05 Who's a Pretty Boy? Cornish Wrestling, the Ancient Martial Art that Conquered the World - Simon Margetts
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2024 world champion Simon Margetts shares 4,000 years of history
This episode is for sport lovers with a taste for history and a fondness for the gems rarely found in mainstream coverage. Robin sits down with Simon Margetts, 2024 Cornish Wrestling world champion, to uncover one of sport's most remarkable hidden stories: a martial art older than the Greek Olympics that once packed arenas from Cornwall to California, Johannesburg to Japan.
Simon traces Cornish Wrestling back to the Tailteann Games of ancient Ireland, circa 2000 BC, explaining how the Celtic jacket-grappling tradition spread through Brittany with Cornish settlers around 500 AD, how it likely influenced Jigoro Kano's invention of the judo gi after his 1888 tour of the West, and why medieval knights were explicitly taught to throw opponents using Cornish techniques before finishing them with a blade. References to the 1688 Academy of Armory and a 1679 tournament in St James's Park with a prize fund worth roughly one million pounds today bring the history vividly to life.
The South Africa connection is a standout segment for any listener with roots in the Witwatersrand. Robin reveals the Cornish origins of Redruth, Alberton, and street names like Padstow Crescent, while Simon shares his database of over 15,000 historical Cornish Wrestling results, including tournament records from Krugersdorp, Vereeniging, Roodepoort, Boksburg, and Johannesburg. Cornish miners travelled specifically to South Africa for the prize money, often paid in chunks of gold, and the last claimed South African heavyweight champion, T.H. Greger of Redruth, Cornwall, held his title as late as 1953.
The episode closes with a look at the sport's modern revival: the connection to MMA and Brazilian jiu-jitsu training, the role of FILC (Federation International Lutte Celtique), the 10,000-strong Breton wrestling community of Gouren, and why folk wrestling is trending globally. A brief book note on Roy Shaw's bare-knuckle memoir Pretty Boy and a sharp observation on sport, technology, and infrastructure round out the episode.
This episode is for sport lovers with a taste for history and a fondness for the gems rarely found in mainstream coverage. Robin sits down with Simon Margetts, 2024 Cornish Wrestling world champion, to uncover one of sport's most remarkable hidden stories: a martial art older than the Greek Olympics that once packed arenas from Cornwall to California, Johannesburg to Japan.
Simon traces Cornish Wrestling back to the Tailteann Games of ancient Ireland, circa 2000 BC, explaining how the Celtic jacket-grappling tradition spread through Brittany with Cornish settlers around 500 AD, how it likely influenced Jigoro Kano's invention of the judo gi after his 1888 tour of the West, and why medieval knights were explicitly taught to throw opponents using Cornish techniques before finishing them with a blade. References to the 1688 Academy of Armory and a 1679 tournament in St James's Park with a prize fund worth roughly one million pounds today bring the history vividly to life.
The South Africa connection is a standout segment for any listener with roots in the Witwatersrand. Robin reveals the Cornish origins of Redruth, Alberton, and street names like Padstow Crescent, while Simon shares his database of over 15,000 historical Cornish Wrestling results, including tournament records from Krugersdorp, Vereeniging, Roodepoort, Boksburg, and Johannesburg. Cornish miners travelled specifically to South Africa for the prize money, often paid in chunks of gold, and the last claimed South African heavyweight champion, T.H. Greger of Redruth, Cornwall, held his title as late as 1953.
The episode closes with a look at the sport's modern revival: the connection to MMA and Brazilian jiu-jitsu training, the role of FILC (Federation International Lutte Celtique), the 10,000-strong Breton wrestling community of Gouren, and why folk wrestling is trending globally. A brief book note on Roy Shaw's bare-knuckle memoir Pretty Boy and a sharp observation on sport, technology, and infrastructure round out the episode.
Chapters
- 00:00 Introduction to Cornish Wrestling
- 00:38 Simon Margetts: Background and Martial Arts Journey
- 02:10 Rules, Scoring and Championship Matches
- 04:23 Ancient Origins: Tailteann Games and Celtic Wrestling
- 05:50 The Judo Connection: Jigoro Kano and the Judo Gi
- 06:30 Medieval Knights and the Art of the Throw
- 07:44 Women in Cornish Wrestling Through the Ages
- 09:37 How Many Wrestlers Today and Where They Compete
- 10:45 Global Peak: From South Africa to Japan to Brazil
- 11:33 The South Africa Connection: Redruth and the Witwatersrand
- 13:00 Simon's Database: 15,000 Results and South African Towns
- 15:15 The Future: Is Cornish Wrestling Growing Again?
- 17:10 Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and American History
- 18:48 Missing South African Newspaper Records
- 19:54 Next Tournament in Fraddon, Cornwall
- 20:55 Book Note: Pretty Boy by Roy Shaw
- 22:30 Sport, Technology and the Future
