This is a thing I just saw
Writer, historian & occasional wrestling commentator/referee/oddjobsman Host of the Bunkum & Ballyhoo podcast (@bunkumballyhoo.bsky.social) "Kayfabe: A Mostly True History of Professional Wrestling", out now: bit.ly/3N1Q73b www.patrickwreed.com
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This is a thing I just saw
Drop an old person you're going to turn into. (Either/or, with any luck)
How does that upcoming AAA show have a “lucha showcase match”, that’s funny as fuck.
My new insult for people who paint flags on roundabouts
Happy to report that it is once again Staturday Night.
subscriptions >>> shop.viz.co.uk/viz348bs
I had zero clue this ever happened.
someone said that Jimmy Hart is starting to look like John Carpenter. Except Jimmy is actually four years older than John.
On the same day in the Telegraph:
![The Telegraph Rayner tax scandal - £40k tax dodge - Statement Angela Rayner dodges £40,000 stamp duty Deputy Prime Minister reduces tax bill for Hove flat by declaring it as her main residence [Photo: Angela Rayner pictured at the weekend in Hove, where she has just bought a flat Credit: Dan Charity/The Sun on Sunday] Robert Mendick Chief Reporter. Amy Gibbons Political Correspondent 29 August 2025 8:57am BST](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2kf2qj56o2vq7jfaq4x4ogp6/bafkreihe5mm7nwmwvzhtgadmsafyvsaxhrufuai2d2j2rju5zt6g2lytea@jpeg "Click to view full size")
![The Telegraph Money > Property > Second homes How to avoid tax on your second home From stamp duty to council tax, shield your wealth from Labour's tightening net [Photo of houses around a bay - Areas such as Cornwall have added a premium to council tax bills for second homes Credit: iStockphoto] Fran Ivens Senior Money Writer 29 August 2025 1:21pm BST](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2kf2qj56o2vq7jfaq4x4ogp6/bafkreieuwgc2vsmyfcctmf4cnpcqckij2pqdk2gmzajpnihrsqyqmzyr5e@jpeg "Click to view full size")
This might be important to some people
This is a fantastic episode about an incredible karate maniac.
In the latest episode of Bunkum & Ballyhoo, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle goes to bat to support the authenticity of some extraordinary photographs, which appear to show two young girls playing with the fairies at the bottom of their garden. But are they the real deal? 🟢: bit.ly/4g755Cl
As part of our 25th anniversary celebrations, here's one of our favourite 'Meet Someone' encounters when the British Bulldog gets caught up with Greek mythology. Live & Kicking Series 1, 30 October 1993
I wasn't expecting to see old man Sakuraba do a plancha today.
Kenny is a guy nobody begrudges being a part-timer, with an existing health condition that people know makes him vulnerable if they really *do* need to write him out for an extended period, or put him in jeopardy. So why do another neck injury angle instead?
it downplays the specific evils of the Death Riders when you have *another* heel faction going around giving people neck injuries requiring them to be stretchered out, and on the same show that FTR are hitting people with Spike Piledrivers.
Adam Priest is fantastic, & could do great stuff with FTR, particularly if AEW can stay focused & follow up on it. FTR shouldn't be losing right now, but him getting a shock pinfall over them thanks to a C&C distraction wouldn't upset me. I can see a swerve coming of him costing C&C at All Out too.
oh, bloke who looks like Eddie Kingston is back in the crowd, and he has an Eddie Kingston shirt on this week.
it makes *some* kind of sense when security are useless to stop wrestlers, but why would a ring full of professional wrestlers just stand there with YouTube shocked face when one of their mates was hit with a spike piledriver?
Security aren't enough to stop this one, best send out some miscellaneous scrubs
oh, Justin Roberts actually announcing him as Adam Copeland rather than Cope? Is that experiment finally binned off, or have I been missing him doing that for weeks? It's hard to tell, because nobody but Cope and the ring announcers ever got on-board with it anyway.
