Earlier this year, a good friend of mine sadly passed away. After his passing, I reflected some of the good memories I had during our friendship. One of those memories involved Lord Alfred Hayes.

My friend was quite a bit older than me but we both grew up in Lowestoft, the most easterly town in England. We initially knew each other through work and I didn’t really confess my wrestling fandom at work.

One night, he and I were in a pub with another friend of ours and we were talking about a place in Lowestoft and he mentioned that he used to watch wrestling near there when he was younger. His favourite wrestler was “Judo” Al Hayes.

He seem shocked that I knew who he was and I explained that I knew him as Lord Alfred Hayes when he worked in the WWF. My friend didn’t believe me and genuinely had no idea that “Judo” Al had made it big in America. A quick Google search later and he found a out about the later phase of “Judo” Al’s career.

After my friend’s death, I started trying to find evidence of “Judo” Al wrestling in Lowestoft. Information is very limited but I managed to details of a four match cards he appeared on in the 1960’s at the Kensington Ballroom.

“Judo” Al’s most common opponent was Dr. Death with two singles matches happening between them. On one of those two shows they also are part of a tag team match.

Dr. Death was billed as from Hollywood USA but was actually the promoter Paul Lincoln from Australia. He sold his promotion to Dale Martin for a reported £1m in the 1960s

“Judo” Al’s partner in that tag match was Larsen who was also known as Young Hackenschmidt and later wrestled in France as Batman. Gori Ed Mangotich who teamed with Dr. Death was actually from Canada as billed and was claimed to be a lumberjack.

“Judo” Al also faced 25 Stone Haystacks from Billericay in 1962 who was labelled as The Giant Essex Farmer. This is a different wrestler to Giant Haystacks who started his career later in the 1960’s.

The final opponent I could find of “Judo” Al was Mike Marino. Billed as from Milan but actually from London he was the Golden Boy. He later become the matchmaker for Dale Martin and defeated both Mick McManus and Big Daddy on the same night at the Royal Albert Hall.

It’s strange how a random conversation made me realise that my friend loved wrestling when he was younger. It led to us, along with another friend, watching a few local wrestling shows leading to some more great memories.

It’s a shame these matches aren’t available to watch online. Seeing Al facing a 25 stone opponent, the Golden Boy or Dr. Death would be fascinating.