Billy Robinson

Last updated

Billy Robinson
Billy Robinson - Wrestling programme NWA 267 1976 magazine.jpg
Robinson in 1976.
Birth nameWilliam Alfred Robinson
Born(1938-09-18)18 September 1938 [1]
Manchester, Lancashire, England [1]
Died27 February 2014(2014-02-27) (aged 75) [1]
Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S. [1]
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s) Billy Robinson [2]
Billed height5 ft 11 in (1.80 m) [2]
Billed weight240 lb (110 kg; 17 st) [2]
Trained by Billy Riley [2]
Billy Joyce [3]
Debut1958
RetiredMay 8, 1992
Sports career
Medal record
Freestyle wrestling
British Senior Championships
Gold medal icon (G initial).svg1957Light heavyweight [4]

William Alfred Robinson (18 September 1938 – 27 February 2014) [1] was an English professional wrestler, amateur wrestler, and coach. Having trained at Billy Riley's gym, better known as "The Snake Pit" in Wigan, Robinson was one of the leading practitioners of catch wrestling, a British national champion in freestyle wrestling, and a professional wrestling world champion. He had a successful career in the UK and internationally, especially in Japan.

Contents

Robinson is known for training professional wrestlers and mixed martial artists in the catch wrestling style, including Josh Barnett, Kazushi Sakuraba, Kiyoshi Tamura, and Shayna Baszler. His favourite saying as a coach was "do it again", which came from his trainer Billy Riley. He acted in several movies, including The Wrestler , and inspired the Kinnikuman character Robin Mask. [1] [5]

Early life

Robinson was born in Manchester on September 18, 1938 to William James and Frances Hester (nee Exley). [1] The men in the family were boxers and he started between four and five years of age. He also worked in his family's grocery store, where an eye injury between eleven and twelve years of age required hospitalization for five months and disqualified him from ever getting a boxing licence. [3] [5]

Robinson began amateur wrestling at fourteen. After a year, his father introduced him to Billy Riley, a reputed catch wrestling trainer who ran a gym in Wigan. Riley's Gym (later dubbed "The Snake Pit") was one of the most famed catch wrestling training schools in the world, had a rough training environment and produced wrestlers such as Karl Gotch, Bert Assirati, Jack Dempsey, and Billy Joyce. [5] [3] At the 1957 British Senior Championships, he won the freestyle wrestling light heavyweight title. [4]

It has often been repeated that Robinson was also a "European Open Champion in the light heavyweight class, beating an Olympic bronze medal winner in the finals" in 1958, without stating who the medallist was. [6] [7] [8] [9] However, FILA did not hold the European Wrestling Championships between 1949 and 1966, and despite records going back to the first "unofficial European Championships" in 1898, United World Wrestling (FILA's successor) has no records of a "European Open Championship" taking place or anyone with Robinson's name competing for Britain, England, or any other nation. [10]

Professional wrestling career

Early days in Europe

As a professional wrestler, Robinson became a double-crown British and European Heavyweight Champion for Joint Promotions. In 1963, he wrestled in a match at the Royal Albert Hall that was attended by Prince Philip. [11] He defeated fellow Riley's wrestler and mentor Billy Joyce for the European title on 12 June 1965 [12] and then beat Joyce again for the British title on 18 January 1967, [13] vacating both titles in 1970 when he went off to America. [12] [13] He also had a high-profile feud with masked wrestler Kendo Nagasaki. [14]

In 1978, Robinson made a brief homecoming tour of the UK including a televised win over Lee Bronson. [15]

North America

Robinson traveled to North America in 1969 for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling where he defeated Archie "The Stomper" Gouldie to earn a title shot at NWA World Heavyweight champion Dory Funk Jr. Soon afterwards, he began wrestling for Verne Gagne's American Wrestling Association. He was one of the most successful wrestlers of the American promotion known for hiring the "Real Deals" in wrestling. He was a three-time AWA British Empire Heavyweight Champion, reigning and defending in the United States and Canada. On 12 October 1974, his reputation as a legitimate wrestler landed him a role in the film The Wrestler alongside Verne Gagne and Ed Asner. He wrestled in Montreal in 1982 and 1983 becoming the International Champion beating Dino Bravo and was also International Tag Team champions with Pierre Mad Dog Lefebvre. He wrestled to a 60-minutes time-limit draw against then WWF Champion Bob Backlund in 1982 as well in Montreal.[ citation needed ]

