Women’s lib. moves in on tag wrestling

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33032, 27 September 1972, Page 16

Women’s lib. moves in on tag wrestling

(Bi/

R. T. BRITTENDEN)

Next thing, the performers will he served tea between rounds, exchanging knitting patterns, or playing bingo. Events at Cowles Stadium last evening demonstrated that women's liberation is getting a firm step-over toehold on professional wrestling.

Women were unknown in New Zealand wrestling rings until this year. In Christchurch they made a tentative and none-too-successful appearance a few months ago. Now these sirens have twisted enough arms to be able to stage their first tag match.

There are difficulties with women’s tag wrestling, for there are times when teams have to make decisions about which member will carry on the combat. And making up their minds is sometimes more difficult than withstanding the octopus clamp. There is little doubt, however, that the representatives of the women’s wrestling union who paraded last night have been swift to learn their arts and crafts. Bobbie Miles, captain of the winning team, . was especially quick and c’ever and held the fort—at times of stress-—with the stoicism of a Flora MacDonald.

Sabrina also knew the moves well, even if her widely-advertised and spectacular superstructure rathemade the others look like Drake’s ships surrounding a stately Spanish galleon.

Bobbie Miles and Tana Tewaiarangi beat Sabrina and Little Mo Wells. 2-1. Not that the result mattered much. They are simply doing it for [pin money. ENTERTAINING BOUT Steve Rickard and Pal Barrett made a good team, and they put together an entertaining, fastmoving bout, even if there were occasional cries of “Hollywood” when one or other looked likely to be crippled for life. They were evenly matched, so much so that there were several equal-and-opposite holds which had to be unravelled by the referee. It was drawn, one-all.

If the women wrestlers tend to chatter on occasions, it was nothing to the debating which preceded the main attraction — in which the popular Mark Lewin met Killer Karl Kox.

Lewin was first in the ring. When KKK arrived, he indicated firmly that Lewin had the corner he himself would have preferred. Lewin would not budge, Kox argued, Lewin still stood firm, Kox stalked off towards the dressing-room. Lewin then relented, but when the first round began, nothing happened for a very long time, as there appeared to be a division of opinion on who approached who first. SLEEPER HOLD Kox, making his first appearance in Christchurch, applied himself when they did make contact, with the earnest concentration of a music-hall dentist. By the third round he had managed to apply a sleeper hold on Lewin—or was this the infamous Kox brain-buster? Kox iis evidently an expert on pres--1 sure points; at all events, he got on Lewin's nerves, and Lewin, not unexpectely, conceded a fall when he was hurled head first on to the mat.

Lewin was a very sorry sight —a quivering jelly of flesh—and he looked more fit for hospital than fighting. When Kox came at him at the start of the fourth round, the police arrived and halted the affair for a while. Lewin tottered vaguely about for a minute or so, but then drew, presumably, on vast stores of inward strength, and he in turn applied a sleeper hold. OUT OF RING Kox went out like a light. And in the fifth round, he went out of the ring as well—under the table carrying the public address system, all of which caused the arc lamp above the ring to sway dramatically.

In the sixth, Lewin was in extremis again, but fought his way nobly out of trouble by hitting on the cunning stratagem of seizing Kox’s nose. And in the seventh, he took the winning fall.

All of which led to a great deal more debate. Or, more accurately, a monologue. By Kox.