Steve Rickard

Sydney Mervin "Merv" Batt (3 September 1929 – 5 April 2015), best known by his ring name Steve Rickard, was a New Zealand professional wrestler, trainer and promoter. As a wrestler, he traveled throughout the world during the 1960s and 1970s, often visiting countries where professional wrestling was unknown such as southeast Asia, and was one of the top competitors to come from New Zealand during that era. Rickard was a frequent opponent for many foreign wrestlers travelling overseas including NWA World Heavyweight Champions such as Jack Brisco, Dory Funk Jr., Harley Race and "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair. He also had high-profile matches with Karl Gotch, Killer Kowalski, The Destroyer, André the Giant, Abe Jacobs and King Kong as well.

He was a former NWA Australasian Heavyweight Champion, a 3-time NWA New Zealand Heavyweight Champion, and a record 8-time NWA British Empire/Commonwealth Champion. He and Mark Lewin were also the first NWA Australasian Tag Team Champions in the early 1980s.

Rickard is considered one of the most influential figures in New Zealand professional wrestling in the latter half of the 20th century. He took over the Dominion Wrestling Union after the death of founder Walter Miller in 1959 and ran it for two years. In 1962, he established All Star Pro Wrestling, also known as NWA New Zealand internationally, which eventually succeeded the DWU and remained the country's single major promotion for the next 30 years. He and Australian promoter Jim Barnett were responsible for bringing foreign wrestlers, especially from Canada and the United States, back to the Pacific region by the late 1960s. He was also the creator of On the Mat, one of the country's longest running sports programmes from 1975 to 1984, and its short-lived spin-off The Main Event in 1990.

Rickard was also a successful hotelier and businessman before and after his wrestling career, most notably, establishing one of the first gyms in Wellington and running the Hutt Park Hotel for 15 years. After his in-ring retirement in 1989, he remained involved in the wrestling industry. He served as President of the NWA during the early to mid-1990s first shared between himself, Howard Brody, Dennis Coralluzzo and Jim Crockett Jr. from 1993 to 1995, and alone from 1995 to 1996. He was also a one-time a director of the Cauliflower Alley Club and honoured by the organization in 1997.

Early life and amateur career Steve Rickard, born Sydney Mervin "Merv" Batt, grew up in Napier, New Zealand. He joined an amateur wrestling club at age 14, and left school that same year to work three jobs to help support his mother, younger brother Eddy and sister Val. As a young man, he joined the New Zealand Police force in Napier and later transferred to Wellington where he worked as a police detective with the Criminal Investigation Branch. He eventually left the police force and bought the Hutt Park Hotel which he owned for the next 15 years.

Rickard started competing as an amateur wrestler in Napier during the 1940s, wrestling in the national championships New Zealand wide, and later began training wrestlers himself. According to Rickard, he "used to train the wrestlers and get some place or another where you could put a mat down" before building his own facility though "the conditions generally were not very good at all". Rickard continued his training in Wellington and eventually opened one of the city's first gyms on Cuba Street.

Professional career

Early career as a world journeyman Rickard was wrestling on the amateur circuit with Ricky Walsh during this time and it was he who convinced Rickard to begin wrestling professionally. He began wrestling for local promoters in Wellington including shows for wrestler Al Hobman. Four months later in Tokyo, approximately 8,500 were in attendance when Rickard fought to a double-countout with Kantaro Hoshino at the Sumo Hall.

That same year, while wrestling out of Singapore, Rickard was visiting the Indonesian capital of Jakarta with several other wrestlers. While arriving at an airport, he and two other wrestlers, King Kong and Mr. X, started a brawl with Shintaro Fuji, Jack Claybourne, and Charlie Londos. The local populace was unfamiliar with professional wrestling at the time and when Jack Claybourne, a French-speaking African from Martinique, was seen being attacked by masked wrestler Mr. X it was presumed to be a racially motivated assault. As the country was then under control of the military, truckloads of soldiers were called in and soon arrived the airport. All six wrestlers fled to the runway where Rickard flagged down a small plane getting ready to take off. Boarding the plane, the pilot refused to take off until the soldiers began firing and one of the bullets went through the plane's fuselage. Flying back to Singapore, a friend gave Mr. X a newspaper cutting with a picture of the airport brawl. The headline read "Steve Rickard and Ku Klux Klan gangsters from Australia in racial attack at airport". Rickard and the other wrestlers were allowed to reenter the country to appear for their match after local promoter Ranjid Singh offered a "sweetener" during a meeting with military leaders.

