Wrestling legend Kendo Nagasaki back aged 83

Kendo Nagasaki takes on a reporter in 1979

Wrestling legend Kendo Nagasaki was once knocked flat by a woman with a handbag - it did contain a brick - but such reactions never put him off, and just to prove is he is back, at the age of 83.

Despite the advancing years, it is only 16 years since Nagasaki, real name Peter Thornley, got in the ring - but in Croydon next month, he will return, 60 years after his first match.

His act was to be the villain fans loved to hate and Thornley, of Stoke-on-Trent, always said “Kendo did what he had to do to win.”

In a sport that was also entertainment and all about “bums on seats”, Thornley remembers how spectators became “very, very aggressive. They got right into it”.

Thornley’s alter ego was styled as a masked Japanese samurai warrior with a spiritual, Zen Buddhist side.

He named himself after Kendo, the Japanese art of fencing, and Nagasaki, the city that sustained the second devastating atomic bomb blast, which brought World War Two to an end, in 1945.

'Fountain pen attack'

He became a household name, drawing in audiences of up to 14 million, at the height of his fame.

Those spectators who really entered into the spirit of Nagasaki’s villainous side could be aggressive, he recalls.

“One night, I was hit by a lady with a handbag with a brick in it, knocked me to the floor,” he said.

He had seen she was aged about 40 or 45 and had thought, “She’s not going to hurt me, she’s got a handbag'.

“I was sort of posing like the big strong man I was in those days and as I came up to her she swings her handbag from the side, hits me on the side of the face, and my knees give way. I grabbed the bag off her, ripped it open and a brick fell out.”

That's not all - Thornley says another spectator stuck a fountain pen in his back, leaving him needing to have the nib removed, and a man on crutches used one to hit him in the face, causing a gash that needed to be stitched up.

Injuries came from the wrestlers too and some of his biggest opponents were Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks, who were “big lads but not that dangerous”, Thornley remembers.

“We used to call them receipts. If somebody did something you didn’t like, you used to get up and give one back. We called it a receipt.

“They knew the people that give them a receipt and I was one of them.”

Speaking ahead of his return, Thornley said he was training all the time and keeping fit.

He said over the years he’s had broken ribs, three operations on his neck and knee problems, but he insisted: “I prefer to break bones than get mine broken.”

Thornley's bout will raise money for charity, as well as mark his attempt to break the world record for the oldest professional wrestler and for the longest wresting career.