Welcome to another deep dive. Today we are...
We're stepping straight into the squared circle.
Oh, yeah, getting right into it. Yeah, we really
are. We're going to unpack the wild, chaotic,
and honestly physically grueling career of Australian
professional wrestler Jonathan Boyd. It is a
wild ride. It totally is. Our mission for you
today is basically a character study, a look
at a man who dedicated his entire existence to
the theatrical art of making thousands of people
absolutely despise him. Which is a real skill.
Right. So if you've ever been curious about the
psychology of wrestling villains or the brutal
reality of the old NWA territories, this conversation
is custom tailored for you. Yeah, we are exploring
a really fascinating window of time here, specifically
spanning from the 1960s through the late 1980s.
The peak territorial era. Exactly. This is the
peak long before the Internet and long before
we had these massive, polished, global cable
TV monopolies controlling everything. Right.
It was all regional back then. It was carved
up into regional fiefdoms, so wrestlers like
Boyd had to travel relentlessly, just driving
hundreds of miles a day from one territory to
another. And they relied entirely on live crowds,
right? 100%. They had to generate these immediate,
visceral, live audience reactions in these smoky,
dimly lit arenas. And then they'd go cut intense
promos on local UHF television just to survive
financially. Yeah, and we are definitely not
here to just read off a sterile list of... You
know, championship match results. Nobody wants
that. No, we want to take you into the actual
psychology of theatrical villainy. We're going
to look at the immense physical toll this unregulated
industry took on its performers. It was brutal.
It was. And we'll get into the bizarre personal
contradictions of a man totally consumed by his
craft. born Jonathan Barry Boyle in Sydney, Australia
in 1944. Who eventually morphs into the global
antagonist known as Lord Jonathan Boyd. Yes.
But before we get there, the contrast between
the scripted, choreographed violence under the
arena lights and the very real physical and emotional
resilience required behind the curtain is staggering.
It really is. The lines between the fabricated
characters these men portrayed and their actual
waking reality just constantly blurred. Totally.
So let's start at the very beginning of that
transformation. Boyd makes his pro debut in 1965.
Working for World Championship Wrestling right
there in his native Australia. Right, but he
doesn't stay local for very long. He and his
cousin, a wrestler named Norman Frederick Charles
III, they decide to pack up and relocate to North
America. Forming a tag team called the Royal
Kangaroos. Yeah, which was a direct, calculated
nod to an earlier legendary team, the Fabulous
Kangaroos. Okay, let's unpack this. Because this
is where the deliberate character building really
starts to take shape. Oh, absolutely. She sheds
the name Jonathan Boyle. He adopts the title
Lord Jonathan Boyd. And he starts utilizing these
signature moves that look incredibly painful.
Like the neck breaker. Yeah, the neck breaker.
And the infamous iron claw, where he would essentially
just grip his opponent's temples with maximum
force to simulate crushing their skull. You know,
adopting that aristocratic title was a brilliant
strategic move for the era. By adding Lorde to
his ring name, he immediately signals to the
American audience that he considers himself an
outsider of high birth. He's projecting this
aura of unearned superiority. Exactly. Walking
to the ring with his nose in the air. That is
a classic, time -tested trope used to agitate
blue -collar crowds. But they had to grind relentlessly
to make that gimmick work. Oh, they worked constantly.
They became massive fixtures in Pacific Northwest,
wrestling up in Oregon, winning tag titles multiple
times. times throughout the early 70s, wrestling
multiple nights a week, constantly on the road.
They're popping up everywhere across the map.
You look at their schedule and they're in mid
-Atlantic championship wrestling on the East
Coast. They're in the Atlanta -based All -South
Wrestling Alliance. Right. Big time wrestling
out in San Francisco. And Stu Hart's famously
rugged stampede wrestling up in the freezing
temperatures of Calgary. They went everywhere.
So how does an act like the Royal Kangaroos translate
when they decide to take this entire gimmick
overseas? Well, taking the act to Japan in the
mid 1970s was a completely different beast. They
toured with New Japan in 1974 and then jumped
to All Japan Pro Wrestling in 76. And over in
Japan, they were sharing the ring with massive,
legitimate global icons. We are talking about
Antonio Inoki, Giant Baba, The Destroyer. Even
teaming up with Andre the Giant. Yeah. And to
succeed on that stage. A gaijin, which is the
Japanese term for a foreign wrestler. You had
to possess an incredible level of ring psychology.
