Professional wrestling in New Zealand has been promoted in the country from the early 20th century. In 1919, Gisborne Katene became the first national heavyweight champion, though the title was not recognised by the National Wrestling Association until 1925, and promoter Walter Miller began running events under the Dominion Wrestling Union banner ten years later.
It was not until the years following the Second World War that professional wrestling enjoyed its first golden age. Pat O'Connor, a one-time NWA and AWA World Heavyweight Champion, was one of the earliest stars of that era. During the 1960s and 1970s, other wrestlers from New Zealand also travelled to the United States, where they enjoyed similar success in the National Wrestling Alliance and the World Wide Wrestling Federation. American wrestlers frequently toured New Zealand during this period and were well received by the public. The NWA World Heavyweight Championship was also defended several times in the country; in 1984 Ric Flair won the title from Harley Race in Wellington and Jeff Jarrett defeated Sting in Auckland to unify the title with Australia's WWA World Heavyweight Championship in 2003.
As in the United Kingdom, its popularity was helped through a weekly television show, On the Mat, that showcased many wrestlers from around the world in the 1970s and early 1980s. Although professional wrestling in New Zealand declined following the 1980s wrestling boom, it still maintained a presence in the industry. Retired wrestler and promoter Steve Rickard briefly served as President of the NWA during the mid-1990s. Jason Conlan, a New Zealand-born cartoonist known as Pro Wrestling Illustrated's "Mr. J", began drawing a popular comic strip for the publication in 1995. Sharon Mazer of Auckland University of Technology wrote a series of articles on professional wrestling and published Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle in 1998. Since 2003, its popularity has returned following the emergence of several independent promotions, and with it the reappearance of televised wrestling, bringing professional wrestling back into the popular culture of New Zealand.
History
Early years (1900–1920s)
Though wrestling bouts had been held as early as the 1860s, modern professional wrestling would not take shape until around the turn of the 20th century. Georg Hackenschmidt toured the country performing against local wrestlers in exhibition bouts in 1905 and 1910. In 1919, Gisborne Katene defeated Frank Findlay for the NWA New Zealand Heavyweight Championship, though it became vacant shortly afterwards. The first officially recognised champion was Maori wrestler Ike Robin who won the title in Auckland on 17 March 1925, and held it until his retirement the following year; the title continued to be defended for almost 70 years.
Prior to his retirement, Robin and Stanislaus Zbyszko, a one-time World Heavyweight Champion, faced each other in a three-match series at the Auckland Town Hall in 1926. One of their matches lasted for several hours before ending in a time limit draw which, according to the New Zealand Railways Magazine, had "gone on for many weary hours and when midnight Saturday chimed and Sunday commenced the match had to cease". Despite the vast geographic distances, professional wrestling as practiced in the South Pacific region followed along the same lines as professional wrestling in Canada and the United States.Morton, Gerald W. and George M. O'Brien. Wrestling to 'Rasslin: Ancient Sport to American Spectacle. Bowling Green, Ohio: Popular Press, 1985. (pg. 72)
Association with the NWA (1930s–1940s) In 1929, the country's first professional wrestling promotion, the Dominion Wrestling Union, was established. It was originally under the control of the New Zealand Wrestling Union, a governing body which oversaw both amateur and professional wrestling, until hiring American-born promoter Walter Miller in 1935. Miller, who had been in the wrestling business since 1914, was able to bring in some of the top stars in the US throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In 1937, the promotion featured Dr. Gordon McKenzie, Tom Meade, Don Mclntyre, Hal Rumberg, Ray Richards, Sam Stein, Jack Forsgren, John Spellman, Matros Kirilenko, King Kong Cox, Chief Little Wolf, Frank Marshall, Rusty Wescoatt, Glen Wade, Joe Woods, Frank Judson, Don Noland, Vie Christy, Francis Fouche and Ed "Strangler" Lewis. The American wrestlers, who then travelled by boat, spent the three-week trip in training prior to their arrival. Canadian wrestler George Walker claimed the New Zealand-version of the British Empire/Commonwealth Heavyweight Championship upon his arrival in New Zealand in 1929. Former Canadian Olympian Earl McCready was recognised as champion when Walker left to compete for a rival promotion in 1935, and legitimised his claim to the title by defeating Walker on 9 November 1937; his second and last reign lasted from 1940 to 1953. Other stand-out stars included Dean Detton, Ken Kenneth, John Kattan and African-American wrestler Jack Claybourne.
