THE BIG GRAPPLE
I made a fortune as one of Britain’s most famous wrestlers – now I’m getting back in ring at 83, say Kendo Nagasaki
'There’s not many 82-year-olds taking on a fight like me, so I am special'
WRESTLING legend Kendo Nagasaki was the ring villain fans loved to hate.
The hulking silent samurai unnerved opponents from behind his sinister striped mask, with chilling tales of losing half an index finger during a brutal martial arts ceremony.
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And the 6ft 2in monster triggered such anger that Nagasaki was once stabbed in the back with a fountain pen by a spectator, while another packed a house brick in her handbag before walloping him over the head with it.
Now, Nagasaki — real name Peter Thornley, who turns 83 later this month — is planning a return to the ring.
He hopes to break two Guinness World Records — for the oldest professional wrestler and longest wrestling career.
The occasion will also mark the 60th anniversary of his first appearance in British professional wrestling.
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Speaking exclusively to The Sun from his sprawling, 50-room mansion in Stoke-on-Trent, Peter says he has never felt better.
“I’m as fit as a butcher’s dog. I still train every day, eat well and look after myself,” he said.
“I’m not worried. Nobody can hurt me. I’m a dinosaur with teeth.”
Peter cuts an imposing figure, even in his eighties.
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He’s tall with big, broad shoulders and a full head of thick, black hair.
When he offers to show me some wrestling holds, I politely decline.
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I feared he might launch into his special move, the “kamikaze crash”, which saw him give rivals a fireman’s lift, before running and using the momentum to smash and roll the opponent to the ground.
Terrified audiences
Born Brian Stevens in 1941, Peter was adopted soon after his birth by the Thornley family, who gave him his new name.
As a teenager he excelled in sport, becoming a junior boxing champ who also took up judo, studying under prominent sensei Kenshiro Abbe.
He grew up in Crewe, Cheshire, and after leaving school became an apprentice coach maker but got into wrestling in 1964 after a gruesome injury meant he missed the chance to compete in judo at that year’s Olympic Games.
He had lost the end of his left index finger after contracting septicemia when someone bit him during a street fight.
It was a transformative moment in Peter’s life.
Not long after, Kendo Nagasaki was born and his missing digit only added to his mysterious back story.
So when Kendo walked into a wrestling ring, people said, ‘Wow, what’s that?’
Peter says the idea for the mask came from his mentor, masked wrestler Count Bartelli, aka Geoff Condliffe.
He recalls: “I wanted to arrive in a sensational way. I thought, ‘I want to be something different’.
“I didn’t just want to be a masked man, it had to be more.
“I’d learned how to do judo and kendo to quite a high level, so it made sense.
“I’d got the outfit, the samurai sword and all the things. I thought, I can put all that together.
"So when Kendo walked into a wrestling ring, people said, ‘Wow, what’s that?’.
“The show starts when I get in the ring. It starts the moment they see me. Sensational.”
Nagasaki became an overnight hit, a nasty villain who terrified audiences on ITV’s World Of Sport.
Along with the image, Peter carved a daunting backstory of a samurai warrior who wields mystical healing powers and hypnosis skills.
The fearsome wrestler used his size and strength, coupled with a black belt in judo, to batter opponents into submission.
And during an incredible 60-year career he fought other wrestling greats such as Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks and Andre the Giant, beating them all.
The audience became entranced by Nagasaki’s samurai history, with many guessing why he wore the mask.
“Rumours sort of built up that I’d been burnt in a fire or had a serious road accident,” recalls Peter. “People said I had one ear or was badly scarred.
“Some even thought I was royalty or some celebrity who wanted to lead a double life. Of course, we didn’t deny any of it!”
Peter’s big break came in a mass wrestling match with Count Bartelli in 1966.
He said: “Up to then, I’d been sort of scratching around at the bottom, wrestling non-entities.
"Suddenly, I’m sprung into the limelight and I beat this masked man who’s been masked for 20 years. Ba-boom! I’ve arrived.”
Peter also recalls how he was the first wrestler to ever beat legend Andre the Giant.
