The life of a wrestler is never easy. Ask any one of them, and they will tell you all about the sacrifices they have made.
Klondyke Kate earned every bit of her reputation as the toughest woman in Britain. She paid for that honour with her body, mind, heart, and even part of her soul.
Jayne Porter’s earliest fights were on the playgrounds of Stoke-on-Trent, England. Being large for her age made her an easy target for bullies. Those who did take shots at her quickly learned that she could bully back just as hard.
She believes she got her aggression from her gentile grandmother. It was her who introduced Jayne to World of Sport.
The wrestling segments were the most watched show in the United Kingdom for thirty years. Just like millions of others, Jayne’s respectable grandmother turned into a monster who raved at her television every Saturday afternoon.
Count Bartelli could end matches sooner if he wanted to, but he wanted to ensure his opponents, and especially fans, knew this.
Jayne attended her first live wrestling event when she was eleven. Once she learned they took place in The Victoria Hall, she became a fixture in the crowd. The one thing she never saw there or on television was a woman wrestling.
In 1977, Jayne and her friends went on a day trip to Blackpool Pleasure Beach with a community group. Most of them stayed in the funfair.
Jayne noticed that the Horseshoe Bar was hosting live wrestling. This became the only thing at the fair she was interested in.
Brain “Crusher” Mason went by a few names, including “Butch Lynch”. All of them were known for being effective heels.
On this occasion, he was “The Mighty Chang” (not to be confused with the actor Milton Reid, who previously used the character). He combined brutal strength with unexpected athleticism. His matches tended to be quite bloody.
“Now I think I’m the best not because of my holds, but because I know how to work the crowd.
The crowd don’t want wrestling, just pure wrestling. I don’t think I could wrestle cleanly if I tried. I just like winding them up, and the more I do it the better I feel.”
– Klondyke Kate on being a heel.
Steve Peacock threw Chang into the corner. He went between the ropes and hit his head against the post. He then spilled out of the ring and landed at Jayne’s feet.
As he got up, he came face-to-face with Jayne. He didn’t say a word. Then Jayne noticed he had gotten his blood on her favourite white dress.
Made In Stoke, Built In Blackpool
Jayne immediately confronted the master of ceremonies. She didn’t realise that Bobby Barron was also the promoter.
And he didn’t realise that Jayne wasn’t another disagreeable housewife. He was used to having disgruntled fans thinking they could intimidate him or the wrestlers.
Barron slowly realised that Jayne was a school kid. Yet she had the size and aggression that made her look like she could beat up any man in the crowd.
Barron changed the topic to her love of wrestling. Jayne admitted that it made her sick that she wasn’t a man. She thought it meant she could never wrestle herself.
Her mind was blown when Barron said he had women wrestlers competing that weekend… and he was looking for more.
Jayne didn’t get on the bus when the others went home. She needed to see women wrestlers for the first time. She stayed with an aunt so she could watch the rest of the twelve shows that weekend.
She picked up on insider secrets, like how the audience members who were randomly selected for open challenges were always other wrestlers.
Then, the moment that changed her life. She witnessed her first women’s match. Rusty Blair took on Cherokee Princess.
Jayne was caught off guard by how pretty these women were. Then she was surprised again when they performed harder than the men did.
“The first girls I saw were very beautiful, Rusty Blair from Scotland with the fiery red hair, and the Cherokee Princess – the head-dress, all the business and lovely figures.
I though, oh my God, these are girls, but they’re all very pretty. I wasn’t that big when I was fifteen, about ten and a half stone (roughly 150 lbs), and I was a tomboy and never had anything about me, very plain.”
– Porter on seeing women wrestlers for the first time.
Barron had mentioned that he was looking for someone to train alongside his wife. Both of them secretly hoped that person could be Jayne.
He got her into the ring between shows to demonstrate a few moves on her. He told her that if she was serious, she could return in two weeks. Jayne hitchhiked around miles to get back home. She had every intention on accepting Barron’s invitation.
“Wrestling schools” were rare and heavily guarded secrets held in regular gyms. You only knew about them if someone in the industry wanted you to know.
Promoters that had a regular venue would rather train their own performers. Not because it ensured quality, but because it was cheaper. One of his trainers was Tony Francis.
Francis’ father was friends with Jack Pye. He fell in love with wrestling when he saw a live crowd react to Pye’s heel work.
He pressured the wrestler to train him. Instead, he referred Francis to a gym that would beat him up as much as possible.
