WRESTLING legend Kendo Nagasaki was the ring villain followers cherished to hate.
The hulking silent samurai unnerved opponents from behind his sinister striped masks, with chilling tales of dropping half an index finger throughout a brutal martial arts ceremony.
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And the 6ft 2in monster triggered such anger that Nagasaki was as soon as stabbed within the again with a fountain pen by a spectator, whereas one other packed a home brick in her purse earlier than walloping him over the top with it.
Now, Nagasaki — actual title Peter Thornley, who turns 83 later this month — is planning a return to the ring.
He hopes to interrupt two Guinness World Information — for the oldest skilled wrestler and longest wrestling profession.
The event may even mark the sixtieth anniversary of his first look in British skilled wrestling.
Talking solely to The Solar from his sprawling, 50-room mansion in Stoke-on-Trent, Peter says he has by no means felt higher.
“I’m as match as a butcher’s canine. I nonetheless prepare day-after-day, eat properly and take care of myself,” he stated.
“I’m not apprehensive. No one can damage me. I’m a dinosaur with enamel.”
Peter cuts an imposing determine, even in his eighties.
He’s tall with large, broad shoulders and a full head of thick, black hair.
When he provides to point out me some wrestling holds, I politely decline.
I feared he would possibly launch into his particular transfer, the “kamikaze crash”, which noticed him give rivals a fireman’s raise, earlier than working and utilizing the momentum to smash and roll the opponent to the bottom.
Terrified audiences
Born Brian Stevens in 1941, Peter was adopted quickly after his delivery by the Thornley household, who gave him his new title.
As an adolescent he excelled in sport, changing into a junior boxing champ who additionally took up judo, learning beneath distinguished sensei Kenshiro Abbe.
He grew up in Crewe, Cheshire, and after leaving college turned an apprentice coach maker however bought into wrestling in 1964 after a ugly harm meant he missed the possibility to compete in judo at that yr’s Olympic Video games.
He had misplaced the tip of his left index finger after contracting septicemia when somebody bit him throughout a avenue battle.
It was a transformative second in Peter’s life.
Not lengthy after, Kendo Nagasaki was born and his lacking digit solely added to his mysterious again story.
So when Kendo walked right into a wrestling ring, individuals stated, ‘Wow, what’s that?’
Peter says the concept for the masks got here from his mentor, masked wrestler Depend Bartelli, aka Geoff Condliffe.
He remembers: “I needed to reach in a sensational method. I assumed, ‘I need to be one thing totally different’.
“I didn’t simply need to be a masked man, it needed to be extra.
“I’d discovered do judo and kendo to fairly a excessive degree, so it made sense.
“I’d bought the outfit, the samurai sword and all of the issues. I assumed, I can put all that collectively.
“So when Kendo walked right into a wrestling ring, individuals stated, ‘Wow, what’s that?’.
“The present begins once I get within the ring. It begins the second they see me. Sensational.”
Nagasaki turned an in a single day hit, a nasty villain who terrified audiences on ITV’s World Of Sport.
Together with the picture, Peter carved a frightening backstory of a samurai warrior who wields mystical therapeutic powers and hypnosis abilities.
The fearsome wrestler used his measurement and power, coupled with a black belt in judo, to batter opponents into submission.
And through an unimaginable 60-year profession he fought different wrestling greats similar to Large Daddy, Big Haystacks and Andre the Big, beating all of them.
The viewers turned entranced by Nagasaki’s samurai historical past, with many guessing why he wore the masks.
“Rumours form of constructed up that I’d been burnt in a hearth or had a severe street accident,” remembers Peter. “Individuals stated I had one ear or was badly scarred.
“Some even thought I used to be royalty or some superstar who needed to steer a double life. After all, we didn’t deny any of it!”
Peter’s large break got here in a mass wrestling match with Depend Bartelli in 1966.
He stated: “As much as then, I’d been form of scratching round on the backside, wrestling non-entities.
“Abruptly, I’m sprung into the limelight and I beat this masked man who’s been masked for 20 years. Ba-boom! I’ve arrived.”
Peter additionally remembers how he was the primary wrestler to ever beat legend Andre the Big.
“I beat him 3 times and that was earlier than Hulk Hogan beat him in America,” he stated. “He was a bit inexperienced. He got here right here to be taught the enterprise.