You had to know exactly how to play the arrogant,
disrespectful invader in a way that perfectly
elevated the local Japanese heroes. Because you're
dealing with an audience that doesn't speak your
language. So you can't rely on a microphone to
make them mad. Right. You can't just cut a mean
promo. You have to communicate pure arrogance
through your body language. The way you cheat
behind the referee's back and the way you bump
around the ring to make the hometown hero look
like a million. It takes immense psychological
skill to read a foreign crowd and manipulate
their emotions purely through physical storytelling.
The Japanese fans treated wrestling as a legitimate,
highly respected combat sport. Which makes the
cheating even more offensive to them. Exactly.
So when Boyd and his cousin would come in and
break the rules or act cowardly, it generated
a profound level of disgust and anger from the
crowd, which translated to massive ticket sales.
But after a long, really successful run, the
Royal Kangaroos eventually break up around mid
-1977. Yeah, they had a disagreement over how
to promote themselves moving forward. So Boyd
ends up going on a singles run. He travels through
NWA, Hollywood, Georgia, Mid -South, down to
Louisiana, Texas. And here's where it gets really
interesting. Because as we transition into the
1980s, Boyd realizes the arrogant aristocrat
gimmick is getting stale. It had run its course.
Right. So he undergoes a completely brutal night
and day reinvention. The Lord persona vanishes
and the savagery begins. He essentially trades
the velvet robes and aristocratic arrogance for
pure, unadulterated violence. Around 1981, he
teams up with a New Zealand wrestler named Luke
Williams. They had crossed paths previously.
Yeah, they had. But now they formally unite to
create variations of a team that would become
legendary in the industry. The sheep herders.
Depending on the territory, they wrestled as
the new sheep herders, the Kiwi sheep herders,
or the New Zealand sheep herders. And these were
absolutely not your typical cowardly bad guys
who would run away from a fight? Not at all.
They quickly gained a legitimate reputation across
the country as one of the most violent, hard
-hitting, unpredictable teams in the entire business.
They were brawlers in the truest sense, wearing
ragged combat boots, camouflage, torn shirts.
They did not care about looking pretty or wrestling
a clean, technical, amateur -style mask. They
wanted to draw blood. And they knew exactly how
to generate what the wrestling business calls
heat. Right, the heat. What's fascinating here
is the economic engine behind that concept of
heat. In the territorial days, television was
merely a commercial for the live arena show.
You didn't make money from TV ratings back then.
Exactly. You made money when fans bought a ticket
to the local armory or coliseum. The sheepherders
understood that if they could make the audience
legitimately, furiously angry, those fans would
pay their hard -earned money to come to the arena
hoping to see the sheepherders get their teeth
knocked out. They took that concept to the extreme
when they joined the Alabama -based Southeastern
Championship Wrestling. Oh, the Fuller family
feud. Yeah. They entered into a feud with the
Fuller family, who were the beloved local heroes
of that territory. To make the crowd truly despise
them, they didn't just win matches by cheating.
They executed a storyline where they viciously
attacked and injured Jimmy Golden's father, Billy
Golden. Attacking the patriarch of a beloved
local family crosses a massive psychological
line. It moves the narrative from a competitive
sporting contest to a personal, vicious criminal
assault. And the live audiences in Alabama absolutely
lost their minds. They despise the sheepherders
with a passion that bordered on dangerous. There
were nights where they needed police escorts
just to get from the ring back to the rental
cars because the fans genuinely wanted to attack
them. Promoters across the country saw that visceral
reaction and knew exactly how to monetize it.
When Boyd and Williams moved up to the Memphis
-based Continental Wrestling Association. The
massive territory run by Jerry Jarrett and Jerry
Lawler. Right. They were booked in a long -term
rivalry against a team called the Fabulous Ones,
featuring Stan Lane and Steve Kern. Talk about
brilliant, contrasting booking. The Fabulous
Ones were the ultimate polished, good -looking,
pretty boy fan favorites. They wore sequin jackets.
They starred in MTV -style music videos on the
local wrestling broadcast. The teenage girls
loved them. They did. And standing across the
ring from them are the Sheepherders, ugly, unkempt,
savage brawlers who look like they hadn't showered
in a week. It is the perfect psychological foil.
