George Walker | |
---|---|
Born | Ottawa, Ontario, Canada |
Professional wrestling career | |
Debut | 1911 |
Retired | 23 November 1937 |
George Walker was a Canadian professional wrestler. Walker had his roots in amateur wrestling and was the runner-up at the 1911 Inter-Empire Championships, after losing to Britain's Stanley Vivian Bacon. [1]
He is known for using the Boston Crab. [2]
He was the first person to hold the NWA British Empire/Commonwealth Championship (New Zealand version) in 1929 after claiming it upon arrival in New Zealand. [3] [4]
He gained the NWA New Zealand Heavyweight Championship in 1931 and held it until he retired on 23 November 1937, and the title was vacated. [4]
After his retirement, he sold a fitness guide book by mail order titled 'How to become a first-class wrestler and develop your body'. [5]
Patrick John O'Connor, was a New Zealand amateur and professional wrestler. Regarded as one of the premier workers of his era, O'Connor held the AWA World Heavyweight Championship and NWA World Heavyweight Championship simultaneously, the latter of which he held for approximately two years. He was also the inaugural AWA World Heavyweight Champion. He is an overall two-time world champion.
Houston Harris was an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name Bobo Brazil. Credited with breaking down barriers of racial segregation in professional wrestling, Harris is considered one of the first successful African-American professional wrestlers.
George Gordienko was a Canadian professional wrestler and artist. Born of first generation Ukrainian and Cossack-Canadian parents in North Winnipeg, Manitoba, by age 17 Gordienko had received numerous awards for his physical prowess. He wrestled from 1946 to 1976 and was, according to Lou Thesz and other experts, one of the top legitimate wrestlers in the world. He was rated the best heavyweight wrestler in the UK in 1963, and in 1970, won the annual Royal Albert Hall tournament in London. After his retirement he became a successful artist.
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Frank Sexton was an American professional wrestler in the early to mid-twentieth century. Along with Orville Brown, Bill Longson, and Lou Thesz, he was one of the fattest stars of the 1940s. A multiple-time world champion, his most significant run was as the Boston American Wrestling Association (AWA) World Heavyweight Champion from June 27, 1945 until May 23, 1950, when he lost the championship to Don Eagle in Cleveland, Ohio. Sexton died in 1990.
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Earl Gray McCready was a Canadian amateur and professional wrestler. McCready competed in the U.S. collegiately for Oklahoma A&M, where he was a three-time NCAA champion, the first wrestler ever to do so. As a freestyle wrestler, he competed for his native country of Canada in the 1928 Summer Olympics. In 1930, he won a gold medal in the heavyweight class at the British Empire Games. He soon turned pro shortly after and became a three-time NWA British Empire Heavyweight Champion. McCready was nicknamed 'The Moose' during his wrestling career.
The New Zealand version of the NWA British Empire/Commonwealth Championship was a professional wrestling heavyweight championship defended in the National Wrestling Alliance-affiliated Dominion Wrestling Union from 1929 to 1953 and in All Star Pro Wrestling from 1968 to 1990. It was first won in 1929 by Canadian wrestler George Walker, who claimed the title upon his arrival in New Zealand, and defended the belt for seven years before leaving for a rival promotion in 1935. It was the second oldest championship after the NWA New Zealand Heavyweight Championship and had 36 officially recognized champions during its 60-year history.
The Dominion Wrestling Union (DWU) was the first professional wrestling promotion in New Zealand. It was one of two organisations first active in the Australasian region, along with Australia's Stadiums Limited, and served as the country's single major promotion for 30 years until being succeeded by All Star Pro Wrestling in 1962. The DWU was initially under the control of the New Zealand Wrestling Union, a sort of governing body which promoted both amateur and professional bouts, until American promoter Walter Miller largely took over the running of professional events in 1935 and which remained under Miller's control until his death in 1959.
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