Rickard was involved in other incidents during his international travels. He was riding a train in India when it was bombed in a terrorist attack. He was also once stranded in Greece when the government closed down the country's airports during trouble with Turkey.

All Star Pro Wrestling When not competing internationally, he also wrestled in his native New Zealand, where he became a mainstay for the country's main promotion, the Dominion Wrestling Union, for longtime promoter Walter Miller. After Miller's death in 1959, Rickard ran the DWU before forming his own promotion, All Star Pro Wrestling, three years later. Although he would only run cards on and off during the next few years, Rickard's organisation would eventually succeed the DWU as the country's single major wrestling promotion for the next 30 years.

Walter's death caused a decline in wrestling, not only in New Zealand, but for the entire Australasian region as appearances from foreign wrestlers declined to only a few each year. Rickard and John da Silva, who ran the rival Central Wrestling Alliance, sought to develop their own stars during early to mid-1960s such as Al Hobman, and The Sheepherders. He and fellow wrestler Joe Komone also discovered future Australian heavyweight champion Earl Black and who spent his rookie year for Rickard in Wellington before going to work for Australian promoters Hal Morgan and Jim Barnett in Sydney.

Eventually, he and Jim Barnett of World Championship Wrestling in Australia were able to work together to bring back foreign wrestlers to the Pacific within a few years. By the late 1960s, New Zealand was being regularly visited by Australian wrestlers Ron Miller and Larry O'Day of Barnett's World Championship Wrestling, Robert Bruce from Scotland, Canadians Gordon Nelson and George Gordienko, and French wrestler André the Giant. In 1972, he helped book one of the biggest tours to date when US wrestlers Big Bad John, Bulldog Brower, Les Wolff, King Curtis Iaukea, Spiros Arion, Mark Lewin, Thunderbolt Patterson, Sweet Daddy Siki, Tarzan Tyler, Dewey Robertson and Haystacks Calhoun wrestled throughout the country. The American wrestlers proved very popular with the public and a few, such as Calhoun and his wife, were featured in the national media.

In 1972, Rickard's partnership with Jim Barnett ended when Barnett sold his share of Big Time Wrestling and went back to the United States. By this time, Rickard had decided to promote All Star Pro-Wrestling full-time in New Zealand as live events were proving extremely popular. His shows sold out the Wellington Winter Show Buildings ten weeks in a row and often had to turn away hundreds of spectators. On one occasion, Rickard had to rescue his wife from angry fans who, when told the show had sold out, began rocking the small ticket booth.

On the Mat

Rickard's success with All Star Pro-Wrestling encouraged him to capitalize on this popularity with a nationally broadcast wrestling program. He had seen how successful televised wrestling had been in Australia and in the United States, and with Jim Barnett was involved with airing the short-lived Big Time Wrestling in 1972. Similar to Britain's World of Sport, the program was to showcase both the country's top wrestlers and international stars of the period. He used footage taken from one of his earlier events at the Wellington Winter Show Buildings had a film pilot made which he used to "pitch" the idea to TV1 but it passed on the show. Rickard had to wait two years until the founding of a second network, TV2, which was more favourable to the idea of a wrestling program.

After meeting with then programme director Kevan Moore, Rickard developed the show with South Pacific Pictures. The first episode of On the Mat premiered in 1975, with Ernie Leonard and Rickard as the play-by-play announcer, and was an instant success. It remained on the air for 9 years, being broadcast in several countries, and became New Zealand's longest-running sports show. During the show's off-season, he and the All Star Pro-Wrestlers spent the three months wrestling overseas touring the Middle East, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, Hong Kong and Hawaii. and Rickard went on to hold the title a record 8-times in the next five years.

Rickard also started promoting outside New Zealand, purchasing the 50th State Big Time Wrestling territory in Hawaii from Ed Francis. In June 1979, he began holding weekly matches at Block Arena in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and monthly events at the Blaisdell Center Arena in downtown Honolulu. He had a television contract with KGMB-TV, retaining Lord Blears as his announcer, and featured Rick Martel, Siva Afi, "Pretty Boy" Larry Sharpe, Don Muraco, Rocky Johnson, Billy White Wolf, Karl von Steiger, Ripper Collins and other NWA stars. He also used many of his own wrestlers such as The Sheepherders and, based partly on their television appearances, were seen by US promoters and eventually brought to the United States. He sold his territorial rights in Hawaii to Peter Maivia a year later.

