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These days John Garea enjoys a quiet life living on a lifestyle block in Warkworth. He likes fishing, tinkering with his 1928 Ford Model A and running a digger business. But in his former days as Johnny Garcia, he appeared regularly on TV with thousands cheering him on or, sometimes, baying for his blood. James Addis spoke to John about his life as a professional wrestler.
I grew up in West Auckland and went to Blockhouse Bay Intermediate and Kelston Boys High School. From an early age, I showed a lot of athletic ability. I remember cleaning up in all the events, whether it be discus, shot put, high jump or sprinting. By 16, I was playing rugby league for Glenora, while my older brother, Tony, played for the City Newton Dragons. It was while playing league that we were spotted by Ernie Pinches, who was a councillor for the old Mount Roskill Borough and a good mate of Keith Hay. Ernie persuaded us to give wrestling a try. We began to train at the Mount Roskill Gymnasium under Wild Don Scott, and Ernie promoted us through the South Pacific Wrestling Association, which he had founded in the 1950s.
In those early days, we learned the English catch-as-catch-can style of wrestling, which requires a lot of skill. If somebody grabs you and puts you in a hold, you learn dozens of different moves to get out of it. It’s a little boring to watch compared to the American freestyle wrestling and the showmanship you see on the WWF, but the apprenticeship was a good one because it turned me into a “shooter”. In other words somebody who can actually wrestle. I wasn’t just all show. I learned how to fall, how to land on my feet and perform dropkicks – this is where you jump up and kick your opponent with the soles of both feet. I also learned the wrestler’s bridge. This is where you brace yourself up on the back of your neck to keep your shoulders from being pinned on the deck. If your shoulders are pinned for three seconds, that’s it.
By 21, I was the youngest professional wrestler in the country and a regular on the New Zealand circuit. Soon afterwards I moved to Australia, where I began to wrestle for Jim Barnett and World Championship Wrestling. Jim did not care for my last name, Garea. He said it did not seem to ring true. He played around with some alternatives until he hit on Garcia. “Now that’s a catchy name,” he said. So, I became Johnny Garcia.
It was in Australia that I learned the showmanship side of wrestling. At the Melbourne Festival Hall, they would lower six of us guys in a cage – three fighting against three with no escape. I would be the smallest at around 240 pounds fighting these enormous monsters – wrestlers like Ox Baker, Butcher Brannigan and King Curtis – many of them over 300 pounds. They would throw me all around the cage. I would be crashing everywhere and getting thoroughly beaten up. Then the guys on my side would eventually come and rescue me and that’s when the applause would start. Everybody would cheer. I loved that aspect of it.
I returned to New Zealand in the mid-seventies and became a regular on TV’s On the Mat with the likes of the Bushwhackers, John da Silva and Robert Bruce. On the Mat was become New Zealand’s longest running show after Country Calendar and I would be on maybe twice a month. Back then, it was also the only TVNZ show to be sold overseas, especially in Asia. And because we were stars on the show, we became well known in places like Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, so we would fly to those places and do shows over there.
Air New Zealand loved having us. They would take us up to first class, introduce us to the captain and give us a bottle of cognac. Well, I was on television nearly every week and back then there were only two channels. In New Zealand, I mostly played the “babyface” – that is the good guy. But overseas I quite often played “the heel”, that is the villain. It did not matter to me, I still got the same paycheck. I played a coward in Kuala Lumpur once, against their local Kung Fu champion. Every time I went to step inside the ring, I would turn around and start walking away again, acting scared. And the crowd would start pushing and screaming for me to get back in. I’d make to go back in and then change my mind yet again. And the crowd would go crazy once more. It took me about 20 minutes to climb in through the ropes. I loved working the crowd. Of course, when I did finally did get in the ring, I beat the sh*t out of the local guy.
Audiences can become threatening if the villain succeeds. In Australia, I remember leaving a show in a car with Abdullah the Butcher and the crowd hanging around outside began pelting us with rocks and bricks, smashing the windscreen. In Kuala Lumpur, I remember several people trying to get into the ring to attack one of the wrestlers and the police drawing their revolvers to keep the crowd under control. But the bout continued all the same. The show must go on.
I’ve had a few other worrying moments, but if you have been playing a frightening character you can use that to your advantage. In Fiji once I had to walk through a threatening crowd. I glared back at them and said “Do you want to have a go? Well, have a go.” And the crowd quickly backed off. It can be a bit scary sometimes, but that’s part of the job, part of the game. This is where the American style of wrestling comes into its own. It’s about getting those characters and their stories across and getting the crowd worked up. It gives them something to talk about.
I loved the life but you had to work hard and travel hard. If your flight times didn’t work out too well, you might finish a show in Invercargill at midnight, drive to Christchurch to catch a plane to Wellington, then you could be faced with a 10-hour drive up to Auckland to make it in time for another show on the following night. I appeared on On the Mat for nearly a decade and in that time wrestled some of the top stars in Australiasia and around the world, such as the “world’s strongest man” Paul Graham and André the Giant. After the On the Mat folded, I had a long running battle with Bruno Bekkar for the National Wrestling Alliance New Zealand Heavyweight Championship, which I won back twice, before losing to Bekkar again in 1990.
I retired in 1992 when interest in wrestling was waning. I think the promoters could have done more to talk up local champions – put us on a pedestal. Not necessarily me, it could have been anyone. Instead, they talked up the overseas guys, but when they went back home there was nobody New Zealanders could get excited about.
But wrestling has been good to me. In the mid-1970s I could earn $1000 a week from wrestling, when family expenses, running the car and paying the mortgage would only cost me about $100 a week. I bought a five-acre block in Warkworth 12 years ago and moved here for the lifestyle and the fishing. I have a 35-foot fishing boat. In West Auckland, the Waitemata is not very clear but you come up to Sandspit everything is just beautiful. I will be 69 in November but retirement sucks. I keep myself busy with my earthwork business, Garea Digas Earthwork.
Do I miss the glamour of the old days? That’s a good question because a lot of people fall into depression and illness after stepping out of the limelight. But I am the son of a Croatian-born gum digger. I think digging is in my bones, and the digger business has kept my spirits up. Sometimes I dream I’m still on the wrestling circuit. I’m there for the show but the funny thing is I can never quite get my boots on. I never quite make it into the ring. It’s got to be a subconscious thing don’t you think? A subtle message that my time for wrestling is done.
