• Look Back In History
• Pmessages
• Quiz
• Stump The Staff
• Top Fifty
• Close

'You really don't want to mess with me' The original bad boy wrestler who's just returned to Wales from Florida

Posted: Jul 27th 2018 By: Nathan Bevan - WalesOnline.co.uk

I'm sweltering in the baking hot box room of an unassuming house in Cwmbran, from which, way off in the distance, I can see a tanker slowly cut across the glistening mill pond stillness of the Bristol Channel.

On the over-sized computer monitor behind me, however, two large men in lycra are hammering seven bells out of each other in some grainy '80s footage from US cable TV.


One, wearing pink trunks and boots, is dropped painfully to the floor by his heavyset opponent - a kaleidoscope of dayglo face paint and peroxide pigtails - who then falls on him from a great height, headbutting him hard right between the legs.

"Believe it or not, the pair of us became really good friends in the end," says Adrian Street, laughing at his crotch crushing antics from some 30 odd years ago.

"Lovely fella, actually."

The original bad boy of wrestling's golden age, Street's outrageous cross-dressing appearance and crowd-baiting arrogance foisted him upon grapple fans as the man they loved to hate.

And for decades he was king of the ring, the self-professed Sadist In Sequins who, with feather boa'd flamboyance, earned himself international notoriety and a treasure trove of championship belts, one for each rival he'd put flat on the canvas.

A cultural icon who transcended the mere 'man in tights' image, his look is said to have accidentally helped give birth to glam rock - Marc Bolan credited Street as a sartorial influence - as well as ushering in this country's transition from hub of heavy industry to a significant player in the entertainment age.

Indeed, Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller has long cited an infamous 1973 photo of Street, dressed in full outlandish regalia and make-up, standing next to miners at the pit head of a Blaenau Gwent colliery, as the precise moment that seismic shift occurred, dubbing it the 'most important post-war picture ever taken'.

Street's also written numerous autobiographies - like The Merchant of Menace and Violence is Golden - and even recorded an album of songs with arch titles such as Sweet Transvestite With A Broken Nose.

'All I wanted more was for my dad to come home from the war'

Sitting in front of me now though - aged 77, tanned and sporting an impossibly buff build for a pensioner - all I can think of is the time Aussie broadcaster Clive James' described Arnold Schwarzenegger 's muscular physique as resembling "a condom full of walnuts."

"You really don't want to mess with me," says Street with a steely-eyed half-smile, leading me into the living room.

"I've got so many ways to hurt you, you'll have to invent new ways to scream."

And, had he not just asked me if I wanted something to drink - "Cup of tea, mate? Coffee?" - I'd probably be worried about being placed in a half-nelson or pummeled into the carpet.

But, the truth is, behind all the bluster and bravado that comes from a lifetime spent breaking bones, Street is actually good company; funny, honest and, despite his trademarked pompous ringside persona, surprisingly self-deprecating.

For example, when he talks about his difficult childhood growing up in Brynmawr in the 1940s, it's virtually impossible to reconcile him with the strutting, vainglorious 'boo-hiss' villain with which he found fame.

"All I wanted to be back then was a Red Indian, or Tarzan - I loved butch things and playing in the Great Outdoors," he says.

"In fact, the only thing I wanted more was for my dad Emrys to come home from the war.

"I craved a real-life hero to learn from, but what I got was a Bible-bashing bigoted bully.

"Even then though, I tried making excuses for him - not that he ever deserved it - and would blame the way he was towards me on the ordeal he'd suffered as a Japanese POW. But he was always fine to my older brother and sister."

Taken out of school and dragged down the mines at the age of 15 by his pit-worker father - "I hated it, too dark down there, I was born for the spotlight" - the wrestling-obsessed teen ran away to London.

"I marched into the local promoter's office and said, 'Here I am, let's go', but they took one look at me and decided I was too young, too small (Street's only 5ft 6in tall) and too fresh. They told me to get some amateur wrestling experience under my belt first."

