He was known as The Battling Guardsman ( or something similar ) and came to the ring with a red tunic and Coldstream Guards-type busbee.

I thought he was an average worker who did indeed generate a bit of heat at times. A decent wrestler though ? - NEVER !!!

Steve Veidor & Tibor Szakacs vs Big Daddy & Giant Haystacks -April 1976.


From the days when Daddy's repertoire included the bodycheck, splash, posting - AND brutally stomping his opponent on the mat or in the corner!
You can see more of Big Daddy - The Heel Years at
http://www.geocities.com/veidor/tag.html
(ignore the 1979 date btw - it's wrong)

I'd like to know if there was ever a Big Daddy tag that somehow didn't stick to this formula ?

1) summer 1978 - Big Daddy and Gary Wensor take on Giant Haystacks and Big Bruno Elrington (a Wigan Snakepit man who one can assume, needed to pay off his grocery account urgently) ends suddenly and abruptly with Haystacks squashing young Wensor

2) Late 83. Big Daddy and Roy Scott face Tiny Callaghan and Lucky Gordon (can anyone provide a screen grab of Callaghan? That facepaint job of his was something else!) Scott and Gordon completely upstage the two big boys in the final fall with a blast of sweet science with Scott catching Gordon, as I recall, in a neat folding press for the win.

3) Possible: Daddy and I forget who vs The Spoiler and King Kendo - ends with Daddy pulling off the Spoiler's mask. Drew scarpers and a wig falls out of the empty hood. No result was announced - it could well have been a DQ win for the two masked men.

4) Reported by Kent Walton: the Daddy/Kashmir Singh vs Drew McDonald/Rasputin hair vs hair bout (which Ernie Riley and Tommy "Jack Dempsey" Moore rip into during the Wigan Snakepit docu) was allegedly a rematch from an earlier bout which went to a Double DQ.

I'd like to know if there was ever a Big Daddy tag that somehow didn't stick to this formula ?

1) summer 1978 - Big Daddy and Gary Wensor take on Giant Haystacks and Big Bruno Elrington (a Wigan Snakepit man who one can assume, needed to pay off his grocery account urgently) ends suddenly and abruptly with Haystacks squashing young Wensor

2) Late 83. Big Daddy and Roy Scott face Tiny Callaghan and Lucky Gordon (can anyone provide a screen grab of Callaghan? That facepaint job of his was something else!) Scott and Gordon completely upstage the two big boys in the final fall with a blast of sweet science with Scott catching Gordon, as I recall, in a neat folding press for the win.

3) Possible: Daddy and I forget who vs The Spoiler and King Kendo - ends with Daddy pulling off the Spoiler's mask. Drew scarpers and a wig falls out of the empty hood. No result was announced - it could well have been a DQ win for the two masked men.

4) Reported by Kent Walton: the Daddy/Kashmir Singh vs Drew McDonald/Rasputin hair vs hair bout (which Ernie Riley and Tommy "Jack Dempsey" Moore rip into during the Wigan Snakepit docu) was allegedly a rematch from an earlier bout which went to a Double DQ.

1) I remember that tag when Haystack's team won but Daddys original billed partner was Dave Armstrong and Gary Wensor was well out of his depth but it didn't mean anything as it was soon back to business as normal. Incidentally I don't remember Bruno being a Wigan man as he was part of the Portsmouth crowd of Bruno, Bronco Wells, The Wilsons, John Kowalski etc.

Incidentally I don't remember Bruno being a Wigan man as he was part of the Portsmouth crowd of Bruno, Bronco Wells, The Wilsons, John Kowalski etc.
Bruno was part of the Portsmouth scene during his high profile Dale Martin years, but was actually born in Barnsley and learned his trade in that neck of the woods.

I remember reading him being cited as a Riley's alumni. People from all over came to train in Wigan - to wit:

Geoff "Count Bartelli" Condliffe came from Crewe but trained with a pre-gym Billy Riley (and may well have passed a lot of Wigan hooking knowledge on to Kendo.)

George Kidd did a stint in the late '40s on the legit Lancashire Wrestling circuit, competing in shoot-wrestling tournaments on the mat in all the various Wigan gyms on many a Saturday afternoon. (See his Feb '77 TVTimes interview.)

Billy Robinson would make a big deal in 60s TVTimes interviews about how he had to drive all the way there and back from Manchester for his Snakepit sessions.

David I was watching that veidor and Tibor v Haystacks and Daddy yesterday, it is odd seeing Daddy as a heel after all those years I watched him as the blue eye. Interesting that Kent Walton refers to him as Crabtree as well and that Haystacks was under 40 stone and did not look anywhere near the size he was near the end of his Daddy feud.