MVP wrestling at All Out, then. It'll do wonders for the discourse if even the semi-retired manager doesn't do a clean job.
Yesterday marked ten years since one of my favourite wrestling stories - when little kids were playing at wrestling on the estate, and my friend's daughter insisted that one of them had to be me to restore order. Not just that they had to referee, they had to specifically be Referee Patrick W. Reed.
oh, I'm not a fan of generic Tweets being displayed on-screen during the show. About ten years too late for that to be worth doing.
they've remembered the Hook angle! There's not really any outcome in this story I'm interested in, but that's a separate problem.
Love seeing Riho back, that wasn't what I was expecting at all.
...a million bucks, and Windsor came out of that match stronger than she went in, even in defeat. Mercedes Moné is great at uplifting opponents like that, and when it comes to appearances in RevPro, even being booked against Moné makes someone look a big deal because it's a seal of approval.
love a match with time cues that doesn't go to a time limit finish. One of the worst results of wrestling lingo breaking containment is fans who think that "putting over" is a synonym for "losing to" - you can lose to someone without putting them over at all, and beat them while making them look...
...too long ago. At the risk of going a bit Four Yorkshireman, we didn't have regular WWE try-out sessions, and the odds of one of the big companies looking at a British talent were microscopic. They already had Bulldog, or Regal, why would they need another?
whenever I see someone like Alex Windsor, who I've worked with, and followed their career for a long time, I always think it's worth bearing in mind how lucky we are in wrestling today. The idea that there was a clear path from wrestling on UK indies to the big leagues would have been madness not...
Call me a traditionalist, but I don't think babyfaces should be attacking people with chloroform-soaked rags.
This is a really fun show-opening brawl, but where's it going? We've done "all the babyfaces vs. the Death Riders" forever. At least this time it feels like the faces are together enough to have the Death Riders' number, but we should be at the point that the Death Riders are collapsing entirely.
Hook's new music definitely works better when he's just walking out looking cool like that than when he's doing a quick, impactful run-in. I don't know if this is abandoning the "are Hook and the Opps friends?" story or leaning into it, though.
"brought up on the streets of Nottingham, England"
distracted for the first few minutes of Dynamite trying to work out if Darby was wearing a Burzum hoodie.
And because there were quite a few more I enjoyed this month... Lathe of Heaven - Aurora Eiko Ishibashi and Jim O'Rourke - Pareidolia CMAT - Euro-Country Pile - Sunshine and Balance Beams
my favourite albums from August 2025: Martin Carthy - Transform Me Then Into A Fish Jehnny Beth - You Heartbreaker You Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople Nova Twins - Parasites and Butterflies
This is phenomenal. Always great to hear from William "Willy" McQuillian.
This definitively proves that two hundred million people all simultaneously focusing their ill will on a single point cannot make a man's head explode, Scanners-style.
Couldn't find his Cagematch.
In the dying days of old Twitter, I posted a thread trying to determine who the oldest wrestlers to ever compete were. Let's revisit that today. 🧵🤼♂️
Tony Schiavone as the criminologist, and Hangman Page as Eddie, and we've got ourselves a deal. (Or Prince Nana as Dr Scott, if Swerve is to play Eddie)
What's the silliest reason you have stopped watching a series that everyone else says is great? I couldn't get through more than one episode of The Bear because of how annoying I find how Americans use "Chef" as an honorific.
every English village has at minimum three genres of local nutter: 1. Bloke who is far too into military stuff and always wears camo 2. Bloke who is far too into old American cowboy stuff; wearing a Stetson to the shops, or painting their car up to look like the General Lee 3. The Flag One
something that has set me in good stead when in unfamiliar territory is to never trust a pub that has England flags everywhere when there's no international sport on, and to be extremely wary of pubs which *only* have England flags up and no others during the Six Nations or the World Cup.
one day I'll get round to doing the Tintin retrospective podcast I've been threatening for the last decade.
aside from the GI thing, I often wonder if it's just an extrapolation from existing American stereotypes of white people not being able to handle spicy food, and the same part of them that discounts Desi food as not "British" thinks "Britain, that's where white people come from".