When Francis kept returning, it showed he had the right passion for the business. This was his mentality for training new wrestlers.
The ring that Jayne tried out in was a concrete floor with posts. One of the very first lessons was what a very stiff body slam felt like.
She had not been shown how to take the move properly yet. Jayne heard a loud crack. She had broken her ankle. Witnesses thought they had seen the last of her. But she returned six weeks later, eager to continue.
Francis insisted she wrestle as “Big Bertha”. The name implies what it sounds like. It is a derogatory term used in England to describe an overweight and unappealing woman.
Nobody knows if this was another one of Francis’ tests. But the suggestion left the fifteen-year-old in tears. She did not want to be the personification of ugliness. She even wore a t-shirt with the name for her matches.
Most people remember August 16, 1977, as the day that Elvis Presley died. Jayne remembers it as the day she had her debut match.
She teamed with Blair against Cherokee and another rookie. The veterans went harder against the newbies on purpose. It didn’t matter to them that Jayne was still in school.
Creating Klondyke Kate
The under-trained rookies failed to impress. Barron considered cutting his losses and moving on from them. But Butch knew Barron would be making a huge mistake.
He saw a lot of potential in Jayne. The man who once ruined her dress with his blood was not saving her dream. The other rookie never stepped into a ring again.
Inspired by Butch, Barron showed some compassion on the teenager. He decided to give her a new ring name and character.
The quickest way for an English wrestler to generate heel heat was to pretend to be from another country. Butch was from Portsmouth. But as The Mighty Chang, he was an Asian monster whose mere presence antagonised his fellow countrymen.
The Klondyke Kate character originally belonged to a woman who achieved greater success as Hellcat Haggerty. The character had only one parallel with vaudeville actress “Klondike Kate” Rockwell.
Both claimed to be from the Yukon region of Canada when they were not. Rockwell entertained working class men to persuade them to spend more money. KLONDYKE Kate (with a ‘y’) put fear in them so they would pay to see her get beaten.
Haggarty scared Jayne, so Jayne was determined to make her version of Kate just as intimidating. Unlike Chang, Kate could speak English. This allowed her to fire back at hecklers.
Becoming a wrestler is often harder for women. They usually have to train and compete full-contact against men to gain experience.
The women of Kate’s generation had to go even harder against each other to get the same level of respect. Not to mention that some towns had outright bans on women’s wrestling.
The fact that she was a woman made audiences think they could stand up to her. She would be hit and stabbed with objects crowd members had smuggled in.
She had to carry herself like a hardened veteran even though she was still underage. It was ironic that Kate often competed in bars that she couldn’t be served in.
The hazing was sometimes worse than the crowd reactions. Among the pranks, she alleged some of her colleagues stripped her and pushed her into a takeaway.
On another occasion, they had nailed her luggage to the floor. She almost injured her neck when she tried to lift it.
Mitzi Mueller was a second-generation wrestler. She was marketed as “The Blonde Bombshell”. Her pretty looks were all she needed to get crowds on her side.
She doesn’t know if this was the reason why men didn’t want to wrestle with her, or if it was because of her fluid grappling skills.
It can be easy to forget that she was as tough as they come. But if anyone had forgotten this, she would quickly remind them.
Klondyke Kate encountered Mueller early into her career. All promoters needed to do was put them in the ring together.
Fans immediately crafted a story where Kate was the jealous bully that wanted to hurt the pretty girl. Mueller wore down Kate with holds and throws.
Kate would do whatever it took to inflict more pain on her. The pair engaged in a brutal rivalry that lasted until Mueller’s retirement.
Orig Williams initially began wrestling as a means of earning extra money. He was soon travelling the world. Each country he visited made him a better wrestler.
He would create the British Wrestling Federation in his native Wales. His promotion attracted the biggest names and rising stars. Klondyke Kate was among them. He didn’t just see potential in her. He saw how to unlock it.
In 1982, Williams sent Kate and Busty Keegan on a tour with All Japan Wrestling Women’s Pro-Wrestling. They competed in the Japan-UK Champion series.
Nearly all of Kate’s matches were tag matches, usually teaming with Devil Masami, and occasionally Masked Yu. Many of the contests were best-of-three rounds. She did have two singles matches against Jaguar Yokota, but they both ended in double count-outs.
“I can’t explain to you how much I loved wrestling in the early days. It certainly wasn’t the money.
It was the lifestyle, travelling everywhere, going abroad. I went on my own to Nigeria when I was sixteen to wrestle an American girl.
