Dazzlers Corner: Aussie Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame

By Ken Dunlop

A lot of people ask is there an Australian Wrestling Hall of Fame? There has been a couple set up over the years which people may not know of. The first one was set up by my younger brother Allan and his partner at the time Mel, they put a lot of hard work into it, it was set up in 1998 and was called the Golden Ring Awards, the first three inductions were Mario Milano, Sherrie Sinatra and myself Dazzler Dunlop and then in 2001 they inducted George Julio, Sam Rossi, Jim Dimeros, Ricky Diamond, Gene Gatto and Kurt Schneider.

Sadly they never continued on with it, mainly due to the cost. Then all those years later Victorian wrestling Icon George Julio, who has been promoting throughout Victoria since the mid 1970s and has trained hundreds of wrestlers and even now at the age of 80 is still training guys. George has a fantastic set up at his house with a gym and a full size ring, in 2014 George set up the New Age Wrestling Hall of Fame, now George doesn’t have much of the paperwork so I am writing a list of people inducted but might be missing a few and some of the years may not be right but here goes. In 2014, Peter Farry, Rocky Romero, Mad Dog Peter Spence, Tony Marino and Kurt Schneider, in 2015 Ken Dazzler Dunlop, Ox, Vic Ferrari and Bully the Brawler, 2016 George Julio, 2017 Red Hot Ricky Diamond, Chucky, Tank, Joe Villa, 2018 Skyhawk, Rhyno, Bladerunner (Victorian one, George) 2019, Bradman, Highlander, Mike Manson, 2020 The Sniper, Daniel Beaumont and Andy McPhee.

There was a big show in Melbourne in 2002 again my brother Allan promoted this and they had a Legend Segment in the show, look at the who’s who of wrestling at this show.

On behalf of all professional wrestlers l would like to thank George Julio for his great efforts over the years. I also believe that there is a South Australian Wrestling Hall of Fame, but I couldn’t find much information on it. If we could combine all those Hall of Fame awards it would be fantastic for Australian Wrestling. You would have to put people like Jack Little, Roy Heffernan, Al Costello, Ron Miller, Larry O’Dea, Hal Morgan, without all these guys there wouldn’t have been a business, there are so many more l could name, people that helped the next generation come through like Steve Rackman, Ken Medlin, Bobby Burns, Noel Grumpy Davis, Andy Harpas, these guys offered help and advice to the next generation. Then you would add George Barnes and Robbie Eagles.

After 2000 l don’t know who have been great influences on the new talent, but people like Mark Mercedes, Greg Bownds, Dean Draven, Lisa Oxford have all been around for over 20 years, all promoting and training people. I love professional wrestling, always have and I respect all the people in the business even if we don’t get along, you can’t always like everyone but you can still respect them.

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