Right. And I enjoyed the first two Paddington movies, they're great. You're treating observations, made as part of a broader discussion on how Hollywood engages with wealth in films, as a criticism that you need to defend against, or to argue points I haven't made.
The escapism of Paddington is "wouldn't it be nice to hang out with a friendly bear", not "wouldn't it be nice to be upper middle class". And again, the conversation isn't really about "relatability" in the abstract, it's about the invisibility of/writers' approaches to wealth in cinema.
remember when Americans got all huffy about Bake Off doing Mexican food wrong? That might even be where all the slagging off of curry on social media began. As if the country that gave us Taco Bell have a solitary leg to stand on when it comes to Mexican food.
A fun thing to do is ask tradesmen if they're scared of snakes before they come into your house. You don't even have to have a snake! You can just ask!
Oh absolutely, they are brilliant films, these are observations of where they reflect a trend, rather than criticisms per sé.
Yeah, not really the point I was making, is it?
Of course, and the first two Paddington films are brilliant. It's just part of a broader conversation about the invisibility of money in movies, and of quaint Englishness being packaged and sold for American audiences.
I don't think appealing to the content of the books matters much; the books didn't have a villainous taxidermist or a prison break! They could have set the film in the 1960s to be in line with the first book, or included plot points about the house without losing the spirit of the thing.
I suppose Paddington is the recent example. What's supposed to be a normal, relatable family live in a glamorous London townhouse with a spiral staircase, apparently all covered by the salaries of an insurance broker and an illustrator. But their wealth isn't the plot, it's just the baseline.
TMC felt like a throwback to the '80s; the Home Alone thing where the main characters living in obvious, audacious wealth wasn't even the plot, it was just taken as read. The moment the film opens in this opulent high-ceiled room, it's not cosy & relatable, it's utterly alien to 90% of the audience.
similarly, when Hollywood ever has to show that someone is "poor", it's them not having enough change at the grocery store, or their card getting declined. If you're genuinely that poor, that doesn't happen. You know *exactly* how much money you have left and what groceries it can buy you.
this reminds me of something I read years ago, which argued that so many movies (particularly in the '90s & '00s) where characters are supposed to be stressed at work involve them having to prep for a "big presentation", which very few working people ever have to do. But Hollywood execs *do*.
Honestly no idea, I assume probably the video came first, but it was something thrown around so much
Before I had ever seen this video, I worked with multiple indie guys who described it as him "Luging the peen", and used to sneak doing it into their matches to pop the boys. I have probably done it myself at least once while reffing.
I assumed them fighting over shoes was a NewLegacy joke I wasn't getting. This was *actually* the story?!
Lol! Gjaldskylda means you have to pay for parking but these poor tourists think it’s the name of the mountain/foss/geyser.
Now AI slop is even taking John Boyne's job
Didn’t you call them chavs and yobs for 20 years until you realised you could ventriloquise your posh-boy racism through them?
I was going to follow up by working out who had the claim to have wrestled in 7 or 8 decades, but some of the people on this list have been wrestling for 50+ years yet don't have more than a page on Cagematch, so it would be a huge undertaking to try and work that out.
Thanks- for a lot of these I assume that there's more than what's recorded on Cagematch etc, so that's good to know.
Actually, Frankenstein is a doctor success at the Venice film festival
...a definitive statement or proof; recent news articles describing him as one of the world's oldest wrestlers are frustratingly coy about the specifics. He is booked to wrestle in October, and if it's true that he *is* 83 now, if that match goes ahead he will be 84, and set the male record.
...my hunch there is that they have taken Ron's debut and assumed Don debuted at the same time. More recent newspaper accounts have suggested a 1960 debut. One website lists his DoB as 1939, which would make him 83 now, if correct. Conservatively, I'd say he could be between 78 and 83 until I get...