Taking various odd jobs just about kept him afloat, while he lifted weights at the nearby YMCA and watched the local wrestlers sparring from afar.

'I thought, 'Wait 'til they get a load of me''

"Eventually I tried joining in, thinking I was a bit special, but they turned me inside out and upside down," Street laughs.

"I got some rough lessons there. Oh boy.

"I remember the actor Roger Moore , who used to play handball at the same venue, come up to me after watching me get one of my first hidings.

"This was just before he starred in The Saint, and he leaned over and asked me if I was alright.

"To this day I wonder if he meant physically or mentally, because I definitely must have had a screw loose putting myself through all that."

Nevertheless, Street turned out to be in the right place at the right time, as the sport of wresting took off with TV viewers, meaning wannabe grapplers like him were suddenly much in demand.

"I kidded myself that it was because of my talent, but the truth was they just needed bodies to put in the ring. So, provided you knew how to lace your boots, you were in."

Originally known as Kid Tarzan Jonathan - a throwback from his earlier guise as a boxer - it was then suggested he change his name to Adrian Stewart. Not a good move.

"I told them 'I'm not Scottish - I'm Welsh and proud', so I decided to go by my real name instead," says Adrian, who decided to emulate the blond, bronzed Adonis look of his American idol 'Nature Boy' Buddy Rogers.

"I dyed my hair peroxide and bought some powder blue boots which came way up to the knee - not that I could afford them - along with some blue velvet and silver lamé and took them to this seamstress I knew in Brixton to knock me up a fancy outfit.

"I had a 48" chest and a 27" waist and thought, 'Wait 'til they get a load of me'. But all the other wrestlers in the dressing room just laughed and made fun.

"And the crowds were just as bad - I'd have cat-calls, whistles and people jeering, 'Yoo-hoo Mary, give us a kiss!'

'It was my way of sticking up two fingers up at them, and how they'd treated me'

"So I was like, 'Right, if that’s what the silly buggers want then that’s what I’ll give them' and I made my character all the more extreme by skipping around the ring and planting big lip-stick smackers on my opponents’ faces .

"Okay, I didn't get the reaction I wanted but it was still more of a response than anyone else got that night, so I just pushed the envelope further and further."

And, once he’d found notoriety he was quick to return to Wales in order to rub his doubters' noses in it.

The Sunday People newspaper wanted to do a piece on me after I'd won a European middleweight wrestling competition, so I took them straight to Brynmawr and was waiting in all my glory as my dad and his workmates clocked off for the day.

"I grabbed them all as they were coming up from underground in the pit cage, saying, 'None of you better move, you’re going to have your picture taken'," he laughs.

"My dad had never ever given me any encouragement and I got nothing but hassle from the other miners, so it was my way of sticking up two fingers up at them, and how they'd treated me."

Street would eventually leave for the US in 1981 after becoming disenchanted by the state of UK wrestling.

"A promoter called Max Crabtree brought his big horrible, fat, flabby brother - Shirley Crabtree AKA Big Daddy - out of retirement. Urggh," huffs Adrian, rolling his eyes.

"Push him on his backside and he'd rock himself to sleep trying to get back up. And don't talk to me about Giant Haystacks either - suddenly I was surrounded by bad actors, not athletes.

"It wasn't like that in America though and I started to rediscover what had made me proud about wrestling in the first place."

A stint in Mexico under the billing Adrian El Exotico gave him the 'Exotic' Adrian Street monicker with which he'd later become known, while he and his wife and manager Linda (herself a fellow wrestler) would balance their spandex showdowns with a successful costume-making business, The Bizarre Bazaar.

Settling on the Florida coast, he created outifts for himself - as well as for a clientele as diverse as WWE legend Mick Foley, Elvis impersonators and Hollywood star Mickey Rourke in his 2008 comeback movie The Wrestler - thereby reconciling with another childhood fancy.