He also continued wrestling in New Zealand during this time meeting NWA World Heavyweight Champion Harley Race in Hamilton on 11 September 1979, and defeating the world champion via disqualification, and teaming with Rick Martel to defeat Mr. Fuji & Casey Mille in Auckland a month later. they regained the titles on 27 May 1982. Their second and final reign lasted two months and ended when they were beaten by King Kamaka & Ox Baker on 19 August.

Though foreign stars, especially from the US, were becoming harder to find by the early 1980s, Rickard was able to bring in Harley Race, Abdullah the Butcher and "The Original Sheik" Ed Farhat as well as younger wrestlers such as Bret Hart and Barry Darsow. Darsow, who wrestled as Mongol Zar, later defeated him for the NWA British Empire/Commonwealth Championship in 1983 but quickly regained it. That same year, the 54-year-old Rickard won the national championship from Siva Afi and vacated shortly afterwards. It had been twenty years since he had last held the title. Also, on 4 March 1983, he fought "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in Hamilton, New Zealand.

The poor New Zealand economy, as well as the decline of the NWA in the face of the national expansion of the World Wrestling Federation, made importing foreign wrestlers extremely difficult and finally Rickard could no longer afford to produce the show and was forced to cancel On the Mat by 1984.

Later career and retirement As a member of the National Wrestling Alliance, Rickard was involved in arranging title defences in the Australasian region for NWA World champions during the 1970s and 80s. He was responsible for the unsanctioned title switch between Ric Flair and Harley Race at the Wellington Town Hall on 21 March 1984, and in Geylang, Singapore three days later. It has been worked out a "backroom deal", mostly to keep it a secret from wrestling "dirt sheets" such as the Wrestling Observer, however the NWA objected to being left out of the planning and refused to recognize these title changes for several years.

After the cancellation of On the Mat, Rickard continued to promote shows with All Star Pro-Wrestling and attempted several international tours. In the mid-1980s, he spent time in NWA Hawaii where he defended the Commonwealth title against Larry O'Day and Lars Anderson. He also teamed with his son Tony against Larry O'Day & Ripper Collins in a best 2-of-3 falls match for the NWA Australasian Tag Team titles.

Rickard retired from active competition in 1989, shortly before his 60th birthday, as a result of a series of injuries sustained during his career. He underwent surgery to have had both his hips and knees replaced, and an untreated shoulder dislocation sustained during an overseas tour would continue to trouble him for many years. He also served as president of the organisation, along with Howard Brody, Dennis Coralluzzo and Jim Crockett, Jr. from 1993 to 1995, and then alone until 1996. He was also involved with the Cauliflower Alley Club, a professional wrestling and boxing fraternal society, and was on the board of directors at one time; he became an official honouree of the organisation in 1997.

He continued promoting wrestling events into the 21st century running occasional events in southeast Asia. On 12 December 2004, he organised a show at the Singapore Indoor Stadium featuring the first steel cage match held in Singapore in over a decade and headlined by Dusty Wolfe, The Honky Tonk Man, Warlord and The Barbarian.

Later years In the years following his retirement, Rickard has been recognized by the national media for his contributions to professional wrestling in New Zealand. He has been referred to as "the Vince McMahon of New Zealand wrestling" by the New Zealand Herald and credited as "the man who turned wrestling into home entertainment" with his On the Mat program. He has also received praise from the internet wrestling community being called "one of New Zealand's greatest wrestlers" by the Pro Wrestling Torch.

In June 2007, Rickard was interviewed by KiwiProWrestling.co.nz where he reflected on his amateur and professional career.

In early 2009, he and his wife Lorraine left their home of 30 years in Oriental Bay and moved into a retirement home in Greenmeadows outside his birthplace of Napier. On 3 September 2009, Rickard celebrated his 80th birthday in Hawke's Bay which was attended by around 100 guests including former wrestlers Arthur Sneddon and Joe Fau. The event was covered by the New Zealand Herald. That same year, Dave Cameron of Fight Times Magazine ranked him #4 of a top ten listing of New Zealand's greatest wrestlers. The New Zealand Herald included Rickard in its list of New Zealand's favourite wrestlers as did the Herald columnist Chris Rattue in his own top ten list.

Championships and accomplishments All Star Pro Wrestling NWA British Empire/Commonwealth Championship (New Zealand version) (8 times) Cauliflower Alley Club Other inductee (1997) National Wrestling Alliance National NWA New Zealand Heavyweight Championship (3 times) Regional NWA Australasian Heavyweight Championship (1 time)