And finally, we have Don Wright. Information is hard to come by; usually just a footnote in discussions of his brother and tag partner Ron. I once asked Beau James, who estimated that Don had debuted in the 1950s, and that he is in his 80s. Several websites do list a debut date in 1956, though...
And now we get into murky territory. I can't verify an age, or much of anything, for Wayne Rogers. He was largely a jobber for southern territories, and I can find him wrestling in the late 1970s. He wrestled at least as recently as 2023, so I would hazard a guess and put him in his early 70s?
Getting to the end of our list now; Mae Weston was a carnival worker who became a pro-wrestler in 1938, and after her in-ring career came to an end, she became "Maw Bass", a rare female manager to her "sons" Ron & Don Bass in the 1970s. Her last match was a Battle Royal in 1994, at the age of 71.
The last of the Brits is Billy Riley, proprietor of the Snakepit Gym in Wigan, and progenitor of generations of feared shooters. His career began in 1909, and he thought nothing of jumping into the ring to replace absent wrestlers on his shows well into pensionable age, working his last match at 72.
The late, great Adrian Street is one of the few on this list that I've had the pleasure of meeting. His career was long, unmatched, & unrepeatable, spanning 56 years from 1957 to his final match in 2014, aged 73. I tried to talk him into wrestling one match in 2020, just to say he'd done 8 decades.
Two more names from the World of Sport Days; the inimitable Les Kellett was definitely 68 when he wrestled his last verified match in 1983, but is rumoured to have worked as late as 1987, when he'd have been 72. Scrubber Daly wrestled his last match to date in 2023, aged 68.
another familiar opponent for Johnny Saint was Johnny Kidd, a man I've seen have more retirement matches than some wrestlers have had matches. At 69, he seems to have finally hung up the boots for good last year, and now works as a referee and trainer.
one of Sainty's final opponents was Claude Roca, a French wrestler who worked a match in 2021, when he would have been 76 years old. Outside of his native France, he worked a number of tours of China and Thailand later in his career. I can't find a debut date, but he was wrestling in 1977.
and that brings us on to some other Brits. Buddy Ward looked to set the record of "World's Oldest Wrestler" when he came out of retirement in 2010, aged 75. His opponent was Johnny Saint, who wrestled his last match aged 73 in 2015, and has since made appearances for both WWE and AEW.
sticking with large wrestling families, Ricky Knight wrestled his retirement match in September 2024, 71 years old at the end of a 45 year career.
It was family that lured our next two out of retirement - Woody Farmer was a star of the '60s and '70s, who came out of retirement aged 71 in 2007, to team with his son and grandson. Stu Hart also last wrestled at 71, in 1986, teaming with son Keith to wrestle JR Foley and the Honky Tonk Man.
On the topic of masked men, Mr. Wrestling II (Johnny Walker) was a favourite of US President Jimmy Carter, and came out of retirement aged 73 in 2007 to team with his successor, Steve Corino, who had donned the mask as Mr. Wrestling III.
A quick detour back to Lucha Libre while I'm on the topic of dubious or unverified claims. Wikipedia has Estrella Blanca wrestling a match in 2011, aged 73. I can't trace him wrestling beyond a quiet retirement in the 90s, and I suspect that this was a Jr, an El Hijo, or someone else using the name.
The word legend is so over-used in wrestling that it doesn't do justice to The Great Gama. He is alleged to have wrestled until the age of 77, but so much of his life is mythologised as an unbeaten national hero that it's impossible to pick fact from fiction. I err on the side of disbelief here.
Some claim that Martin "Farmer" Burns, a legend of the pioneer era, wrestled into his 70s - it seems unlikely, and by that time wrestling had transformed well beyond the sport as he understood it. John Pesek, who debuted in 1914, likely *did* continue wrestling into the 1960s, wrestling at age 71.
