1955 Tag Trophy - Cdn Tag Titles

Rare shot of what I believe is the George Richards Trophy that was presented to the Canadian Tag Champs starting in 1954. This one came after the Calvert Trophy that had been destroyed by The Mills Brothers in Jan 1954. George Richards was a local wrestler who started his own clothing line for Big & Tall men and supplied the stylish out-of-ring wardrobes for many of the stars of the day, notable the always well-dressed Whipper (pictured above with Yukon Eric Dec 1955.

If you were the one who scored this photo on E-Bay please send me a large format scan if you could !
Any photos of the Calvert Trophy would be most appreciated also

For more on George Richards see George Richards

Also see Gary Will's TWH - Cdn Open Tag Titles

Maple Leaf Wrestling.com

Book Review - Legends of Pro Wrestling

Legends of Pro Wrestling by Tim Hornbaker 

 

At first glance this book may appear to be your run of the mill encyclopedia style Wrestling book.
 
It most definitely is not!

Tim Hornbaker, who penned the very informative and all-encompassing "National Wrestling Alliance: The Untold Story of the Monopoly that Strangled Pro Wrestling" pours a lot of research into a very simple method of presenting a wide variety of wrestlers from the past 150 years.

The format is similar to a stat sheet on each entry, mostly following a Career snapshot type delivery. Among the stats are career spans. It's very hard to pinpoint starts and ends of careers in the Wrestling business unless you have access to a wide variety of research sources,  mainly a results or match listing record. For many of the stars of the pre 1960 days this is a lot easier said than done. That along with the other facts presented makes this a fine read start to finish.

Also listed in many cases is who trained the wrestler, real names, titles held, and time as a world champion. Many entries I was surprised to see how many titles they actually held, as many parts of careers are notably under-researched or just coming to light in recent years.

Each entry gets a short bio which steers clear of the normal well-known facts and offers a broader defined look at each wrestler

Tim relies on his own research as well as the research of many of the historians of the sport to present a very interesting and formative reference tool that will appeal to both the casual and hard core researchers and fans alike.

I highly recommend this book, you can get more info at Tim's fabulous website http://www.legacyofwrestling.com/

MLG Poster 1963

 

There are not a lot of posters from this era. Appears that they weren't produced in volume, rather there would be a couple around the Gardens, outside Frank's office or in the Hot Stove Lounge so they don't turn up too often. 

This one from 1963  features U.S. champ J.P. Henning taking on former champ Johnny Valentine. Henning was a big star in Toronto at this time and was coming off a NWA title shot at MLG vs Lou Thesz but would lose his belt on this night -after 19 minutes of action

Rest of the card was 

Johnny Valentine defeated John Paul Henning to win the U.S. title 

Little Beaver/Sonny Boy Cassidy defeated Sky Low Low/Billy The Kid

Killer Kowalski defeated Tony Marino
Lorenzo Parente defeated Stan Stasiak
Seaman Art Thomas defeated Fred Atkins
Hans Schmidt drew Jim Hady

For more Toronto Posters see MLWP - Toronto Posters

also MLWP - Ontario Posters

Maple Leaf Wrestling.com

MLW Message Board

Some years back Gary Will had a message board dedicated to Toronto Wrestling History,  a great place to ask and learn , mostly from Gary ! but others that were knowledgeable about the area would also participate.

As there are no boards currently focusing on the history of Canadian Wrestling I thought we could start one, I have sourced much of the Toronto and Oshawa scenes, and other local fans, friends Wes and Pete have both covered the Western side of Southern Ontario extensively.

There are others who have contributed to the MLWP sites from the Maritimes and Quebec in particular who I hope will join in, and hopefully Vern May aka Vance Nevada, responsible for compiling and conserving much of Canada's rich wrestling past will check in.

I will post some notable historical articles , stuff from the papers, maybe some questions to get it going, and the first project will be to compile and complete a detailed list of all the promoters through the eras across Canada

Please visit , contribute, learn,  and enjoy the MLW Message Board