Japan

Robinson traveled to Japan where he became popular as a wrestler versed in submission holds. He had a series of matches with Canadian George Gordienko. The pair had a notable match in 1968 as part of a "world championship tournament" where the pair wrestled to a draw in Sapporo. [5] He participated in a professional wrestling match against Antonio Inoki in 1975. The match was billed as "The Match Between the World's Top Two Technicians" by the Japanese press. Japanese professional wrestlers learned the art of "hooking" and "shooting" from other catch wrestling icons including Karl Gotch and Lou Thesz. The new movement led to the formation of the Universal Wrestling Federation. The UWF wrestlers like Yoshiaki Fujiwara had also been to the Snake Pit in Wigan. In his last match, he advanced the shoot-style movement when he worked for the Union of Wrestling Forces International against fellow AWA champion Nick Bockwinkel on 8 May 1992.[ citation needed ]

Retirement

Robinson, having previously trained wrestlers in England including Marty Jones and Johnny Saint, began training wrestlers in catch wrestling at the UWF Snake Pit Japan, including James Maritato, Kazushi Sakuraba and El Signo. [16] He also managed a convenience store and was a security guard at the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino for a time. [5] [3] He moved to Little Rock, Arkansas in 2001 to be closer to his son's family. [1] His autobiography, Physical Chess: My Life in Catch-as-Catch-Can Wrestling, was published in June 2012. [17] He continued to coach catch wrestling into his final years, in his adopted home of Arkansas along with seminars in the United States, Japan, Britain, and Canada. [3] [18]

Death

Robinson died in his sleep on February 27, 2014, at the age of 75. [1]

Notable students

Championships and accomplishments

Robinson (pictured c. 1973) held multiple championships over the course of his career. Billy Robinson, 1973.png
Robinson (pictured c. 1973) held multiple championships over the course of his career.

Freestyle wrestling

Professional wrestling

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruiser Brody</span> American professional wrestler and homicide victim (1946–1988)

Frank Donald Goodish was an American professional wrestler who earned his greatest fame under the ring name Bruiser Brody. He also worked as King Kong Brody, the Masked Marauder, and Red River Jack. Over the years Brody became synonymous with the hardcore wrestling brawling style that often saw one or more of the participants bleeding by the time the match was over. In his prime he worked as a "special attraction" wrestler in North America, making select appearances for various promotions such as World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW), World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), Central States Wrestling (CSW), Championship Wrestling from Florida (CWF), and the American Wrestling Association (AWA) among other events. He worked regularly in Japan for All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lou Thesz</span> American professional wrestler (1916–2002)

Aloysius Martin Thesz, known by the ring name Lou Thesz, was an American professional wrestler. Considered to be one of the last true shooters in professional wrestling and described as the "quintessential athlete" and a "polished warrior who could break a man in two if pushed the wrong way", Thesz is widely regarded as one of the greatest wrestlers and wrestling world champions in history, and possibly the last globally accepted world champion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Verne Gagne</span> American professional wrestler and football player (1926–2015)

Laverne Clarence "Verne" Gagne was an American amateur and professional wrestler, football player, wrestling trainer and wrestling promoter. He was the owner and promoter of the Minneapolis-based American Wrestling Association (AWA), the predominant promotion throughout the Midwest and Manitoba for many years. He remained in this position until 1991, when the company folded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Muraco</span> American professional wrestler

Don Muraco is an American retired professional wrestler. He is best known for his appearances with the World Wrestling Federation from 1981 to 1988, where he held the WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship on two occasions and was crowned the inaugural winner of the King of the Ring tournament in 1985. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2004 and the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rick Martel</span> Canadian professional wrestler

Richard Vigneault is a Canadian retired professional wrestler, trainer, and television presenter, better known by his ring name, Rick "The Model" Martel. He is best known for his appearances with the American Wrestling Association, the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling. Championships held by Martel over the course of his career include the AWA World Heavyweight Championship, WCW World Television Championship, and WWF World Tag Team Championship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abdullah the Butcher</span> Canadian professional wrestler

