It is hard to pinpoint exactly when the Golden Era of British wrestling was, for many reasons.
Some may claim the best time was in the 1800s, before the sport turned into an entertainment product when the likes of Jack Carkeek and Georg Hackenschmidt ruled the roost.
Others may say the 1930s, when the All-In boom helped the sport become more popular than ever, before devolving into a mess of blood and hardcore wrestling.
Some may even say that the modern day is the real Golden Age, as it is the first time that male and female wrestlers are seen as equals, with all women’s promotions like Pro Wrestling EVE becoming popular for the first time.
While these all have their place in British wrestling history, the real Golden Era of British wrestling has to be what some people also call the “World of Sport Era”, “ITV Era” or even “Remember when Big Daddy used to wrestle Giant Haystacks on a Saturday?”.
Learn more about Big Daddy’s famous battles with Giant Haystacks here!
The debut of wrestling on ITV’s World of Sport in 1965 was the start of this period. Stars like Les Kellett, Jackie Pallo and Mick McManus would give way to the likes of Kendo Nagaski, Big Daddy, Mark Rocco and the Dynamite Kid, to carry the torch of the sport for the next twenty years.
This ended in 1988 when wrestling was taken off ITV for good. The business survived as a shell of its former self, never reaching the incredible peaks of that time ever again.
The Golden Era of British wrestling lasted from 1965 to 1988, although the foundations for it were laid 13 years before by the creation of a brand-new set of rules.
The Mountevans Rules Led To The Creation Of Joint Promotions

After wrestling was banned following All-In’s transformation into hardcore wrestling, Admiral Lord Mountevans created a new set of rules to help the sport get back to its glory days.
This helped codify the sport and provided a governing body to make sure everyone was following the rules. This helped get the government off the promoter’s back and made a more uniform sport for the wrestlers to compete in.
You can read more in-depth about the Mountevans rules here.
These new rules saw six different promoters join together to create a syndicate called Joint Promotions.
These six promotions were:
- Best/Wytron Promotions (Midlands/Lancashire)
- Dale Martin Promotions (London)
- Morrell/Beresford Promotions (North)
- Paul Lincoln Management (South)
- Relwyskow and Green Promotions (Scotland)
- Woodhouse/Jack Atherton Promotions (Midlands)
The goal of the six promoters was to keep the wrestlers in line and take away their bargaining power. They all agreed to not poach each other’s talent and not run a show within ten miles of each other.
This made sure there was no conflict of interest and kept the crowds excited to see their local promotion. The Joint Promotions gang also agreed that if a wrestler “no-showed” one of their shows, his booking would be cancelled for the rest of the promotions.
They even made sure to ban a wrestler from working for any of the promotions if he worked outside of the Joint Promotion bubble. This made sure that no other shows were able to use the stars to sell tickets and kept the six members strong.
While this was bad for the wrestlers, business began to boom. It would then reach unexpected heights when the Queen’s Coronation brought millions of more eyes on British TV for the first time.
The Boom In TV Ownership Helped Grow The Wrestling Business

TV ownership had boomed in Britain starting in 1953. The number of people with TV licenses shot up from 763,000 in 1951 to 3.2 million in 1954, as the Queen’s 1953 Coronation proved a huge television event – possibly the first in history.
Football was the obvious sport to make the jump to the small screen but professional wrestling wasn’t far behind.
While a match between Earl McCready and Percy Foster was shown on BBC in 1938, most fan’s first foray into that sphere in 1955. Francis St Clair Gregory took on Mike Marino on November 9th 1955.
This kicked off a regular broadcast of matches as interest continued to grow. Joint Promotions locked down their monopoly on UK wrestling, benefitting even more when the 25% entertainment tax was abolished in 1957.
They were making money hand-over-fist, although little of that was going to the wrestlers. They were at the behest of the Joint Promotions members, who gave them little choice but to work for a pittance or not at all.
While it was popular on TV, wrestling really took off in 1961 when they began running shows before the FA Cup Final. This was usually the one day a year fans could watch soccer live on TV and became a huge event all over the country.
ITV took advantage of this by broadcasting shows before the big game from 1961 all the way to 1987. The early matches achieved massive viewing figures, some unbelievably so!
The match between Jackie Pallo and Mick McManus before the 1962 FA Cup Final between Tottenham Hotspur and Burnley is claimed to have drawn an audience of over 20 million people – more than the football itself!
While that claim is dubious at best, despite oft repeated, there was no doubt that wrestling had become a huge sport in the UK.
You may think that this sounds like it was already in the Golden Era of British Wrestling! However, things would get even bigger once World of Sport started airing on ITV in 1965.
World Of Sport Kicked Off The Golden Era Of British Wrestling

