More Wrestling

The new book will contain five poems on wrestling, all spin-offs of the aborted wrestling novel that might yet turn into something else, granted the time. All five begin from the same character, József Szabó, a Hungarian-born professional wrestler working in the UK for over twenty years (1956-1978).

Aspects of Szabó are based on the real wrestler, Tibor Szakács (1928-1981). In the poems the character and narrative of Szabó / Szakács are both secondary to the sense of certain events, the first of which being the bombing of the Szakács house, as told to me by Tibor's brother. The poems themselves will go on the front page of the main site for some days each. Each has a date attached to it.

The first is available now. A 'rabbit' in wrestling is a fighter assigned to be a loser. Szakács was in fact Royal Albert Hall champion five years in a row in his heyday and had top billing on national wrestling bills and television. In his later career he was sometimes given the role of rabbit, especially against wrestlers like Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks and Kendo Nagasaki who, inadvertently, injured Szakács so he was blind in one eye and could no longer fight.