"As a boy during the war I had my own little ration book and would go down to the sweet shop to buy Raspberry Ruffles," says Adrian.

'I can't die, there are still too many people I've not p****d off yet'

"Not because I enjoyed them so much, but because they came in tin foil wrappers which I'd use to clothe the little figurines I'd make from plasticine."

Rourke's film The Wrestler - which documented, warts-and-all, the often unglamourous side to life on the independent wrestling circuit - also chimes loudly with Street when I question why he eventually chose to give up life in the ring.

"I knew knew that one day I'd have enough, and I dreaded it like death itself," he says.

"But, about eight years ago, I was driving 400 miles to a show in Alabama and watching the white lines in the middle of the road whizz past, I just realised 'That's it, no more'.

"After more than 50 years and about 15,000 bouts I was done.

"I retired undefeated in 2010 after having just won the NWA Alabama heavyweight title at 70. So I'd bowed out under my own terms, which is how I do everthing."

You can tell just how much that world meant to him though, because, when he tells me about the potentially career-killing torn Achilles' tendon he suffered at the age of 36, he begins to well up.

"They told me I couldn't wrestle anymore and the news laid me low," says Street.

"But, when I stepped in to referee one of Linda's matches several weeks later, it just hit me - I HAD to get back."

His eyes glisten and he takes a deep breathe to compose himself.

"Ha, why did I tell you that story?"

Even cancer, it seems, didn't stand a chance in stopping him.

"I was diagnosed in 2001 after I kept coughing up blood," says Street.

"The doctor said 'I'm going to give it to you straight - you're not going to make it through his one. You better go home and put your affairs in order'.

"I just told him I wasn't going anywhere because there were still people in the world I'd not pissed off yet. I don't think he appreciated me saying that."

Inhaling secondhand smoke whilst on the road was thought to be the cause.

"Lots of us would travel around in an old converted ambulance, going from show to show - no suspension, no heaters, no air-con and lots of chain smoking going on.

It was the same backstage and in the auditoriums too - a thick blue haze would hang under the lights and lit cigarettes would punctuate the darkness like tiny red polka dots.

"So, to this day, I get really offended if anyone smokes around me.

"In fact, were you to walk in here smoking I'm afraid I'd be forced to make a comeback," he growls, driving his fist into his palm.

Why after all this time has he returned to Wales though?

"It just got too hot where we lived, " he says, explaining that he and Linda had a log cabin down in Pensacola, Florida.

"I'd spend most of the time indoors with the fan on, gazing out the window. Plus we had the place destroyed twice by hurricanes.

"My wrestling school also (the nearby Skull Krushers academy) was demolished by Hurricane Ivan in 2004. Totally wiped from the face of the Earth.

"Only the ring was left standing."

'Bloody good, wasn't I?'

In addition, he has grandkids who, up until recently, he'd never seen.

"Got three children of my own as well, so it's great to be closer to them."

His youngest son Vince, however...

"We seem to be estranged, but I don't know why because I love him to death," says Street.

"Last time I saw him he put his arms around me and said, 'I love you, Dad', but I've not laid eyes on him since.

"Fantastic drummer, lives in Milton Keynes.

"So, if I've done anything, to him I say, 'I'm truly sorry'."

Mowing the lawn into submission (Image: Mark Lewis)
There's just time for a whistle stop tour of the the art, all self-painted, hanging on the walls of his living room - a Red Indian brave, from whose traditional headdress Street pinched the idea to wear plumage in his hair, and various depictions of historical suits of armour - all of which demonstrate his obvious flair with a paint brush.

But, returning to the upstairs box room, it takes only a few seconds trawling through vintage clips of his haymaker heydays to know where his heart will always lie.

"Look at that," Street chirps, as his younger self parades around the ring blowing kisses and putting opponents in lethal looking head-locks.

"Bloody good, wasn't I?"