The sheepherders would utilize excessive cheating,
drag the fabulous ones out onto the concrete
floor, and brutalize them until they were bleeding.
Because of that stark visual and stylistic contrast,
they drew massive crowds week after week. But
the violence kept escalating to match the hatred
of the crowd. The reality and the fiction began
to blur into this incredibly grueling spectacle.
The standard wrestling matches weren't enough
to settle these feuds anymore. No, they had to
introduce specialized, dangerous match types
to satisfy the audience's bloodlust. We see them
engaging in some of the most punishing stipulations
of the era. Like down in the Mid -South Coliseum,
they fought Jacques Rougeau and Terry Taylor
in a coal miners' glove match. For those who
might not know the sheer carny brutality of that
match type, paint a picture of what a coal miners'
glove match actually entails. Right. So a heavy
canvas and leather glove, often loaded with lead
or a piece of steel, is placed on top of a 10
-foot pole attached to one of the ring corners.
Sounds safe. Very. The objective isn't just to
pin your opponent. It's a frantic, desperate
scramble to climb that pole, retrieve the loaded
glove, and use it as a weapon. It basically turns
a wrestling match into a chaotic, bloody brawl
for a weapon. Exactly. And later on, when Boyd
teamed with a massive wrestler named Rip Morgan
to fight the Fantastics Bobby Fulton and Tommy
Rogers, their feud culminated in a no DQ loser
leaves town match. That stipulation meant there
were no rules, no disqualifications, and the
losing team legitimately had to pack their bags
and leave the territory. Which added massive
real world stakes to the storyline. But they
also incorporated some incredible psychological
manipulation into their strategy beyond. just
swinging chairs. In Southwest Championship Wrestling
in 1983, Boyd and Williams set their sights on
the tag team champions, a duo known as the Grapplers.
Instead of just beating them up, they executed
the ultimate villainous masterstroke. They literally
bribed the Grapplers' own manager, Don Carson,
right in the middle of the ring. They promised
Carson a guaranteed title shot if he turned on
his own team. And Carson takes the bribe. He
turns on his guys mid -match and hands the victory
and the championship belts to the sheepherders.
Buying a championship through blatant corruption
in front of a live audience is designed to make
the fans feel a profound sense of injustice.
It infuriates people because they want the sport
to be fair, and the sheepherders just threw that
fairness right in the garbage. While they looked
completely invincible and diabolical on television,
the real -world toll of this lifestyle was hovering
right around the corner. It caught up with them.
It did. Right in the middle of 1983, while they
were holding those Southwest Tag Team Championships
and running at the peak of their villainy, Jonathan
Boyd was involved in a horrific car accident.
He legitimately broke both of his legs. If we
connect this to the bigger picture, this is where
the harsh, unforgiving reality of the territorial
wrestling machine becomes glaringly apparent.
The machine does not care. The promotional machine
simply does not stop for anyone. Not even for
a top star with two shattered legs. The territory
had television to shoot and arenas to fill. Southwest
Championship Wrestling immediately named another
wrestler, Bobby Jaggers, as a replacement to
take Boyd's place in the team with Luke Williams
so the shows could continue. The show has to
go on no matter what. But Boyd's reaction to
this injury is what truly blows my mind. Most
people would go home, do months of physical therapy,
and collect disability. In the wrestling business
in 1983, there are no guaranteed contracts. There
is no off -season. If you aren't on television,
you do not get paid. So once Boyd was recovered
just enough to stand, though still actively requiring
aluminum crutches to walk, he returned to television.
He managed the sheep herders from ringside, leaning
heavily on his crutches, screaming at the audience.
And eventually even working behind the scenes
as a booker to help write the storylines for
the promotion. the desperation and the sheer
force of will required to do that is astounding
he knew that if he vanished from the television
screen for six months the audience would forget
him his spot on the card would be permanently
given to someone else and his livelihood would
evaporate Yeah, Boyd's dedication to keeping
his character alive, even when physically broken
and in agonizing pain at ringside, speaks volumes
about his commitment to the business. It's all
survival instincts required in that era. And
he manages to stay in the mix. Miraculously,
he eventually rehabilitates enough to get back
into the ring as an active competitor. He forms
the Kiwi Sheepherders with Rip Morgan and later
a giant wrestler named Bigfoot. They continue
to win titles, brawl with teams like the Fantastics
and spill blood all over the southern United
States well into the late 1980s. He officially
retires from full -time competition in 1989 after
a match back in Pacific Northwest Wrestling,
which is fittingly the same promotion that gave
him his big break in the U .S. two decades earlier.