“And he was a real monster, , 6ft 11 or greater.”
Life as a wrestling villain had its pitfalls, nonetheless. Peter was attacked by followers a number of occasions and as soon as even needed to run for his life.
“Again in these days the punters believed wrestling was actual. It’s not like at the moment the place everybody is aware of it’s a present,” he says.
“Once you kicked somebody, you kicked them. And in order that irritated the followers. And I bear in mind throughout a match in Glasgow the group bought actually wound up and rioted.
“I discovered myself surrounded. I needed to do a runner for my life. If I’d gone down, fallen, they’d have trampled me to dying.”
Peter was additionally stabbed with a fountain pen whereas popping out of Liverpool Stadium within the early Seventies. “The tip broke off in my again,” he remembers. “I needed to go to hospital to have it eliminated.
“One other time a girl with a brick in her purse smacked me within the facet of the face.
“On one other event a man on crutches cracked me within the facet of the face and put 5 – 6 stitches in my cheek.”
Peter added: “I rapidly realised that even outdated girls with purses will be harmful.”
However not all his encounters with wrestling followers have been dangerous.
One mom was so satisfied of Nagasaki’s mystical therapeutic powers she requested his supervisor if the wrestler would heal her 12-year-old son’s abdomen cramps by the “laying on of fingers” after a match.
He duly obliged.
After an extended and storied profession, Peter’s most well-known second got here at Wolverhampton Civic Corridor in 1977.
The villain lastly had his masks eliminated at a particular ceremony watched on TV by 14million individuals.
Fireplace-red eyes
“I had come to an apex in my profession,” he remembers. “I’d had fairly a foul harm. I’d been kicked within the head and fractured my cranium and bought meningitis.
“I used to be having dizzy spells, so I made a decision I used to be going to exit on an enormous excessive and unmask for my followers.”
When Peter’s then-manager, “Beautiful” George Gillette, eliminated his masks throughout a weird ritualistic ceremony, it revealed a westerner with fire-red eyes, with an occult star tattoo on the highest of his shaved head, and a jet-black ponytail protruding from the again.
He stated: “The true me terrified kids much more than the masks.”
Peter wrestled on and off all through the Eighties and early Nineties, with sporadic wrestling matches as not too long ago as 2008.
However he revealed the years after the peak of his wrestling fame have been powerful.
The star turned concerned within the medicine scene and frolicked with gangsters.
He additionally opened a automotive dealership and ran a music studio.
At one level, Peter’s house in London was raided by medicine cops and the flamboyant showman was the topic of a sensational headline in 2017 accusing him of supplying cocaine to Princess Margaret within the Eighties — claims he strongly denies.
Nowadays, Peter is a businessman and property proprietor residing at Moor Court docket Corridor, a grand, 17-acre nation property in Stoke-on-Trent.
The £1.5million mansion has immaculate zen Buddhism-themed grounds and is maintained by a employees of six.
Peter used the property to run a care enterprise, providing programmes for youngsters with studying disabilities.
The true me terrified kids much more than the masks.
The religious Buddhist additionally ran zen retreats on the property.
Now he spends his time sustaining a big vegetable patch and greenhouse and tinkering along with his spectacular assortment of basic automobiles, together with an Aston Martin Virage and a Jaguar XK150.
The colorful wrestler, who was married to spouse Yvette till she died in 1990, revealed he was bisexual in his 2018 autobiography, Kendo Nagasaki And The Man Behind the Masks.
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He stated he knew about his sexuality as early as 17 and revealed he has been with a male companion since his spouse died aged 80.
Peter now desires to relocate from his enormous property, the place he has lived for the previous 35 years, to Blackpool, the place he owns the unique men-only Trades Lodge.
He has put his home up on the market and now plans to show zen Buddhism to the LGBTQ+ group within the Lancs seaside city.
Peter can also be again in coaching for his record-breaking large return match on November 24 at Fairfield Halls in Croydon.
He’ll be part of Belfast wrestling brothers “Useless Beautiful” Jordan, 22, and Ben Nelson, 18, for a tag staff bout towards one of the best of LDN Wrestling.
Pumping iron in his house fitness center, he stated: “I’ve stored the coaching up through the years. After all, some individuals are particular. It’s genetics.
“There’s not many 82-year-olds taking over a battle like me, so I’m particular.”
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