Daddy/Crabtree/Guardsman was a pure heel in 1972-75. He and Haystacks were a monster heel duo who loved to crush clean wrestlers. They became tweeners during their feud against Kendo - splitting their time between being cheered against Nagasaki in singles & tag, and getting booed as they squashed blue-eye opponents.

The famous Kendo Nagasaki vs Big Daddy bout actually starts as heel vs heel for the first 3-4 minutes, with Big Shirley doing his stomps and crushes in the corner. There is one great camera shot of him doing an absolutely psychotic stare across the ring.

Daddy only starts playing blue-eye towards the end of round one, looking to the fans for approval before choking Kendo on the ropes. Even then he goes a bit heel after he gets his equalising submission at the end of round 3, moaning at someone in the crowd. It's really quite fascinating because it's a rare chance to see Crabtree behaving like his real-life self on camera.

About mid '76, Daddy started wrestling other heels such as Bully Boy Muir, and getting cheered. By early '77, he was appearing in clean matches against the likes of Sandy Scott and Big John Cox. The first Big Daddy tag matches took place in the summer of that year (the first TV one was in July). Haystacks' heel turn on Daddy was in September '77 (blindsiding him with a chairshot after Daddy won a four-man tournament.)

The fallout from this was the less-remembered first Daddy/Stax solo bout from Nov '77, an Xmas tag match pitting Daddy & St Clair against Haystacks and one Baron Donovan and whole run of bouts in '78 pitting Daddy and (mostly) St Clair against Haystacks and a whole string of partners, ranging from the aformentioned Mr Elrington to the gloriously named Albert Hell-On (this last one was the FA Cup Final wrestling bout in 1978.)

Interesting that Kent Walton refers to him as Crabtree as well

'The Battling Guardsman' was a nickname rather than a ringname. Ditto Big Daddy initially. He was always listed in TVTimes as Shirley Crabtree from 1972-75 - the first bout he was listed for as Big Daddy was his and Haystacks' bout vs Roy & Tony St Clair in July '75 (also Stax's TV debut)

The Old man ( who trained under 'Big Bruno') told me that:
Yep he came from up North , Lived in Pompey (and was often billed as 'The Pompey Marine' ) Took his name from a Lewis Carrol book , was Gozzo in the Avengers , (John Steed & Emma Peel) and at one time owned a poodle clipping palour?

Daddy always gets a hard time on here----but he could fill the halls ----Holiday camps----etc. Not many can say that nowadays. Lee Marvin had a No.1 in the hit parade so history will record him as a singer. Likewise history will record Daddy as a wrestler .Good or Bad ? I don't know---unfortunately I wasn't there to see it.