Gripping times
tiENDERSON
If you die at the age of 86, and your admirers in a career spanning four decades include the Queen, Margaret Thatcher and Frank Sinatra, it is fair to say you have been noticed. Yet when Kent Walton passed away last week, anybody under the age of 40 probably thought, 'who?' For those who grew up in the Sixties and Seventies, though. Walton's Saturday afternoon wrestling commentaries on ITV belonged to the soundtrack of our misspent adolescent lives.
'Greetings, grapple fans,' he would say when the show came on at 4 p.m., after the horses and before the football results. It may not have been quite as evocative as Alan Freeman's 'greetings, pop-pickers' but Walton enjoyed 12 million viewers at the height of his fame. And how we thrilled to the nonsense he described in that transatlantic voice. The heroes and villains included Mick McManus, the undisputed king of the ring, George Kidd, Les Kellett and Jackie 'Mr TV' Patio. As light entertainment it was marvel
bus stuff. As sport it was negligible, though it was, apparently, wise to say that out of Walton's hearing, lest he put you in a double-diamond-axle-schmaxle-over-under-sidewaysdown holding manoeuvre, or whatever it was called.
In those innocent days, before the noisy, overheated nonsense of modern American wrestling, British grappling was terrific hokum. Every wrestler had a gimmick, and every Saturday there was a change of cast, and a fresh story, with Walton acting as narrator. I seem to recall one chap, Bobby Barnes, who dressed up in a glitter frock. Once he had it torn off before a bout in the Assembly Rooms, Derby, by an 'angry' opponent, who promptly smacked Barnes in the chops. As the wounded warrior paraded in the ring, seeking the goodwill of an unsympathetic crowd, the cameras picked up an elderly couple in the third row who were each giving Barnes a double-barrelled V-sign! That was the true voice of the wrestling fan. Indeed, some took the antics seriously enough to throw burning cigarettes at grapplers of whom they disapproved.
The gimmicks extended to names as well. Walton may have introduced 'the feared Ivan Pensikoff, all the way from the Ukraine', but everybody knew he was really Ian Pennington from Westhoughton, and would be back doing the bins on Monday morning. It brought colour to people's lives, and made a few performers wealthy. When ITV pulled the plug on wrestling in 1988, because their head of sport, a young thruster called Greg Dyke, thought it presented the 'wrong image', there was dismay. Having acquired the 'right' image, Dyke is now a VVIP.
In his later years Walton disappeared from view, although the Telegraph's incomparable obituary page noted that he helped to produce Virgin Witch, 'a cheap horror movie in which the cast shed their clothes at the slightest opportunity', and also Keep It Up Downstairs, 'a dire sex farce featuring a bed-hopping aristocratic family'. As he used to tell wrestlers flat-out on the canvas, you can't win 'em all.
What is true fame? David Beckham was given the first 11 pages of the Sun last Saturday by Rebekah Wade, space she has only ever cleared in the past for the hounding of paedophiles. At least it helped to keep the resignation of her chum, Ali Campbell. off the front. Tuscan villas and book deals all round! Meanwhile we must send Walton on his way with a wave of gratitude, and — for old times' sake — a gentle laugh.
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