I went to Japan for six weeks in ’82, when I was nineteen and a bit wiser, though not as wise as I am today, I did thirty-six venues in forty days.”
– Kate on traveling during her early career.
The matches were just as intense as the schedule. She was there for over five weeks and competed almost every single night.
She worked with the same group of women over and over. In addition to toughening her up, she learned how to adapt to different styles and how to keep repeating matches fresh.
Klondyke Kate Vs Everybody
Returning from Japan was a rebirth for her career. It was like UK fans were seeing Klondyke Kate for the first time.
From the moment she walked through the curtain, she seemed ready to fight anybody. She dished verbal abuse right back. Audience members would hit or stab her with items they had smuggled in.
“They come to see all this blood and guts. They don’t want all this arty-farty rubbish. You know, all this wrestling with good moves.
They want to see blood, and they want to see people getting knocked out. That’s basically what they’re there for.
They get all this aggression out while they’re there. Then they go home and go about their lives.”
– Klondyke Kate on her appeal to fans.
Kate worked a slower style in the ring. She took advantage of the fact that opponents could not lift her. While it is tradition not to disclose the weights of women wrestlers, announcers proudly declared that Kate was twenty stone (280lbs).
Kate relied on clubbing blows more. She waited until she had softened them up before going for the bigger throws and slams.
Those who didn’t recover fast enough would feel her full weight fall on them. This slower style made every move matter more. She created more drama with less effort.
Adrian Street once tried to stand out as a glam rock star. The first crowd to see his new look mistook him for a transvestite.
He ran with this, and “Exotic” Adrian Street became one of the UK’s most flamboyant heels. He and Blackfoot Linda reached new levels when they went to the US. Linda was repackaged as Miss Linda.
She became Street’s valet that he would publicly degrade. They switched roles whenever Lynda was wrestling. The duo became attractions in men’s, women’s and intergender tag divisions around the world.
They would cross paths with Kate for the first time while with the BWF before she went to Japan. She immediately became their protegee.
She got to know both of them as opponents and tag partners. Kate complimented them as a group by being more “manly” and aggressive.
While they tried to take as little damage as possible, Kate took the brawl to opponents. When Kate was booked against Linda, it gave both women a chance to showcase their abilities.
Klondyke Kate became a household name in the UK. Even as a heel, her name had drawing power alongside some of the biggest male stars in the country.
She was one of the few women to be regularly featured on the Welsh-language wrestling show ‘Reslo’ (literally “Wrestling”).
But the moment that told her she finally made it was meeting her childhood hero Steve Logan. He was a dominant heel who captured young Jayne’s imagination. Now in his seventies, he was physically a shell of his former self. But the inner fire was still there.
Kate had just finished a match in Morecombe. The legendary heel complimented Kate on being a great villain. He encouraged her not to give up on her dreams. Kate told him that she knew that if he ever met him, he would not disappoint her. She was certainly right.
It wasn’t just the heels that respected her. She did like watching energetic blue eyes like Johnny Saint and the Royal Brothers. It turned out they enjoyed watching Kate too.
Most modern fans know Saint as the General Manager for WWE’s short-lived NXT UK brand. British wrestling fans remember him as one of the funniest wrestlers of his era.
Fans kept pointing out how he resembled comedian Russ Abbott. He took advantage to make his performances more entertaining for audiences. He showed this sharp wit while lavishing praise upon Kate.
“You can back body drop me anytime.”
– Johnny Saint’s simple encouragement to Klondyke Kate
Kate became a recurring manager on the show. She developed a feud with the country’s biggest star, “Big Daddy” Shirley Crabtree.
Fans clamoured to see him flatten her with his trademark splash. But Joint Promotions would never book this for TV.
Instead, Kate enlisted the help of heel tag teams to battle Big Daddy and Johnny Kidd on her behalf. They always lost to the blue-eyes.
Not everyone was a fan of the rising star. To most British wrestling fans, Mick McManus was one of the greatest grapplers in the country.
Yet he was loudly against women wrestlers. He believed they should not be in the ring. Kate would encounter McManus at reunion shows and awards ceremonies, but they would never speak to each other. She finds it hard to talk badly about people she worked with, but McManus left a bad impression on her.
They say that the greatest revenge is success. McManus may be a big name in British wrestling. Klondyke Kate is a household name who made history and changed British wrestling forever.
Selected cities and venues across the UK had bans on women’s wrestling. Promotions were prepared to risk the fines to have Kate compete.