In 1965, ITV began airing World of Sport. The sports magazine show broadcasted all different kinds of events from across the UK. That included wrestling, which was becoming extremely popular in Britain in the 1950s and into the 1960s.
With the FA Cup Final matches proving to be huge draws, Joint Promotions were tasked with putting on a weekly event (taped, not live) broadcast at 4pm every Saturday afternoon.
It was the perfect time slot for the product. Workers who spent their working lives in factories or down the mines usually worked a six-day week, with Saturday being a half day.
They would leave work and (after a pint or two at the pub) would stumble home to lunch on the table and the wrestling to watch on the TV.
While the Queen’s coronation in 1953 brought one boom in TV sales in Britain, the 1966 World Cup had a similar effect. 32 million people tuned in to England’s final victory over West Germany that year, which was around 60% of the population at the time.
This showed the potential for wrestling. While they would not get close to those numbers, millions and sometimes in the tens of millions would tune in weekly to see the grapplers grunting and groaning in the dimly lit music halls all over England.
The biggest earlier stars of the Golden Era were Jackie Pallo and Mick McManus, and were joined comedy wrestler Les Kellett and the evil “Cynanide” Sid Cooper, to name just a couple. They have moved away from the “shooter” style of wrestling and incorporated more showmanship into their matches.
The fans lapped it up and British wrestling became a household name. It was like watching a variety show, with strongmen, comedians and other forms of entertainement on show. While the dads may have watched for the sporting pleasure, there was something for all the family on World of Sport’s wrestling section (although the women wrestlers were banned from appearing!)
Here Are Some Of The Biggest Stars Of The Golden Age Of British Wrestling

The Golden Era of British Wrestling was when the wrestlers became the stars of the show.
Never before or since have wrestlers become so ingrained in the public consciousness yet been so accessible.
For the first time ever you could watch one of the stars on the TV, then go to your local hall and see them in the flesh. You could even slap hands with the good guys and yell obscenities or even try and attack the bad guys, as Mick McManus knew all too well.
The golden age lasted from 1965 to 1988 (although you could argue it was all but over by the mid-1980s) and as such had too many stars to mention in just one article. However, we’ve got the best of the best all lined up for you to learn about the British stars of yesteryear.
- Mick McManus – arguably the greatest heel in British wrestling history. He lost just once on TV in 20 years and was hated by the entire nation. His ridiculous jet-black hair and large ears were always a target of ridicule. His job as a booker definitely got him more air time than most but he earned every second of it with his antics in the ring.
- Jackie Pallo – Mr TV himself. He was arguably the biggest wrestling star of the 1960s and 1970s. His eleven-year-long rivalry with Mick McManus is one of the all-time great feuds, even though both men were bad guys in the ring. He was the archetypal cheeky cockney who despite a lack of wrestling skills became a huge star in the UK.
- Les Kellett – the grumpy old man was past his prime by the time TV came along, having learnt to wrestle before the war. Luckily, even past his prime, he was better at comedy wrestling than anybody who had come before. His work is hilarious to this day and he inspired legends like Colt Cabana and Nigel McGuinness with his work.
- Kendo Nagasaki – starting in 1964, Peter Thornley transformed into the mysterious masked Japanese wrestler called Kendo Nagasaki. With a legitimate Judo background and a commitment to Kayfabe, nobody knew the man behind the mask and no one dared to try and take it off. His unmasking in 1977 is among the most famous wrestling angles in UK history and he continued wrestling up until 2024 while in his 80s.
- Dynamite Kid – while his run in the mid-1970s was short he became a huge star in the UK. By the time he left the UK in the late 70s, he was a multi-time world champion, one of the best wrestlers in the world and had created a new modern style of wrestling that would change the world, while still being in his early 20s.
- Mark Rocco – a third-generation star whose fights with Sammy Lee (Tiger Mask) laid the foundation for the latter’s amazing matches with Dynamite Kid. He was forced to retire due to illness before his time but is remembered as an all-time great.
- Marty Jones – another fantastic wrestler and a mentor of William Regal. Jones’ fought Rocco in some incredible bouts that still stand up to this day.
- Giant Haystacks – the forty-stone giant was one-half of Britain’s greatest-ever feud. His battles with Big Daddy captivated the nation, with their Wembley Arena clash being one of the biggest nights in the history of wrestling.
- Big Daddy – Easy, easy! Nobody in the UK could compare to Big Daddy. He was everywhere, whether in the ring, on talk shows or even in his own comic book! While he was an overweight man in his 50s, this John Bull character launched himself into the nation’s heart and remains there now, three decades on from his death.
You can read about more of the legends of British Wrestling by clicking this link.
The Golden Era Of British Wrestling Had Some Incredible Feuds