“I beat him three times and that was before Hulk Hogan beat him in America,” he said. “He was a bit green. He came here to learn the business.
“And he was a genuine monster, you know, 6ft 11 or bigger.”
Life as a wrestling villain had its pitfalls, however. Peter was attacked by fans several times and once even had to run for his life.
“Back in those days the punters believed wrestling was real. It’s not like today where everyone knows it’s a show,” he says.
“When you kicked someone, you kicked them. And so that annoyed the fans. And I remember during a match in Glasgow the crowd got really wound up and rioted.
“I found myself surrounded. I had to do a runner for my life. If I’d gone down, fallen, they’d have trampled me to death.”
Peter was also stabbed with a fountain pen while coming out of Liverpool Stadium in the early Seventies. “The tip broke off in my back,” he recalls. “I had to go to hospital to have it removed.
“Another time a lady with a brick in her handbag smacked me in the side of the face.
“On another occasion a guy on crutches cracked me in the side of the face and put five or six stitches in my cheek.”
Peter added: “I quickly realised that even old ladies with handbags can be dangerous.”
But not all his encounters with wrestling fans were bad.
One mother was so convinced of Nagasaki’s mystical healing powers she asked his manager if the wrestler would heal her 12-year-old son’s stomach cramps through the “laying on of hands” after a match.
He duly obliged.
After a long and storied career, Peter’s most famous moment came at Wolverhampton Civic Hall in 1977.
The villain finally had his mask removed at a special ceremony watched on TV by 14million people.
Fire-red eyes
“I had come to an apex in my career,” he recalls. “I’d had quite a bad injury. I’d been kicked in the head and fractured my skull and got meningitis.
“I was having dizzy spells, so I decided I was going to go out on a big high and unmask for my fans.”
When Peter’s then-manager, “Gorgeous” George Gillette, removed his mask during a bizarre ritualistic ceremony, it revealed a westerner with fire-red eyes, with an occult star tattoo on the top of his shaved head, and a jet-black ponytail protruding from the back.
He said: “The real me terrified children even more than the mask.”
Peter wrestled on and off throughout the Eighties and early Nineties, with sporadic wrestling matches as recently as 2008.
But he revealed the years after the height of his wrestling fame were tough.
The star became involved in the drugs scene and hung out with gangsters.
He also opened a car dealership and ran a music studio.
At one point, Peter’s home in London was raided by drugs cops and the flamboyant showman was the subject of a sensational headline in 2017 accusing him of supplying cocaine to Princess Margaret in the Eighties — claims he strongly denies.
These days, Peter is a businessman and property owner living at Moor Court Hall, a grand, 17-acre country estate in Stoke-on-Trent.
The £1.5million mansion has immaculate zen Buddhism-themed grounds and is maintained by a staff of six.
Peter used the estate to run a care business, offering programmes for children with learning disabilities.
The real me terrified children even more than the mask.
The devout Buddhist also ran zen retreats at the property.
Now he spends his time maintaining a large vegetable patch and greenhouse and tinkering with his impressive collection of classic cars, including an Aston Martin Virage and a Jaguar XK150.
The colourful wrestler, who was married to wife Yvette until she died in 1990, revealed he was bisexual in his 2018 autobiography, Kendo Nagasaki And The Man Behind the Mask.
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He said he knew about his sexuality as early as 17 and revealed he has been with a male partner since his wife died aged 80.
Peter now wants to relocate from his huge estate, where he has lived for the past 35 years, to Blackpool, where he owns the exclusive men-only Trades Hotel.
He has put his house up for sale and now plans to teach zen Buddhism to the LGBTQ+ community in the Lancs seaside town.
Peter is also back in training for his record-breaking big return match on November 24 at Fairfield Halls in Croydon.
He will join Belfast wrestling brothers “Dead Gorgeous” Jordan, 22, and Ben Nelson, 18, for a tag team bout against the best of LDN Wrestling.
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Pumping iron in his home gym, he said: “I’ve kept the training up over the years. Of course, some people are special. It’s genetics.
“There’s not many 82-year-olds taking on a fight like me, so I am special.”
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