They knew she would bring in enough paying fans to still turn a profit. Her popularity helped create a demand that saw many of these bans get lifted.
In 1987, Kate teamed with Nikki Monroe in a tag team match against Mueller and Blair. The contest took place in the Royal Albert Hall in London.
While the heels lost, all four women won a place in history. They had just completed the first legal women’s match to be held in Greater London. There is no question that Kate’s popularity facilitated this.
The lifting of the gender bans allowed for a women’s wrestling boom. In 1989, her match against Monroe for All-Star Wrestling was documented for the TV show Forty Minutes.
She was declared the winner of the tournament final when the referee determined was too hurt the continue. Her victory earned her the British Women’s Championship. She dominated the lineage by holding the title for five reigns.
“How would you feel about somebody you’re going to beat up tonight? Would you like them? I know I don’t. I don’t like any of the girls that I wrestle.
I would never wrestle with a friend. You know you don’t want to go out and beat your friends up, do you?
So, we just steer clear of each other. And there, we go in the ring, and we’re all out there to win.”
– Klondyke Kate on the mentality of facing opponents.
Sometimes promoters simply didn’t have women that properly matched Kate’s status. The biggest money-making option they had was to put her against one of their male stars.
Kate is the only woman to compete in singles matches against British Heavyweight Champions Big Daddy and Tony St. Clair.
Battling The Toughest Opponent
Those who knew Porter in real life often remarked at how different she was from her in-ring persona. She admitted that she could become Klondyke Kate by mentally flicking a switch.
Once she took her makeup off, Porter was as feminine and gentle as any woman could be. Only an extreme few got to see that other side to her. Like with so many other wrestlers, her biggest battles were outside of the ring.
Kate suddenly disappeared near the start of this century. Other veterans attempted to cover for her by insisting she was still touring.
Some alleged she was hosting training camps for women wrestlers across Europe. They either knew these stories were not true, or they just hoped they were.
It is not known how many people knew her true reasons for distancing herself from wrestling. You could say whatever you wanted to about her when she was inside the ring. But you don’t dare say anything negative about her in their presence.
Part of her marketing appeal was her size. She felt a pressure to keep her weight up. She would do this through binge eating and poor diet.
Her increasing weight put extra stress on her body. It prolonged her recovery from her frequent injuries. She repeatedly forced herself to work matches with broken fingers and joints. Not treating these injuries properly weakened her.
“They’re all mad when they go to the wrestling. They get so carried away. We have to take all the stick from them.
You’re not only getting it from the wrestler you’re on with, but you’re getting it from the crowd as well.
They come up to you with all kinds of implements. I’ve had knitting needles stuck in the back of my leg, which went through my leg practically.
You know, it was sort of buried deep. I’ve had cigarettes stubbed out on me. I have been hit with a handbag with a brick inside, stabbed with a [carpet] knife. It actually sliced. It went from my back and ended up cutting into my hand.”
– Klondyke Kate on the most violent reactions from fans.
The physical toll was nothing compared to the mental anguish. Porter received tens of thousands of letters from obsessed fans.
Some of them contained death threats. Others depicted her in depraved sexual fantasies. She also found herself mourning the loss of several close friends who died prematurely.
Klondyke Kate made enemies wherever she went. But Jayne Porter earned the respect and friendship of her peers. Smart opponents knew there was a lot of money to be made with Kate.
The better she got in the ring, the better the pay got. But as large as she was, she was still young. Her veteran opponents felt very protective of her.
She became lifelong friends with Mueller, Barron, Francis, Williams, Street, Lynda, and especially Butch. Everyone who was so hard on her in the beginning were her biggest protectors.
If anyone knew what it was like to be the heaviest heel in the business, it was Martin Ruane. He is better known as Giant Haystacks and as “Loch Ness” in World Championship Wrestling.
He and Kate would frequently tour together due to the similarities in their characters. All this time together allowed them to become very close friends. Ruane passed away in 1998. He was only 52.
All of this contributed to the severe depression and anxiety she battled her entire life. Kate had no problem antagonizing an arena full of strangers.
Then Porter could lock herself away at home for days on end, unable to face anybody. The final straw for her mentally was the end of her first marriage in 2002.
The biggest sacrifice Porter made was with her own family. Wrestlers often spend long periods of time away from their children.
Women wrestlers often put off having children for the sake of their careers. Porter wanted to become a mother more than anything else. It often seemed like fate had decided it would never happen. She suffered no less than six miscarriages.
