Provoking Wrestling

All kinds of unorthodox holds and extras, when the ref was on the blind side, provoked the large crowd at the Opera House to cat calls or encouragement during the recent tag wrestling match. Brute Barnard played up to his reputation and had the crowd booing for most of his match against Steve Rickard.

A feature of the evening was the preliminaries which were staged by boys from Bernie Thompson's wrestling school in Tikitiki. A member of the engineer's branch in the Post Office and former well known amateur wrestler, Bernie, who has been on Post Office work at Tikitiki for the past six months, took the boys under his wing and instructed them in the wrestling art. The culmination of the instruction was the preliminaries which were a great thrill for the boys many of whom had never been to Gisborne before.

Reaching the wrestling heights in meteoric fashion are Nobby Koia and Brian Kururangi who are held aloft by Brute Barnard.

Ten of the up and coming mat men from the Coast are William Pepere, Lewis Wetini, Edwin Green, Tai Ngata, Joseph Williams, and, in front, David Waitoa, Brian Kururangi, Nobby Koia, Hone Waitoa and Mark McCormack.

Pictured with Toi Koia (left) and Bernie Thompson are the eight other boys in the school who are Trevor Koia, Jimmy Green, Pat Barnett, Sidney Koia and, in front, Joe Koia, George Koia, Rakai Pepere and Murray Waitoa.