It was Lofty Blomfield, however, who was arguably New Zealand's most popular wrestler of the period. He was the first New Zealand Amateur Heavyweight Wrestling Champion in 1931 and the first undisputed New Zealand Heavyweight Champion seven years later. During the late-1930s, Blomfield was to have met NWA World Heavyweight Champion Bronko Nagurski in a first-ever "champion vs. champion" match. Miller negotiated with NWA promoters Toots Mondt, Lou Daro and Tony Stecher for Nagurski to travel to New Zealand in exchange for the largest guarantee ever offered a boxer or wrestler in the Southern Hemisphere. It was believed at the time that the event would attract more than 40,000 people. Though Nagurski ultimately cancelled the trip at the last minute, Blomfield followed the world champion to Canada where the two wrestled to a time limit draw in Vancouver on 17 March 1938. Blomfield was the first New Zealander to challenge for the NWA World title. In October of that year, he won a tournament to become the undisputed New Zealand Heavyweight Champion. Blomfield held the title for over a decade until his retirement on 7 June 1949. Throughout his career, Blomfield vigorously defended professional wrestling and denied frequent charges that matches were rigged.Keith, Hamish. New Zealand Yesterdays: A Look at Our Recent Past. Surry Hills, New South Wales: Reader's Digest Services, 1984. (pg. 301) Four decades later, Blomfield became the first wrestler to be inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame. To date he remains the only wrestler, amateur or professional, to be an inductee.
The same year of Blomfield's retirement, a number of New Zealand-born wrestlers left for Europe where they became major stars on the continent during the next few years. Ernie "Kiwi" Kingston, a student of Olympic wrestler Anton Koolmann, was considered one of the best heavyweights in Europe and a main rival of British Heavyweight Champion Bert Assirati. A few were especially popular in the United Kingdom such as Ray Clarke, who also had a notable rivalry with Assirati, Bob Russell and Russ Bishop. While many of these men were regarded as some of the most formidable wrestlers during the late 1940s and 1950s, they most often remained unknown in their native country.
Golden Age (1950s–1970s) After the end of World War II, amateur and professional wrestling enjoyed widespread popularity in New Zealand popular culture.Adams, Yvette. More Than Meets The Eye: A True Story Based on the Life and Times of the Best Blind Wrestler the World Has Ever Seen. Southbank, Victoria: Griffin Press, 2006. (pg. 151, 208) McLintock, Alexander H. "Wrestling". An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand. Vol. 3. Wellington: R. E. Owen, 1966. (pg. 690) Part of this of was due to its radio broadcasts from live events both prior to and after the war. By 1956, professional wrestling had surpassed the then-national sport of rugby in popularity and was the most popular spectator sport in New Zealand with the exception of horse racing.Educational Studies and Documents, No. 21. Paris: UNESCO, 1956. The Wellington Town Hall Concert Chamber was one of the more popular postwar venues for wrestling events.Beaglehole, Tim. A Life of J.C. Beaglehole: New Zealand Scholar. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006. (pg. 137) Within a few years, New Zealand champions were travelling oversees as far as Western Canada.Teal, Scott, ed. The History of Professional Wrestling, Issue #5: Western Canada, 1911-1956. Crowbar Press, 2009. (pg. 74)
Pat O'Connor, a champion amateur wrestler who had competed at the Pan American and the British Empire Games, was discovered by visiting American wrestlers Joe Pazandak and Butch Levy and taken back to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he eventually became a major star in the National Wrestling Alliance and the American Wrestling Association.Matysik, Larry. Wrestling at the Chase: The Inside Story of Sam Muchnick and the Legends of Professional Wrestling. Toronto: ECW Press, 2005. On 9 January 1959, O'Connor defeated Dick Hutton in St. Louis, Missouri to become the first wrestler from New Zealand to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship.Hornbaker, Tim. National Wrestling Alliance: The Untold Story of the Monopoly that Strangled Pro Wrestling. Toronto: ECW Press, 2007. (pg. 209-210, 219) Over the next 20 years, many other wrestlers from New Zealand became big name stars in the United States. Abe Jacobs was among the first to follow O'Connor to the US and later challenged him for the NWA World title in New York. This was the first time two New Zealanders fought for a world heavyweight championship, and on foreign soil.
In 1959, Miller died and was succeeded by Steve Rickard who ran the Dominion Wrestling Union for two years until starting All Star Pro-Wrestling in 1962. Fellow wrestler John da Silva also began a rival promotion, Central Wrestling Association, around this time but it eventually closed in the early 1970s. After Miller's death, regular appearances by American wrestlers declined considerably, though a few still managed to arrive each year. In that time, a number of local stars were developed in New Zealand including Tony Garea, Peter Maivia,Solomon, Brian. WWE Legends. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. (pg. 142-143, 145, 162, 195-196, 199) Al Hobman, and The Sheepherders.Myers, Robert. The Professional Wrestling Trivia Book. Boston: Branden Books, 1999. (pg. 58) From other parts of the world came Australian wrestlers Ron Miller and Larry O'Day of World Championship Wrestling, Robert Bruce from Scotland, Canadians Gordon Nelson and George Gordienko, and André the Giant.Krugman, Michael. André the Giant: A Legendary Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009. (pg. 7) South Pacific Wrestling, another small promotion started by referee Ernie Pinches, produced Johnny Garcia and Onno Boelee during the 1970s.