Dynamite Kid

British wrestling badly needed a new young heart-throb in the mid-1970s and Lancashire lad Tommy Billington filled the bill superbly. Tagged the 'Dynamite Kid' by Joint Promotions matchmaker Max Crabtree, his career, starting at the age of 17 in 1975, quickly blossomed and he headed for North America three years later and made the first of a long sequence of visits to Japan during 1979. After suffering increasingly poor health his last contest took place in 1996 and he returned to Lancashire and is now wheelchair-bound, a legacy of the many back and leg injuries received during his ring career. Our pictured show Tommy in the late 1970s before he went or North America, including shots with cousin Davey Smith, before they became a world force as the 'British Bulldogs.'