Some older dubious claims now. Warren Bockwinkel, father of Nick, retired in 1957, but is rumoured to have wrestled in 1983. If so, he would have been 71. Gustav Fristenzky, a star of the early 20th century, was rumoured to have wrestled at 72, but proof is hard to come by & strikes me as unlikely.
"Irish" Mickey Doyle isn't exactly a household name, but as a journeyman he worked with everyone there was to work with - from Karl Gotch to ODB. In 2022, aged 73, he competed in a War Games match for Michigan's UPW.
Kenny Jay was a stalwart jobber of the AWA, with a career that spanned from 1958 until his retirement in 2013, aged 75. You'd be hard pressed to find a match he won, but he has the rare distinction of wrestling Muhammad Ali, and was called the best overall talent in wrestling by Harley Race.
I don't know much about the late Frank Durso of Pittsburgh. He debuted in 1967, and had his last match in 2013, at the ripe old age of 76. Also 76 was Angel Acevedo, one of many wrestlers to use the "Cuban Assassin" name, in his last match in 2017.
Cagematch has Bobo Brazil Jr as last wrestling in 2023; but the frustration with keeping records up to date is that so much goes on under the radar. Luckily, YouTube was able to set me right on this one. Bobo Jr wrestled at least as recently as this June, 50 years after his debut. He's 73.
Ivan Koloff, the man who beat Bruno Sammartino to win the WWF World TItle, wrestled his final match in 2013, at the age of 71. It was against Bullet Bob Armstrong, who we've already encountered on this list - if I'd planned this out better, I might have stuck them both in one post. Lesson learned.
let's rattle through some WWF names now. Afa, of the Wild Samoans, one of the founding fathers of the "Bloodline", was 70 in his final match. Nikolai Volkoff and Baron Michele Leone were both 69. Jimmy Snuka was 71.
The Great Kabuki might be the platonic ideal of a Japanese surly old man wrestler. He debuted for the JWA in 1964, and under the tutelage of Gary Hart in Texas developed a demonic character that introduced the concept of "poison mist" into pro-wrestling. He last wrestled, aged 70, in 2018.
Masanobu Kurisu trod a somewhat similar path to Onita; while Onita came up through AJPW, for Kurisu it was NJPW, but he too evolved into a chair-swinging maniac, touring the Japanese indies. Lacking the charisma of Onita, he settled for being an all-time shithouse. He wrestled at 71, in 2018.
sticking with the Onita connection, early in his career he was joined to the hip with Masanobu Fuchi - they debuted as opponents back in 1974, and went on a US excursion together as a tag team. Fuchi is the elder of the two, and wrestled in his most recent match in July 2024, aged 70.
Katsuji Ueda was a kickboxer before Onita brought him in to wrestle for FMW, back when that promotion was less about explosions and bloodletting and more about Wrestler vs. Martial Artist clashes. He continued to pop up on wrestling shows until his final match, aged 70, in August 2016.
Atsushi Onita himself, meanwhile, is a mere 67 years old. Wikipedia describes him as "semi-retired", and you might think "fair enough, he had his first retirement match in 1985", but he's wrestled at least 14 times this year, at least half of those in some variety of barbed wire/explosion deathmatch
Kim Duk/Tiger Toguchi wrestled on the same Atsushi Onita-promoted show as Dory Funk Jr's last match, at the age of 76. Due to wrestle in that same match, but pulled out due to ill health, was Mitsuo Momota, son of the legendary Rikidozan. His last match was in 2020, aged 72.
Speaking of Lou Thesz, he's perhaps the most famous member of the Seven Decade Club. He debuted in 1932, won his first World Title in 1937, and wrestled his last match in 1990, against Masahiro Chono, aged 74. He is widely considered one of the greatest champions in wrestling history.
And then of course, there's El Canek. Canek wrestled Psycho Clown and Penta in 2022. He has also wrestled Hulk Hogan for the WWF Title, bodyslammed Andre The Giant, and beat Lou Thesz for a World Title. He most recently wrestled last November, aged 72, 52 years after his debut.
