AMAZING KUNG FU
The Amazing Kung Fu burst onto our television screens in spectacular fashion in November 1974 when he faced Clive Myers on a Saturday afternoon World of Sport match televised from Worksop. Dressed in an outfit similar to a judo suit with a matching mask, Kung Fu was a masked man with a difference - he was a good guy. The fans couldn't get enough of him and the promoters' office was inundated with phone calls and letters asking for Kung Fu to appear at their local hall. Already wrestling for 10 years on the independent circuit, Kung Fu was now an overnight success. Many more television appearances followed and he was soon working six nights a week, every week, up and down the country. But as Kung Fu's fame spread and more and more fans wanted to see him in action, the name Kung Fu suddenly appeared on wrestling posters of unscrupulous promoters all claiming that their man was the original.
On several occasions our man would go to these shows and cut and rip up the outfit of the imposter so it couldn't be used again. But there was so many people now wrestling under the name of Kung Fu that there was only one thing for it - unmask publicly on television. It was a chance to take. Kung Fu was a Lone Ranger type of character and many people thought that without the mystique of the mask he would lose his popularity.
But they couldn't have been more wrong. When he lost the mask to Mick McManus in 1976 and the handsome features of Eddie Hamill from Belfast were revealed his popularity soared. It didn't matter if he was matched with
the classical type of wrestlers like Johnny Saint and Steve Grey or the roughouse styles of Dave Finlay and Rollerball Rocco, Eddie could hold his own with the best of them. During his career he held the Commonwealth Middleweight Championship and he also relieved Rocky Moran of his British Heavy Middleweight Championship and belt. He wrestled abroad many times visiting places like Harare, Bahrain, Zimbabwe, Sicily, Turkey, The Sudan, and Canada. For tag team purposes Eddie appeared with among others Big Daddy, Tony St Clair and Orig Williams, but it was with Pete Roberts as The Kung Fu Fighters that he is best known. He has wrestled in every major hall in the UK including the prestigeous Royal Albert Hall. It was here in 1977 during the Queen's Silver Jubilee Celebrations that Eddie wrestled in front of Royalty - the Duke of Kent being present when Eddie partnered Roberts in a tag match against Mick McManus and Tally Ho Kaye. |
Credit: Peter McNolte |