This golden era of wrestling was the perfect mix of action and rivalry for fans to get attached to. While there were no promos or backstage attacks, stories were told in the ring and rivalries could reach a fever pitch just by a wrestler cheating inside the ring.
Old ladies were furious when they saw Mick McManus flaunt the rules, hitting him with handbags filled with bricks at any opportunity.
Even a single shout at a woman in the crowd could turn the most angelic grappler into the most hated man in the country that fans would pay to see walloped by their hero.
Some of the biggest feuds from the Golden Era of British Wrestling include:
- “Mr TV” Jackie Pallo vs Mick McManus – their bouts in the early days of British wrestling were some of the most heated in history. Despite being a rare heel-vs-heel encounter, the fans lapped it up and couldn’t get enough of these two giants of the sport.
- Kendo Nagasaki vs Big Daddy – Big Daddy was the first man to ever unmask Kendo Nagasaki. The mysterious Japanese samurai from Crewe made Daddy look a million bucks just before he ascended into being the most popular wrestler in history.
- Marty Jones vs Mark Rocco – this rivalry was based purely on skill. Marty Jones and “Rollerball” Mark Rocco were two of the world’s premiere athletes, and their matches inspired the likes of Dynamite Kid, William Regal and Tiger Mask.
- Big Daddy vs Giant Haystacks – No feud in the Golden Era of British wrestling, or any other era, drew as much interest as Big Daddy vs Giant Haystacks. The two superheavyweights were originally partners, but the crowd much preferred to see their bellies crashing together in an awful display of wrestling instead.
- Les Kellett vs Everyone – In front of the camera, Les Kellett was a clown, a jester and one of the funniest men you’ve ever seen in a wrestling ring. He inspired some of the great comedy wrestlers like Colt Cabana and William Regal but his temper and grumpy demeanour backstage got him in trouble with almost every other wrestler in the locker room.
Business Dropped Under Big Daddy’s Weight And ITV Cancelled Wrestling In 1988

A combination of failing interest and changes in TV meant that wrestling’s popularity began to fall.
While Big Daddy remained a big star all over the country, wrestling fans grew tired of his antics. His matches had devolved into him standing in the corner, waiting for a young partner like Davey Boy Smith or William Regal to tag him in to hit the opponents with his belly and finish them off with a Splashdown/Big Daddy Splash.
It was formulaic. It was predictable. And it had long worn thin. Wrestlers constantly complained about Big Daddy being the highest-paid on the bill despite not being able to wrestle a lick.
However, they did appreciate the bump in ticket sales and pay whenever he was on the card, despite the damage he did to the art of wrestling throughout the Golden Era.
ITV cancelled World of Sport in 1985 after declining ratings. The program hadn’t changed much in the 20 years it had been on air and was quickly falling behind the weekend sports shows made by the BBC.
However, the wrestling survived and was given its own slot, on a show aptly called “The Wrestling”. Joint Promotions continued having exclusivity until late 1986 when All-Star Promotions and the WWF all rotated their weekly programming.
Fans became less invested as they didn’t know which wrestlers they’d see on a week-to-week basis. In addition, the incredible production values of the WWF show were putting all British wrestling to shame.
In addition, the program was moved from its regular 4 pm slot to early afternoon. This meant that the working-class men who still did the Saturday shift would not be home in time to watch and ratings soon fell off a cliff.
Greg Dyke put the show out of its misery in 1988, citing poor ratings, outdated style and changing interests of the working class as the reason for the show’s demise.
“When I took over the sports in 1988, ITV was losing badly in the ratings to BBC. We were stuck in about 1955, and the world had changed, and we were too downmarket. Wrestling was clearly never a proper sport – that was part of the problem.” Greg Dyke said.
“It was unfortunate, really. Wrestling was unlucky, but it was so tarnished with the old-style look of ITV that it had to go. We got rid of a lot of the old game shows for the same reason. We started putting money into drama, stuff like that.”
“By the late 1980s, the interest of the working class had changed dramatically, and we wanted to capture part of where they’d gone to, rather than where they’d been. Wrestling was stuck in a time warp – it personified the old English working class, sitting round the telly, staring blankly. That was the image we were trying to kill, so we decided to kill the wrestling.”