Lord Athol looks back
By JERRY GLADMAN -- Toronto Sun
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Lord Athol Layton with pet pooch Bo in 1981. Photo by Hugh Wesley, Toronto Sun |
He would have made such a good bad guy.
They called him the Lord of the Ring and he played the part beautifully.
All six-foot-five, 260
pounds, posturing at centre ring in his purple coronation robes, white cape
and ermine tails, bowing with
disdain to all four corners. He even kept the packed Tokyo hall waiting by
insisting on his usual spot of
tea in the dressing room before entering the area.
But it wasn't in the cards. Right role, wrong country.
"My intention was to make my mark as a villain by kicking some of those
Japanese fellows
around," says Lord Athol Laton, looking back almost a quarter of a century
on a successful wrestling
career that is still remembered fondly around these parts. "But it didn't
matter what I did. I had forgotten
their great love of pageantry. They loved the robe and tails. And when I
bowed to the four corners, they
looked upon me as a gentleman."
He came as a villain and left three months later as a hero. And it
reinforced a lesson he learned
years earlier when he arrived in Canada from his native Australia to try his
skill against some of the
popular North American grapplers. Success in the ring was more often
determined by who you fought
rather than what you did.
When promoter Frank Tunney secured his services in 1950, Layton reasoned
that his ring attire
and hoity-toity manners would fit in nicely with Canada's ties to Britain
and the Commonwealth. But he
didn't figure on a fella named Whipper Billy Watson, the goodest of the good
guys.
"I was doing fine here until I wrestled Watson," he says with a bit of a
chuckle. "He made me a
villain. After a bit, I realized I wasn't only fighting Watson, I was
fighting all of Toronto. I couldn't win."
The message became even clearer when his eight-year-old son informed him
his reputation was
garnering untold battles in the schoolyard. Most of the kids belonged to the
popular Whipper Watson
Safety Club and they didn't take kindly to the offspring of a baddy trying
to trounce their idol.
"He asked me if it might be possible for me to join forces with Watson and
become a tag team.
Things would be more comfortable for him at school. So after five years as a
villain by virtue of opposing
the Whipper all over Ontario, I became a hero."
Like his partner, Lord Layton wore the mantle well. Week after week, for
the next 20 years, he
drew the cheers of the frenzied Maple Leaf Gardens rassle fanatics by
rendering unconscious such
wretched foes as The Shiek, Hans Schmidt, Bulldog Brower and the despicable
Love Brothers. His
trademark was the judo chop, but more than one villain fell victim to the
crippling English Octopus or the
old Australian Surfboard lock.
And even though he hasn't worked a hold professionally in five years, since
the night in Grand
Rapids, Mich., when the hated Sheik detached the retina in his right eye,
Athol Layton still reigns as the
Lord of the Ring down on Carlton Street.
"Apart from the occasional visit to the Gardens, I don't have much contact
with wrestling these
days," says the incredibly fit 60-year-old, who confines his grappling to
promotional duties for Bacardi
rum. "I had 30 years of it and I enjoyed it immensely. But I've given up the
ring for rum."
And none too soon because the grunt-and-groan game has fallen a long way
since the days when
I full nelson meant something and a flying mule kick was what a kick should
be. Layton will be the first to
tell you that the punching and booting administered by today's heroes are a
far cry from the exhibition of
skill and science for which he and the Whip were revered.
"The real problem is that there is a scarcity of characters. In my day,
they were all characters.
People like Gorgeous George, Yukon Eric and Killer Kowalski. Apart from
Angelo Mosca, most of the
younger crop are clones. They look alike and they perform alike.
"There's less wrestling today. When I first entered, it was 75% wrestling
and 25% show. Today
it's the reverse. It sells because people have been conditioned to the style
by TV, whcih really dictates the
type of entertainment we watch."
When Layton first began wrestling, there was only skill. A strappling
6-foot-three at age 16, he
was among the top amateur wrestlers in his native Sydney. He also had a
10-year career as an amateur
boxer and ruled as the Australian heavyweight champion in 1944-45. He
continued both sports during five
years in the Australian Army and then decided to turn to pro wrestling.
"What I really wanted to do was entertain. That was my fantasy. I even
tried acting in Australia,
but my size limited me to roles as a heavy. I made up my mind to travel so I
turned to pro wrestling."
Influenced by fellow Australian Fred Atkins, Layton hooked into the pro
circuit controlled by
North American promoters. He spent 10 months in Singapore where he picked up
valuable experience and
then accepted an offer from Toronto's Tunney to journey to Canada. He had a
name, an image and a big
future.
"Once I arrived here, I realized there was a radical change in the style of
wrestling. There was
much more emphasis on entertainment. But I enjoyed it because I was able to
fulfill my fantasy of being
an entertainer. I played the part of a wrestler and the arena was my stage."
The name Athol, which caused him nothing but grief as a school kid, was
parlayed -- along with
the robes and manners -- into a top ring gimmick. Touring the U.S., the fans
loved to hate him.
"They hated an Englishman passionately if he got out of line. I played on
that. They used to do
interviews in the dressing room before the bouts and I would take my time
drinking my tea and working
up the crowd.
"I certainly saw my share of hostile crowds in those days. You had to pass
irate fans and run
through gauntlets and we were always getting attacked physically. There were
times that the same fellows
you wrestled had to come to your rescue."
And then Lord Layton made the wise decision. He became a good guy.
Being a white knight had other rewards to go with the cheers. With TV
wrestling cropping up on
most channels, a fellow with Layton's suave good looks, articulate speech
and genial manners was more
than suitable for the role of commentator. He had a program for three years
in Cleveland, another for 15
years in Detroit and spent five years on CFTO [Toronto] in the 60s.
When the calibre of wrestling began to deteriorate rapidly, Layton gave up
the mike. "I wasn't
sorry to do so because it reached the stage where there was insufficient
wrestling to describe. There's a
limit to how much you can talk about punching and kicking."
Inevitably, when talking to any wrestling personality, the discussion get
around to the question of
the game being phoney. Although Layton admits to there being less skill and
science than theatrics, he
believes the people got what they paid to see.
"Wrestling is presented as therapy. You must have good against evil to
maintain attendance. I
believe that a true wrestling fan casts a deaf ear to any suggestion
wrestling is phoney. And that is simply
because he is interested only in being entertained."
Layton has 30 years of fond memories, particularly his tag-team days with
Watson. Their
partnership continued outside the ring with both gentle giants spending much
of their time helping
handicapped children. Layton is a past Imperial Potentate of the Shrine and
was a director of St. Alban's
Boys and Girls Club. He and Watson also sit on the Advisory Council for the
Handicapped.
"There's so much to do for these wonderful children. I find great
satisfaction with the charities. I
was treated so well by the profession. I feel the work I do is putting a
little back in."
Can't argue with the main. And who'd want to?
RELATED LINKS
Lord Layton bio and story archive