Lawrence Robert Shreve, better known by the ring name Abdullah the Butcher, is a Canadian retired professional wrestler. He has a reputation for being involved in some of the most violent and bloody hardcore wrestling matches of all time. Over his time in wrestling he was given the moniker of "Madman from Sudan".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larry Zbyszko</span> American professional wrestler

Lawrence Whistler, better known by the ring name Larry Zbyszko, is an American retired professional wrestler. He is perhaps best known for his feud with his mentor, Bruno Sammartino, during the early 1980s as well as his work as a wrestler and color commentator for World Championship Wrestling. Among other accolades, he is a two-time world champion having twice held the AWA World Heavyweight Championship. Zbyszko was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame on March 28, 2015, by Sammartino.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dory Funk Jr.</span> American professional wrestler and trainer

Dorrance Earnest Funk, known professionally as Dory Funk Jr., is an American professional wrestler and wrestling trainer. The son of Dory Funk and brother of Terry Funk, he was the promoter of the Amarillo, Texas-based Western States Sports promotion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stan Hansen</span> American professional wrestler

John Stanley "Stan" Hansen II, best known as Stan "The Lariat" Hansen, is an American retired professional wrestler.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Patriot (wrestler)</span> All-American college football player, professional wrestler (1961–2021)

Delbert Alexander "Del" Wilkes, Jr. was an American professional wrestler and college football player, better known by his ring names, The Trooper and The Patriot. Over the course of his ten-year career, Wilkes wrestled for the American Wrestling Association, the Global Wrestling Federation, All Japan Pro Wrestling, World Championship Wrestling, and the World Wrestling Federation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nick Bockwinkel</span> American wrestler (1934–2015)

Nicholas Warren Francis Bockwinkel was an American professional wrestler. He is best known for his appearances with the American Wrestling Association (AWA) in the 1970s and 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pat O'Connor (wrestler)</span> New Zealand professional and amateur wrestler

Patrick John O'Connor, was a New Zealand/American amateur wrestler 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hiroshi Hase</span> Japanese politician and professional wrestler

Hiroshi Hase is a Japanese politician and semi-retired professional wrestler who is currently the governor of Ishikawa Prefecture. As a professional wrestler, Hase primarily worked for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), and also for All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) and Stampede Wrestling. During his affiliation with AJPW, he also served as the chairman for the Pacific Wrestling Federation (PWF), which is the governing body for all championships in the promotion. Among his numerous title wins, Hase held the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship once, making him a one-time world champion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jumbo Tsuruta</span> Japanese professional wrestler

Tomomi "Tommy" Tsuruta, better known by his ring name Jumbo Tsuruta, was a Japanese professional wrestler who wrestled for All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) for most of his career, and is well known for being the first ever Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion, having won the PWF Heavyweight Championship, the NWA United National Championship, and the NWA International Heavyweight Championship, and unifying the three titles. He is also known for being one-half of the first World Tag Team Champions with Yoshiaki Yatsu, having won the NWA International Tag Team Championship and the PWF Tag Team Championship, and unifying the two titles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ox Baker</span> American professional wrestler and actor (1934–2014)

Douglas Albert Baker Sr. was an American professional wrestler and actor, better known professionally as Ox Baker. He was famous for his distinctive eyebrows and finishing move, the Heart Punch, sometimes called the "Hurt Punch", after Baker's famous catchphrase "I love to hurt people!". He appeared in several films including Blood Circus and Escape from New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archie Gouldie</span> Canadian professional wrestler

Archibald Edward Gouldie was a Canadian professional wrestler. He wrestled for Stampede Wrestling for decades as Archie "The Stomper" Gouldie, with the nickname coming from the wrestler's reputation of "stomping" on his opponents, when they were down, with his black cowboy boots. He was also known by the ring name The Mongolian Stomper.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kazuo Sakurada</span> Japanese professional wrestler (1948–2020)

Kazuo Sakurada, better known as Mr. Sakurada, The Dragonmaster, and as the Japanese version of Kendo Nagasaki (ケンドー・ナガサキ), was a Japanese professional wrestler. He was best known for his work in Stampede Wrestling, National Wrestling Alliance, and World Championship Wrestling. Sakurada was also highly regarded by Bret Hart as one of his most significant trainers alongside Katsui Adachi or Mr. Hito, with whom he taught extensively in Hart Dungeon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Les Thornton</span> British professional wrestler (1934–2019)

