Heywood Allen was once one of the most successful and popular showmen in Louisville, Kentucky. He’s the man responsible for first establishing Tuesday nights as Louisville’s night for pro wrestling. Beginning in 1935, Allen’s namesake, the Allen Athletic Club, ran almost every Tuesday at the Columbia Gym on 4th Street through 1957. Yes, that’s the same gym where Muhammed Ali’s story began.
The road to becoming the city’s pro wrestling impresario was a long one. According to Allen, he spent his earliest adult years working as a circus wrecker. This noble profession, now lost to history, involved cutting the ropes of big top tents, opening animal cages, and other forms of sabotage. Circuses employed these skilled workers to undermine their rivals when they dared to pitch their tents too close for comfort. It was a dangerous profession, and after having his jaw broken in an altercation, Allen figured he’d find a new line of work.
By the 1910s Allen was living in Louisville, working for promoter William Barton as a referee for both boxing and wrestling. Barton ran shows at The Buckingham Theater. Allen worked the ring with popular stars like Ed “Strangler” Lewis, William Demetral, Stanislaus Zbyszko, and Yussif Hussane. He also worked as a guest referee in Lexington from time to time at the Opera House.
By the 1930s, the Buckingham had a new name, The Savoy, and Allen was working for the Savoy’s owner Cincinnatus B. Blake as the booker for the Savoy Athletic Club. Wrestling was growing in popularity at the time, and other theaters in downtown Louisville were also putting up wrestling shows. The state of Kentucky took notice as well, and the boxing commissioner attempted to extract fees from the wrestling promoters the way they did boxing. Allen was smart, and he knew the law, as written, did not give the commission any real power over pro wrestling. When he resisted calls to license his promotion and pay the state what was “owed,” the commission propped up several promoters to put Allen and the Savoy out of business. Every attempt failed.
In 1935 Allen split from C.B. Blake and the Savoy shortly after the Derby Eve wrestling show. Allen went into business for himself with a sports writer, Francis McDonogh, and McDonogh’s wife Betty, an elementary school teacher. The Allen Athletic Club ran a few outdoor shows before finding their permanent home on Tuesday nights at the Columbia Gym.
The Savoy Athletic Club held on for a few years and at times gave Allen a run for his money. Allen’s attempt to top the Savoy’s mud match extravaganza in 1937 was a disaster. Allen thought he could protect fans from getting mud on their nice clothes by encasing the ring in cellophane. After a 90 minute delay, the match began, and the cellophane immediately started to fall. Allen seethed, vowing never to do another mud match.
Allen survived the mud match debacle, and the Savoy Club folded, leaving Allen as the top wrestling promoter in the city. From 1935 through 1947 he presented the best in pro wrestling, bringing in champions like Orville Brown, Wild Bill Longson, and Mildred Burke.
While Allen was the figurehead, and McDonogh an adept pupil, their wives deserve a tremendous amount of credit for the promotion’s growth. The ladies ran the box office and kept careful notes of every fan: who they liked, what kinds of matches they liked, etc. If a show featuring women’s wrestling, bear wrestling, or even midget wrestling was coming up, they knew which fans to call to fill the seats.
Allen had his struggles, to be sure. The newly reformed Boxing and Wrestling Commission, headed by Johnson S. Mattingly, became a perpetual thorn in Allen’s side. Mattingly was a political appointee who often pitted Allen and the local boxing promotions against one another and loved getting free tickets for himself and friends. One of his jobs was to choose whether the boxers or wrestlers would get the annual Derby Eve date at the Louisville Armory (now Louisville Gardens). When Allen accused Mattingly of taking a bribe to give that date to the boxers, Mattingly stripped him of his license.
Allen got the license back a few weeks later after threatening to sue Mattingly for slander. It seems Mattingly was overheard at a party saying professional wrestling was staged. The slander allegation was a risk. If Mattingly stuck to his statement, it would expose the business. It would also cost the state, which now collected fees from the wrestling promotions, a great deal of money. Mattingly retracted his statement and restored the Allen Club’s license.
Another trouble spot for Allen’ was his own son, Heywood, Jr. Junior worked as a referee for his dad, but he didn’t have his father’s business acumen or street smarts. He found himself on the wrong side of the law, and after stealing money from a man named Cornette (no relation to Jim Cornette, though Jim certainly found it ironic), he went to prison.
After a lenient judge let Junior out on a day pass to visit his ailing mother, he skipped town. The search went on for weeks, and the endless coverage in the newspapers was an embarrassment to the family. Junior was eventually located under a false name in a hospital. Heywood, Jr., fell off a train and injured himself not long after leaving the city and spent his days of freedom in a hospital bed.
By 1947 Allen was done with the business. He sold his interest to the McDonoghs and bowed out. Most promotions didn’t survive a changing of the guard, but the Allen Club thrived for another decade. The McDonoghs grew the promotion’s fan base as new stars like Lou Thesz, June Byers, and Louisville’s own Stu Gibson caught the public’s eye. Francis McDonogh also promoted concerts at the Armory, including Elvis Presley, and broadcast wrestling live on Louisville’s newest television station WHAS.
The Allen Club came to an end after a series of unfortunate events in 1957. Francis McDonogh fell ill and died from cancer at the young age of 47. His wife sold the promotion to a former Louisville baseball player, who had to find a new building after the Columbia Gym’s ownership changed hands. He ran just a few shows at the newly opened Freedom Hall before folding.
Betty McDonogh attempted to start a new promotion with former wrestler Wee Willie Davis as her partner. Davis would later act as the Louisville liaison for Dick the Bruiser when he ran Louisville Gardens. Louisville fans never took to Bruiser’s promotion, and the city went dark for nearly a decade until Jerry Jarrett brought Memphis to town in 1970.
Betty would leave the business completely and return to teaching. Her two sons with Francis both grew up to become college professors. One was still teaching at Carnegie-Mellon when I was writing Louisville’s Greatest Show.
Allen remained in Louisville, a much-loved sports icon. He loved this city and everything that made it special. During the lean years, before the Savoy Athletic Club, Allen took a job as a ticket taker at Churchill Downs. Even after going into business for himself, Allen returned to Churchill every year to tear tickets on Derby Day.
Allen died in January of 1958. He’s buried in Jeffersonville, Indiana beside his wife and his son. Unlucky to the end, Heywood, Jr., died in a boating accident in 1949.
For more on Heywood Allen and the Allen Athletic Club, be sure to grab a copy of Bluegrass Brawlers and Louisville’s Greatest Show: The Story of the Allen Athletic Club. Both books will give you even more surprising stories and insights into Louisville’s long-standing love affair with professional wrestling.Â
