Atholl Oakeley Sir Edward Atholl Oakeley , 7th Baronet of Shrewsbury ( May 31 , 1900 - January 1987 ) was a professional British Wrestler and Author . Wrestling career . A real life peer he had little interest in wrestling before being beaten up by some thugs . After that he decided that he should never been beaten up again and began training to defend himself . He built up a powerful physique by daily exercise and drinking eleven pints of milk a day , an amount recommended by George Hackenschmitt but which Hackenschmitt later claimed was a misprint . To learn the techniques needed to defend himself he turned to the legitimate sport of Amateur wrestling and became an accomplished amateur wrestler in his own right . One day , when sparing with colleague Ben Sherman , Oakeley got his first taste of professional wrestling . Around this time there was no professional organisation to wrestling in Britain and only amateur wrestling was in use . After losing this gentlemanly tussle to Sherman to a submission hold after thirty minutes Oakeley was inspired to try and bring professional wrestling to Britain and turn it into a promotable business . In 1930 he got together with fellow grappler Henry Irslinger to create what was called " All - in " wrestling and on the 15th of December the two marked the creation of this group with two matches , while Irslinger fought Yugoslav Modrich at Olympia , London Oakeley fought Bert Assirati at Belle Vue , Manchester . Oakeley always claimed that his " All - in " wrestling was completely legitimate and had no predertemined outcome and was only an organisation where wrestlers could face each other on an even basis in a professional environment . Interestingly enough though Promoter Oakeley soon defeated wrestler Bill Garnon to become the first ever British Heavyweight Champion . Wrestling soon took off in Britain and wrestlers who previously wrestled once a week were now wrestling twice a day and wrestling was firmly established as a professional business , albeit one where amateur credentials were a job requirement , and now under the banner of the British Wrestling Association Oakeley ' s promotion rose to the top of the class . With the likes of Tommy Mann , Black Butcher Johnson , Jack Pye , Norman Ansell ( Norman the Butcher ) , Jack Sherry and Jack Dale the BWA became the dominant force in British Wrestling and played a key role in the business before the start of WWII . Business was great for a while . There were around forty regular venues in London alone for wrestling and reported crowds of up to 14 , 000 . If Oakeley ' s recollection is to be believed then two million people watched a four match show as part of the celebrations when the Graf Zeppelin visited Heathrow Airport , but it is worth noting that Oakeley also claimed to have performed a headscissor takerdown on an opponent that stood over nine feet tall . But by the late 1930s the boom in interest had died down and with London banning pro - wrestling as a result of the increase in gimmicky and overly violent matches wrestling in Britain was in bad shape before the start of WWII . But Oakeley had already left the ring permanently as he had retired in 1935 due to injury and dropped the British Heavyweight Title undefeated . In addition to writing his biography " Blue Blood on the Mat " ( which subsequent release brought about a very public argument between him and promoter Norman Morrell ) Oakeley trained the accomplished Judo fighter Alfred Hayes ( later known as Lord Alfred Hayes in the WWF ) in professional wrestling but didn ' t have much more to do with wrestling . He died in Devon in 1987 .