Funeral Notices

Adrian Street was an internationally renowned wrestler whose spectacular career saw huge success during the Golden age of British wrestling, and again in America until he retired from the ring in 2014.

His flamboyant in-the-ring persona influenced Glam-rock, thrilling and outraging audiences for nearly 60 years.

He was born in the mining town Bryn Mawr, Wales in 1940 and was, like his forefathers, destined for a life in the pit. He took an early interest in bodybuilding and after a chance viewing of an American wrestling magazine and witnessing the great Bert Assirati fighting at Stowe Hill Baths Hall in Newport, his destiny was set – he would become a wrestler.

While still a teenager, he left for the bright lights of ‘rock and roll’-era London where the next few years would read like a Colin McInnes novel, revolving as it did around West London and Soho. Whether it was from sleeping on Wormwood Scrubs Park benches or a dingy bedsit in Notting Dale, his bid for stardom would not be deterred, even when offered the chance to appear in ‘swords and sandals’ film epics in Rome: employing Napoleon’s belief that ‘when you set out to take Vienna – take Vienna!’

The next few years saw him appearing in bodybuilding magazines and honing his craft with independent promotions until he ventured across the river to Brixton in South London, to lay siege to the door of ‘Britain’s premier wrestling promoters!’ Dale Martins. Initially, they told him he was too small and too young, but the game was entering its golden era and they needed bodies to throw at it, so they gave him his chance.

Emulating one of his American wrestling heroes, Don Leo Jonathan, he temporarily adopted the name Kid ‘Tarzan’ Jonathan and thus began his professional career. Although at that time he was a very good wrestler, he now found himself in a world of great wrestlers and realised he needed to raise his game. Again, influenced by the larger-than-life stylings of the Americans, he designed a powder-blue outfit with matching cape and boots and dyed his black hair peroxide-blonde. Believing this new look would astound the largely grey landscape of the British ‘grunt ‘n’ groan crowd, he was horrified to be met with torrents of homophobic abuse. A perfect storm of devastation and arrogance had him play up to crowd, skipping around the ring like a muscle-bound ballerina and kissing the ref! The crowd went stratospheric as did his career.

The 1970s was a whirlwind of European tours, championship belts, record releases, TV, and film appearances—including a part in Pasolini’s penultimate masterpiece Canterbury Tales.

By this time, he had met and fell in love with his life-long partner Linda Hawker who, herself, became a wrestler going by the name of Blackfoot Sioux.

By the end of that decade, British wrestling was in serious decline. Now nearing 40 years of age, Adrian declared that he would strike out for America but was now told that he was too small and too old.

Once again, using others’ negativity as a springboard… across the pond he went.

In Mexico he was dubbed El Exotico. The name stuck, and together they became known as The Exotic Adrian and Miss Linda and became one of the biggest attractions on the American wrestling scene. With Linda now acting as his valet, their partnership took their career to new heights, wowing sell-out crowds for another 20+ years.

In 2005 he proposed and married Miss Linda at the Cauliflower Alley Club in Las Vegas. The best man was his childhood wrestling hero Don Leo Jonathan.

They established a wrestling school in Pensacola, Florida, attracting students from all over the world, and created the Bizarre Bazaar clothing company specialising in custom-made outfits and equipment which were used in the award-winning Darren Aronofsky feature The Wrestler.

Having achieved everything he had set out to do and so much more, Adrian wrote and published his memoirs in a series of autobiographies and moved back to the UK in 2017, settling in Cwmbran, Wales, close to where his wild ride began.

He died peacefully after a short illness, surrounded by his loved ones in the early hours of Monday 24th of July 2023.

He is survived by his wife Linda, sister Pam, children Adrian, Vincent and Amanda and grandchildren, Gary, Chloe, Taylor, Tallulah-Mae and Reno.