“Mr TV” Jackie Pallo was always one of the most hated heels by the fans, but he also drew the ire of his fellow wrestlers with his 1985 autobiography.
The book, titled “You Grunt, I’ll Groan” did something that very few in British wrestling had done before. It completely exposed the wrestling business, outing it as fake, fixed and pre-determined, giving fans the secrets of the business that they were never meant to know.
From referees using razor blades to cut wrestlers’ heads, the ins and outs of a wrestling match and the behind-the-scenes drama, no stone was unturned and nobody was out of the firing line.
As one of the biggest legends of British wrestling, Jackie Pallo was perfectly placed to tell all the secrets of the business. As he admits, the whole thing was not some altruistic, moral crusade to finally tell the fans the truth.
It was all for money, as he happily admits!
“My enemies will say that this is all bollocks. They will say that I am writing this for the money (correct) because I am bitter over my failure to win a share of the lucrative television wrestling contract. They will say that I am furious because I have been forced out of big-time promoting by the wrestling establishment, and because I have lost a lot of money. They are absolutely right.”
You have to respect how candidly he admits all this. For all his successes in the business, Jackie Pallo had lost a lot of money after creating Pallo Enterprises, his own opposition promotion seeking to steal the limelight from the Joint Promotions monopoly.
He retired from wrestling in 1975, starting his own promotion and bringing his son J.J (Jackie Pallo Jr.) along with him. Pallo was known as a light touch as a boss, happily dishing out big money to wrestlers with very little gain for him in the end.
He wanted a slice of the ITV weekly TV rights, which were held by Joint Promotions alone. While All Star and the WWE would be given a slot in the late 1980s, Jackie Pallo never made it to television as a promoter before hanging up the pencil.
This 1985 tell-all book helped him recoup some of the money he’d lost in promotion. His immense star power had earned him the “Mr TV” moniker, but this book sought to tear down all he had built throughout his career.
At a svelte 125 pages, it wasn’t a long or particularly tough read, although Pallo jam-packed it with stories about all the top wrestlers of his day, most notably Mick McManus. A whole chapter is dedicated to their battles, although other wrestlers were treated less favourably (like McManus’ infamous nemesis, Peter Preston).
Of course, it wasn’t the first ever revelation, as the News of the World had investigated in 1972 and proved the business was bent. However, this was the first time a wrestler had spilt the beans, which the other workers were not happy with at all!
Jackie Pallo’s Book Caused An Uproar In Wrestling Circles
The release of “You Grunt, I’ll Groan” caused an uproar in the British wrestling business. He was blacklisted from the business, although given he’d given up full-time wrestling a decade prior, it didn’t matter to him that much.
Mick McManus admitted to Simon Garfield in The Wrestling that “his book soured a lot of people against him.”. Max Crabtree said that wrestling turned Pallo “insane”, and that his waning stardom and bitterness was the reason for the release of the book (which wasn’t incorrect).
Other wrestlers, like Kendo Nagasaki and Al Marquette, spoke about it in their own books. They didn’t see the book as that damaging, but felt some resentment towards Jackie Pallo for breaking one of the main tenets of wrestling – keep your mouth shut!
However, this wasn’t the biggest expose to be released that year. In The Sun newspaper that year, Tony “Banger” Walsh received a big payoff to write an article revealing everything Pallo did about the business.
He was recently retired and angry at the low pay and poor conditions the Crabtrees (mainly Max) had the wrestlers performing under in Joint Promotions.
Due to how heavily circulated the paper was, this caused a bigger storm around the country, although the recently retired Walsh cared little for the backlash.
The wrestlers were so annoyed that even years later, Mark Rocco was still bringing it up during a Sky Sports round table show. That shows how deeply these exposes cut to the wrestlers who made their living in the ring.
He Was Very Complimentary Of His Rival Mick McManus
While many wrestlers were criticised in his book, notably the aforementioned Peter Preston, Mick McManus was somebody that Jackie Pallo was more than complimentary about.
Despite the legendary Mick McManus vs Jackie Pallo rivalry pitting the two hated heels against one another, Pallo had nothing but respect to give to McManus throughout his book.
He dedicated an entire chapter to their feud, which makes sense given how important it was to their careers and British wrestling as a whole.
“What a professional,” Jackie Pallo wrote about Mick McManus. “What a lovely worker, what an actor, what a magnificent baddie. Certainly, he is one of the best performers the business has ever had, and he became famous.”
However, he went on to caveat that praise with, “His fame, however, has a lot to do with me.”
Mr TV did indeed help McManus become a big star. While he was already in the main event, Jackie Pallo interrupting him at Wembley Arena on TV kicked off a feud that took them above what was ever thought was possible in wrestling.
You Grunt, I’ll Groan Wasn’t The First Expose On British Wrestling
You hear from those who’ve read it that the book is a salacious tell-all, where Pallo rips about all his previous opponents and ruins the business for everyone. But he is happy to give credit where credit is due and compliments the workers more than he derides them.
Yes, of course, he explains the secrets of the business, but let’s not pretend people didn’t already know it wasn’t real! Even in the book, he tells the tale of losing a razor blade, used to cut himself, in the crowd. As he scrambled on the floor looking for it, a member of the public whispered into his ear, saying, “Are you looking for the razor blade?”.
Jackie Pallo may have been the most high-profile man to expose the business, but he wasn’t the first and he certainly wasn’t the one to convince people wrestling was a work. They weren’t stupid!
In Pallo’s own words in The Wrestling, “By the time the book came out, even the average fucking moron knew it was bent.”
However, his book is historic. It is likely the first major publication from a wrestler to really peek behind the curtain. Some wrestlers won’t admit it’s fake long after retirement, with “Jude” Al Marquette’s entire 2004 autobiography refusing to admit any matches were ever fixed!
Jackie Pallo’s “You Grunt, I’ll Groan” is a fascinating read. None of the exposing information will be new to the average smart wrestling fan, but it is interesting to see somebody from the Golden Age of British Wrestling talking about this stuff for the first time.
The book itself is hard to find and goes for a pretty penny on eBay. For the keen fan of British wrestling, I say it’s a must-read if you can find it!