He does pop up for a couple of random independent
matches in 1991, but his career in the spotlight
is effectively over. And moving away from the
ring opens up an entirely different, highly revealing
chapter about the man himself. It really does.
The man behind the monster, Jonathan Boyle, lived
a personal life that was just as surprising and
complex as his theatrical persona. In the ring,
he is this rugged, unpolished, savage brawler
who wears torn clothes, bleeds every night, and
looks like he just crawled out of the wilderness
to fight people. And in real life? In real life,
the man owned and drove a DMC DeLorean. The sleek,
futuristic sports car with the stainless steel
body and the gulling doors? Just picture the
wild, unkempt sheepherder cruising down the highway
in a DeLorean. It is a wonderful, almost surreal
image that perfectly breaks the illusion of his
character. A man who pretended to be an uncivilized
brute in the ring was driving the quintessential
symbol of 1980s futuristic luxury on the streets.
The personal details also paint a picture of
a very complicated, fractured domestic life.
He was married and divorced three separate times
over the course of his adult life. Sadly, his
story comes to a tragic close relatively early.
Jonathan Boyd passed away in August 1999 from
a severe heart attack shortly after undergoing
major back surgery, which was likely a direct
result of the decades of physical punishment
he took in the ring. He was only 54 years old.
The detail about his passing that really stops
you in your tracks though is the domestic situation
at the exact time of his death. He was found
in his duplex in Oregon, but he was found by
his first wife. This raises an important question
about the reality of his post -wrestling life.
Despite having been legally divorced from this
first wife for many years, and despite the fact
that Boyd had actually remarried and divorced
two entirely different women in the intervening
time, he and his first wife were still sharing
the exact same house when he died. To the average
person working a nine to five job, that is a
highly unusual, almost inexplicable living arrangement.
You divorce someone, marry two other people,
divorce them, and end up back living with the
first ex -wife. It seems baffling on the surface,
but perhaps less so when you synthesize the details
of the extreme life he led. The transient, all
-consuming lifestyle of a territorial professional
wrestler often makes maintaining a traditional
personal life nearly impossible. You're constantly
moving from city to city. Driving thousands of
miles a month, living in motels, constantly performing,
and dealing with the physical trauma of broken
legs and back surgeries. The standard expectations
of marriage, stability, and domesticity fracture
under that kind of of relentless pressure. It
makes sense. It frequently leads to highly unconventional
living arrangements simply because the individuals
involved are bonded by a shared chaotic history
that outlasts the traditional legal boundaries
of a marriage. So what does this all mean for
you listening right now? We have traced the evolution
of Jonathan Barry Boyle from a young Australian
rookie in Sydney to the arrogant aristocrat Lord
Jonathan Boyd using the iron claw and finally
to the brutal, chaotic, blood -soaked force of
the sheepherders. He was a master manipulator
of crowds across multiple continents. He was
a man who literally broke his body and pushed
through agonizing, debilitating injuries on crutches
just to keep his spot on the card and feed his
family. He showed an absolute uncompromising
dedication. to the highly specialized theatrical
art of being the heel. The next time you watch
a movie or a television show or a live sporting
event and you find yourself actively, passionately
hating the villain. Take a second to remember
Jonathan Boyd. Exactly. Take a moment to appreciate
the immense hidden effort, the very real physical
sacrifice and the deep calculated psychological
skill it takes for an entertainer to be truly
despised by thousands of people every single
night. I'd like to leave you with one final thought
to ponder. The history we've explored today shows
us a man who was forced to live multiple lives
simultaneously just to survive in a ruthless
industry. He was Lord Jonathan Boyd. He was a
savage, rule -breaking sheepherder, terrorizing
audiences in Alabama and Memphis. And he was
Jonathan Boyle, a man who drove a futuristic
DeLorean and lived with his first ex -wife long
after their marriage had officially ended. That's
incredible. Did the constant extreme character
reinvention required to survive the grueling
wrestling territory ultimately blur the lines
of his reality. When your entire professional
existence depends on deceiving an audience, manipulating
their emotions, and never breaking character,
does it become impossible to live a conventional,
grounded life once the stadium lights finally
go out?