he’s trained with the Royal Marines’, but I was having none of it,” he continued. “I kicked his legs from underneath him so he hit the deck, then I picked him up by his hair, held him upside down and dropped him on his skull.”
“Then, when I looked down at my hands, I realised they were covered in hair – Savile’s. I’d torn huge clumps out of his scalp. I absolutely crucified the bloke and when I spoke to my wife afterwards, she said I’d looked like a hungry fox going after a chicken. Savile never returned to the wrestling ring after that and I never clapped eyes on him again.”
Jimmy Savile Referenced His Wrestling Career In Horrible BBC Clip
While Jimmy Savile’s wrestling career was a very small part of his life, it is one people remembered all the way up until the end of his life.
In a 1999 episode of BBC comedy show “Have I Got News For You”, Savile briefly discussed his time as a professional wrestler.
Host Angus Deayton asked him: “You used to be a wrestler didn’t you?”. Jimmy Savile responded, “I still am. I’m feared in every girls’ school in the country.”
At the time, this was played for laughs. However, with what came out after he died, it is a clearly horrific that shows how comfortable Jimmy Savile was revealing his crimes in broad daylight.
Jimmy Savile: ‘Wrestling Was On A Special Mountain Of Its Own’
For somebody so entrenched in the world of television at the time, even Jimmy Savile did not understand why the public loved wrestling so much.
This was not to deride the sport. He spoke in the BBC documentary “When Wrestling Was Golden“, where he called the sport “ginormously popular”.
He noted that the viewing figures were huge for World of Sport during its heyday. Jimmy Savile added that he doesn’t think Greg Dyke should have cancelled the wrestling in 1988.
“I’m not entirely sure why they were so popular, but they were ginormously popular. I mean, I was a pop star at that time, and I know the difference between being popular and not popular, and these guys had a special niche in the love of the public.”
“The public sort of loved them—even if they hated them, they still loved them. It wasn’t showbiz, it wasn’t the pop business or anything like that. Wrestling was on a special mountain all of its own, and it was a peak of its time.
“I was getting a good hit in Sheffield one time, and suddenly I got quite a pain in my thigh. I looked around, and there was a lady wielding an umbrella with a metal spike at the bottom of it, and she prodded me. I said, ‘O, what was that for, love?’ and she said, ‘No, not you, Jimmy—him, him!’.”
“Which I think was stupid because they had this amazing thing going where the people loved it, the fighters loved it, the TV figures were enormous, and I think they should have just left it alone.”
