BRIAN MAXINE

Brian 'Goldbelt' Maxine could never be accused of being a bit backward about coming forward. He never missed an opportunity to tell everybody how great he was and often came to the ring with a placard that read 'I'm The Greatest'. He was the first man in British wrestling history to hold two British titles at the same time. In 1969 he relieved Alan Sargeant of his Welterweight belt and in 1971 he also defeated Clayton Thomson to take the Middleweight belt. However the powers that be decided that only one British title could be held by the same person at any one time. Maxine decided to give up the welterweight title and campaign among the middleweights. He defended this belt many times over the years and successfully turned back the challenges of Mick McManus and Adrian Street among others.

And he still has the belt in his possession. Nobody has ever been able to take it from him. Although he still makes the occasional appearance in the ring, he will probably retire undefeated as the British Middleweight Champion.

Away from the wrestling ring Brian also had another career - that of a country singer and guitarist. He released 3 albums in the 70's - on the first he was backed by none other than Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention - and his third album entitled 'I'm Your Man' consisted entirely of songs written by Brian himself. Because of his association with Fairport Convention, he was invited to appear at Fairport's Cropredy Festival in 1982 and can be seen singing one of the songs from his album (Six Days On The Road) on the official video of the event.

Credit: Peter McNolte

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