Riots & Fights (Part Two)
When touring in 1969, based in Singapore, we went to some places which had never seen pro wrestling before. One such place
was Jakarta, in Indonesia, a city of 10 million people. King Kong, Steve Rickard, and myself went on one plane, Shintaro
Fuji, Jack Claybourne, and Charlie Londos went on another. It was bad luck then, that the heels arrived while the other
wrestlers were still in the airport. Steve Rickard ran over and bashed Shintaro Fuji, his opponent for next day, so I set
about Jack Claybourne. King Kong, not to be outdone, started battering Charlie Londos. Claybourne, was from Martinique, so
although he was French, was black. I was Mr X, and was wearing a mask, which gave rise to the belief that this was a racial attack.
In those days, Indonesia was run by the army, who did just about anything they pleased, like murder, raping and looting. Truckloads
of soldiers arrived, and bullets were coming in our direction. Rickard found an escape route which led to the runway, where a small
aircraft was getting ready to take off. We all scrambled aboard, and screamed at the pilot to go. The pilot was uncooperative, until
bullets pinged through the fuselage. That got us into the sky quite quickly, without any more argument. Some more bullets ricocheted
round the cabin until we were out of range. When we arrived back in Singapore, a friend gave me a newspaper cutting with a picture of
the airport brawl.
I could not read it as it was in Indonesian, but she told me it said "Steve Rickard and Klu Klux Klan gangsters
from Australia in racial attack at airport". Believe it or not, we were back in Jakarta for the match, after promotor Ranjid Singh had
been to see the generals and handed over a "sweetener"
French and Italian folk have a low flashpoint. Montreal contains plenty of both. It does not take much to set them off, and
I was careful when I entered Montreal rings. Jaques and Johnny Rugeau were in their heyday, and Jaques son Raymond was 17,
a good looking lad, nice physique, but nowhere near as big as I was. The Rugeaus chose me wrestle Raymond in his first
match. We started off wrestling, and he was doing alright, when I heard the crowd start roaring .I knew they were not
roaring at us, as we were not doing anything untoward. I picked Raymond up off his feet in a bear hug, so that I could look
around and see what was happening. It was too late. Eddie Creatchman, the crazy manager of Kurt von Hess and Karl von Schotz,
was in the ring, and punched Raymond in the goolies from behind. The place went crazy. It was on for young and old, a human
tsunami of rage and fury. I was lucky to get out alive. Creatchman did not help, as he sprayed mace tear gas everywhere, as
he was wont to do, and I had a job to see at all. The arena was built like La Scala, several balconies above each other, and
bodies fell from them. I felt myself being dragged, I was so relieved to find it was Von Hess and Von Schotz rescuing me.
The biggest riot, however, was the Montreal Ball Park Incident. The Rolling Stones were performing in the big stadium, and
all the police and security men were over there. This left us without any for the wrestling, moved temporarily into the
baseball park. I was wrestling 6ft 10 Tex Mackenzie. The rock concert had gone on longer than anticipated, but as it was
getting late, we started the matches without security, thinking that they would soon be there. Tex and I were five minutes
into the match, when he turned his back on me and leaned on the ropes to watch a fight at ringside. As the field was flat,
the people at ringside had blocked the view of the fans behind them when they stood up. The people at the back had thrown
bags of ice at the ones in the front, and a brawl broke out. More and more people joined in, and a television tower crashed
onto the ring. I decided to head for the dressing room, which was about four hundred yards from the ring. I had to fight my
way through, with rioters trying to block my escape. After what seemed like ages, Karl von Schotz and Benny Ramirez cleared
a path using baseball bats. Benny had his wife and two little girls with him, the crowd were throwing bottles and hit them.
Benny went to their rescue, and the crowd stopped fighting each other and started on us. Butch Morgan (a Frenchman) had two
bats, and gave me one. Butch and Benny fought like men possessed, and with smoke from the fires which had been started, the
place looked like a war zone. Benny was cut on the face, so was his wife who had used her body to shield her children. At
this point, in the thick of the fighting, an old man smoking a pipe strolled past, holding up his hand like a copper stopping
traffic. The crowd parted, and he walked through unmolested. The mob,who had been mesmerised by the old man, carried on
fighting after he passed. Benny and Butch managed to enter the dressing room, and shut the door. I was left outside.
Frenchy Lamont, (a Welshman) helped me clear a path to the door, and Benny let me in when he recognised my voice. By now,
it was getting dark. The dressing room was against a fence on the edge of the park, and a groundsman sheltering inside
showed us a small door at the back we could escape from. Hidden from the view of the rioting crowd, we climbed the perimeter
fence and dropped into a cul de sac, where Benny and his family took shelter in a house. the mob were uprooting telephone
poles and threading them through parked cars, in through the windscreen and out through the back window. An ambulance was
upturned in the street and set on fire with a patient inside. We made it to the groundsman’s car parked nearby, and Butch
and I climbed into the boot until the groundsman dropped us clear of the ball park. At that moment, Karl von Schotz, who had
hijacked a car with the driver still in it, picked us up and took us to Cafe Du Nord, where we had a beer before going home.
I left Montreal and headed for the Maritimes.
Earl Black
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