Steve Rickard

Sydney Mervin "Merv" Batt (3 September 1929 – 5 April 2015), best known by his ring name Steve Rickard, was a New Zealand professional wrestler, trainer and promoter.

Rickard started competing as an amateur wrestler in Napier during the 1940s, wrestling in the national championships New Zealand wide, and later began training wrestlers himself.

According to Rickard, he "used to train the wrestlers and get some place or another where you could put a mat down" before building his own facility though "the conditions generally were not very good at all".

Rickard continued his training in Wellington and eventually opened one of the city's first gyms on Cuba Street.

Rickard was wrestling on the amateur circuit with Ricky Walsh during this time and it was he who convinced Rickard to begin wrestling professionally.

He began wrestling for local promoters in Wellington including shows for wrestler Al Hobman.

He took over the Dominion Wrestling Union after the death of founder Walter Miller in 1959 and ran it for two years.

As a wrestler, he traveled throughout the world during the 1960s and 1970s, often visiting countries where professional wrestling was unknown such as southeast Asia, and was one of the top competitors to come from New Zealand during that era.

Rickard was a frequent opponent for many foreign wrestlers travelling overseas including NWA World Heavyweight Champions such as Jack Brisco, Dory Funk Jr.., Harley Race and "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair.

He also had high-profile matches with Karl Gotch, Killer Kowalski, The Destroyer, André the Giant, Abe Jacobs and King Kong as well.

He was a former NWA Australasian Heavyweight Champion, a 3-time NWA New Zealand Heavyweight Champion, and a record 8-time NWA British Empire/Commonwealth Champion.

He and Australian promoter Jim Barnett were responsible for bringing foreign wrestlers, especially from Canada and the United States, back to the Pacific region by the late 1960s.

He eventually became one of the top wrestlers to compete internationally during the 1960s and 70s and often faced many prominent stars of the era.

He was the opponent of many NWA World Heavyweight Champions in bouts outside North America, such as Jack Brisco and Dory Funk Jr.., and was also involved in high-profile matches with The Destroyer, André the Giant, Abe Jacobs and King Kong, the latter billed as "the uncrowned Heavyweight Champion of the World".

His bouts in Australia against Killer Kowalski were called "real blood baths".

In 1962, he established All Star Pro Wrestling, also known as NWA New Zealand internationally, which eventually succeeded the DWU and remained the country's single major promotion for the next 30 years.

In 1963, Rickard won his first major title when he defeated Hobman for the NWA New Zealand Heavyweight Championship.

He briefly lost it to Peter Maivia in Auckland on 3 August 1964, but regained it in Wellington three days later.

Rickard re-lost the title to Hobman later that year.

On the advice of Ricky Wallace, he later began travelling overseas.

His first international tour was to Australia and then shortly afterwards went on to New Caledonia, Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, and Hawaii.

He also wrestled throughout Canada and the United States early in his career.

During the next two decades, Rickard's professional wrestling career would take him to countries throughout the world and many were where in places where professional wrestling had never been promoted before; he would make numerous trips to Australia and Singapore, and wrestle in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and most of the major Pacific Islands including New Hebrides, Western Samoa, American Samoa, Tahiti and Hawaii.

He also wrestled Karl Gotch while touring Canada in 1965 and publicly praised his scientific abilities afterwards as "a true wrestler with all the science that we are led to believe the greats of earlier generations possessed – men like Jim Londos, Dick Shikat, Stan Zbyszko and others".

In July 1969, he accompanied the Japanese Wrestling Association on its tour of Southeast Asia.

He teamed with Kurt von Stroheim, a tag team champion in the United States and Australia with his brother Karl, and lost to Giant Baba & Antonio Inoki in both their encounters in Singapore and Hong Kong.

On the second day of the tour, on 15 July, he and von Stroheim wrestled Giant Baba & Michiaki Yoshimura at Victoria City's South China Stadium in front of 5,000 fans.

Four months later in Tokyo, approximately 8,500 were in attendance when Rickard fought to a double-countout with Kantaro Hoshino at the Sumo Hall.

That same year, while wrestling out of Singapore, Rickard was visiting the Indonesian capital of Jakarta with several other wrestlers.

He was also the creator of On the Mat, one of the country's longest running sports programmes from 1975 to 1984, and its short-lived spin-off The Main Event in 1990.

Rickard was also a successful hotelier and businessman before and after his wrestling career, most notably, establishing one of the first gyms in Wellington and running the Hutt Park Hotel for 15 years.

He and Mark Lewin were also the first NWA Australasian Tag Team Champions in the early 1980s.

Rickard is considered one of the most influential figures in New Zealand professional wrestling in the latter half of the 20th century.

After his in-ring retirement in 1989, he remained involved in the wrestling industry.

He served as President of the NWA during the early to mid-1990s first shared between himself, Howard Brody, Dennis Coralluzzo and Jim Crockett Jr.. from 1993 to 1995, and alone from 1995 to 1996.

He was also a one-time a director of the Cauliflower Alley Club and honoured by the organisation in 1997.

Steve Rickard, born Sydney Mervin "Merv" Batt, grew up in Napier, New Zealand.

He joined an amateur wrestling club at age 14, and left school that same year to work three jobs to help support his mother, younger brother Eddy and sister Val.

As a young man, he joined the New Zealand Police force in Napier and later transferred to Wellington where he worked as a police detective with the Criminal Investigation Branch.

He eventually left the police force and bought the Hutt Park Hotel which he owned for the next 15 years.