She was rushed to hospital with fears that she had suffered a serious stroke. The doctor discovered that she was eight months pregnant.
Porter gave birth to Adam two weeks later. Thankfully, he was safe and healthy. She only took two weeks to recover before she was back in the ring.
Having finally got the child she wanted for so long, she quit drinking. She wasn’t an alcoholic, but she did drink socially a lot. In an industry where alcoholism, drug use, and steroids were rampant, Porter avoided them all out of principle.
“I’m very hard to live with, either happy or totally depressed. A lot of wrestlers are like that.
One time you can talk to Haystacks and he’ll be as nice as pie and the next he’ll bite your head off, it doesn’t matter who you are.”
– Kate on the mental health struggles wrestlers often face.
At the time of her separation, her mental health was at its lowest. She had dedicated her life to wrestling. It seemed like wrestling had taken everything away from her. Porter did not tell anyone she was done for good.
Feeling The Love
Porter would have three children. She was distraught when her daughter Connie announced her intentions of becoming a wrestler. She used her own experience to put her off, but it didn’t work. Her daughter was as stubborn as she is.
She feigned a renewed interest in wrestling so she could give Connie guidance. She persuaded her daughter to finish her education first. Connie graduated and then became a science teacher. Then she began her training.
The industry that her daughter entered was a far cry from the one Porter had left. Women were now being respected and having the same opportunities as men.
Wrestling schools were now open to the public and were in most major cities. There was a significantly higher number of women wrestlers, with women-only schools and promotions.
The new generation of women no longer hid their support for each other from the public. There was now a greater emphasis on well-being and safer ring work.
Porter also discovered that the new generation of women wrestlers held a deep appreciation for Klondyke Kate paving the way for them.
They considered it an honour to have the veteran share her wisdom with them. She stopped feigning an interest as her passion was genuinely reignited.
She dusted off her old costume and became “Hell in Boots” once more. She no longer saw wrestling as the reason she lost everything and destroyed her life. It was the thing that gave her everything, and had saved her life.
Kate continued to work with and elevate younger talent for as long as her body could endure it. She finally retired for good in 2011.
Her last feud was against her own daughter, who competed as “Connie Steele”. Kate’s final match saw her and Faith Lehaine defeat Erin Angel and Connie in 2010.
Unfortunately, Connie suffered a fractured skull. She carried the injury for six months before it was diagnosed. She made the decision to retire in 2013. Connie is presently the Head of the Science Department at the school she attended as a child.
Porter was almost unrecognisable when she resurfaced in 2016. When her physical well-being was at its worst, she carried around 400lbs on her 5’ 3’’ frame.
She had a gastric bypass operation in a bid to help save her life. As a result, she underwent a dramatic but safe weight loss. She has maintained a healthy weight since.
“I dread the day when I have to put my boots down and say, ‘That is the end for me’. Because I like to go out there, I like the traveling, and I don’t want to finish. I just want to go on as long as I can possibly do it.”
– Klondyke Kate on her original retirement plans, which did come to pass.
Pro Wrestling: EVE held an event in The Albert Hall. It was the first all-woman wrestling show to be held in the country.
Klondyke Kate was the guest of honour at the event. This was in recognition of her being one of the first women to compete in the building. They inducted her into their Hall of Fame in 2018.
She had no lines and performed no action sequences. Hart would later perform on a wrestling show for charity. She and the other celebrities that took part underwent basic wrestling training for their own safety.
She was also among the selection of former WoS stars who were invited to be in the crowd for the World of Sport Wrestling relaunch event.
She knew she was only there to give a rub to the female performers. Viper (WWE’s Piper Niven) beat Alexis Rose.
The announcers heavily stated it was the first women’s match ever hosted by WoS. To Porter’s own surprise, she found herself joining in with the standing ovation the women received.
Her toughness continues to be tested. Porter has gone public about her battle with Stage 4 kidney disease. She has also been diagnosed with macular oedema behind her eyes.
The condition requires her to have regular injections to prevent damage and reduce pain. But while her body is failing her, her spirit is stronger than it has ever been.
She continues to support women’s wrestling. But she pours more of herself into her own children. She also endeavours to help abandoned children have the loving family and fullness of life that too many get denied.
Klondyke Kate may have been Hell in Boots in the ring, but Jayne Porter was angel in disguise outside of it. She spent years being one of the most hated women in Britain. Now in retirement, she is happy to just feel the love.