Les Thornton was a British professional wrestler who competed in Great Britain, Japan, European and North American regional promotions throughout the 1970s and 1980s including Joint Promotions, Stampede Wrestling, the World Wrestling Federation and the National Wrestling Alliance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tor Kamata</span> American professional wrestler (1937–2007)

McRonald Kamaka was an American-Canadian professional wrestler known by the ring name Tor Kamata. He won several heavyweight and tag team championships, most notably the PWF World Heavyweight Championship in All Japan Pro Wrestling and the AWA World Tag Team Championship in the American Wrestling Association. He was a classic heel, reviled for dirty tricks in the ring, included rubbing salt in his opponent's eyes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larry Cameron</span> American professional wrestler, football player

Larry Cameron was an American professional football player and wrestler.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "William A. "Billy" Robinson". www.arkansasonline.com. 9 March 2014. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 "Online World of Wrestling". Onlineworldofwrestling.com. Retrieved 9 November 2008.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Haymes, Linda (10 December 2013). "Retired wrestling champ Robinson cultivates young talent in LR". www.arkansasonline.com. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 "List of British Senior Champions from 1904 - 2001" (PDF). Britishwrestling.org. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 "Billy Robinson - obituary". The Telegraph. 7 May 2014. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  6. ↑
  7. ↑
  8. ↑ "Billy Robinson". nwhof.org. Retrieved 14 December 2023.
  9. ↑ Mooneyham, Mike (8 March 2014). "Robinson's passing marks end of an era". Post and Courier. Retrieved 14 December 2023.
  10. ↑ "Historical Results". United World Wrestling. Retrieved 14 December 2023. Search "European" in the events section and "Robinson" in the athletes section.
  11. ↑ BjjTribes (9 April 2021). "The Story of Prince Philip and his love of Catch Wrestling". BjjTribes. Retrieved 9 April 2021.
  12. 1 2 3 "European Heavyweight Title [Joint Promotions]". Wrestling-Titles.com. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
  13. 1 2 "British Heavyweight Title". Wrestling-Titles.com. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
  14. ↑ "WRESTLING HERITAGE". WRESTLING HERITAGE. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
  15. ↑ "Itvwrestling.co.uk - 1978". Archived from the original on 10 May 2016. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  16. ↑ "Wrestlingdata.com - The World's Largest Wrestling Database". Wrestlingdata.com. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
  17. ↑ "Physical Chess: My Life in Catch-as-Catch-Can Wrestling". ECW Press. Retrieved 14 December 2023.
  18. ↑ Oliver, Greg (3 March 2014). "Billy Robinson dead at 74". Slam Wrestling. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  19. ↑ "Misc. All Japan Events". Prowrestlinghistory.com. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
  20. ↑ Real World Tag League 197 at purolove.com retrieved 7 October 2018
  21. ↑ "PUROLOVE.com". Purolove.com. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
  22. ↑ Johnson, Mike (13 March 2022). "Steve Austin & More: International Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame Class of 2022 Announced". PWInsider.com. Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 13 May 2022.
  23. ↑ Hoops, Brian (18 January 2019). "Pro wrestling history (01/18): Ivan Koloff defeats Bruno Sammartino for WWWF title". Wrestling Observer Figure Four Online . Retrieved 18 January 2019.
  24. ↑ "Lawler, McMahon, Road Warriors among PWHF Class of 2011". Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum. 26 November 2010. Retrieved 28 November 2010.
  25. ↑ "PWI Most Popular Wrestler of the Year". Archived from the original on 16 December 2008. Retrieved 9 November 2008.
  26. ↑ "Strong Style Spirit". Puroresufan.com. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
  27. ↑ Whalen, Ed (host) (15 December 1995). "Stampede Wrestling Hall of Fame: 1948-1990". Showdown at the Corral: A Tribute to Stu Hart. Event occurs at 27:55. Shaw Cable. Calgary 7.
  28. ↑ "Stampede Wrestling Hall of Fame (1948-1990)". Puroresu Dojo. 2003.
  29. ↑ "Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame". Pwi-online.org. Archived from the original on 14 July 2008. Retrieved 9 November 2008.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.