Sydney Mervin "Merv" Batt (3 September 1929 – 5 April 2015), best known by his ring name Steve Rickard, was a New Zealand professional wrestler, trainer and promoter.
As a wrestler, he traveled throughout the world during the 1960s and 1970s, often visiting countries where professional wrestling was unknown such as southeast Asia, and was one of the top competitors to come from New Zealand during that era.
Rickard was a frequent opponent for many foreign wrestlers travelling overseas including NWA World Heavyweight Champions such as Jack Brisco, Dory Funk Jr., Harley Race and "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair.
In 1962, he established All Star Pro Wrestling, also known as NWA New Zealand internationally, which eventually succeeded the DWU and remained the country's single major promotion for the next 30 years.
He and Australian promoter Jim Barnett were responsible for bringing foreign wrestlers, especially from Canada and the United States, back to the Pacific region by the late 1960s.
Rickard was also a successful hotelier and businessman before and after his wrestling career, most notably, establishing one of the first gyms in Wellington and running the Hutt Park Hotel for 15 years.
He joined an amateur wrestling club at age 14, and left school that same year to work three jobs to help support his mother, younger brother Eddy and sister Val.
He also wrestled Karl Gotch while touring Canada in 1965 and publicly praised his scientific abilities afterwards as "a true wrestler with all the science that we are led to believe the greats of earlier generations possessed – men like Jim Londos, Dick Shikat, Stan Zbyszko and others".
On the second day of the tour, on 15 July, he and von Stroheim wrestled Giant Baba & Michiaki Yoshimura at Victoria City's South China Stadium in front of 5,000 fans.
The local populace was unfamiliar with professional wrestling at the time and when Jack Claybourne, a French-speaking African from Martinique, was seen being attacked by masked wrestler Mr. X it was presumed to be a racially motivated assault.
Rickard and the other wrestlers were allowed to reenter the country to appear for their match after local promoter Ranjid Singh offered a "sweetener" during a meeting with military leaders.
Rickard had wrestled in the US earlier in his career and had a brief stint in the Carolinas where he teamed with fellow New Zealander Abe Jacobs before returning to Singapore choosing to honour a prior commitment with local promoters there by opening for them in their new season.
Rickard and John da Silva, who ran the rival Central Wrestling Alliance, sought to develop their own stars during early to mid-1960s such as Al Hobman,[8][9] Tony Garea, Peter Maivia,[10] and The Sheepherders.
[12][13] Eventually, he and Jim Barnett of World Championship Wrestling in Australia were able to work together to bring back foreign wrestlers to the Pacific within a few years.
[15] In 1972, he helped book one of the biggest tours to date when US wrestlers Big Bad John, Bulldog Brower, Les Wolff, King Curtis Iaukea, Spiros Arion, Mark Lewin, Thunderbolt Patterson, Sweet Daddy Siki, Tarzan Tyler, Dewey Robertson and Haystacks Calhoun wrestled throughout the country.
By this time, Rickard had decided to promote All Star Pro-Wrestling full-time in New Zealand as live events were proving extremely popular.
On one occasion, Rickard had to rescue his wife from angry fans who, when told the show had sold out, began rocking the small ticket booth.
During the show's off-season, he and the All Star Pro-Wrestlers spent the three months wrestling overseas touring the Middle East, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, Hong Kong and Hawaii.
Rickard also started promoting outside New Zealand, purchasing the 50th State Big Time Wrestling territory in Hawaii from Ed Francis.
He had a television contract with KGMB-TV, retaining Lord Blears as his announcer, and featured Rick Martel, Siva Afi, "Pretty Boy" Larry Sharpe, Don Muraco, Rocky Johnson, Billy White Wolf, Karl von Steiger, Ripper Collins and other NWA stars.
On one occasion, unrelated to an ongoing storyline, Ricky was wrestling in a tag team match refereed by his brother Tony and commentated by their father.
Though foreign stars, especially from the US, were becoming harder to find by the early 1980s, Rickard was able to bring in Harley Race, Abdullah the Butcher and "The Original Sheik" Ed Farhat as well as younger wrestlers such as Bret Hart[17][26] and Barry Darsow.
[28] The poor New Zealand economy, as well as the decline of the NWA in the face of the national expansion of the World Wrestling Federation, made importing foreign wrestlers extremely difficult and finally Rickard could no longer afford to produce the show and was forced to cancel On the Mat by 1984.
As a member of the National Wrestling Alliance, Rickard was involved in arranging title defences in the Australasian region for NWA World champions during the 1970s and 80s.
He was responsible for the unsanctioned title switch between Ric Flair and Harley Race at the Wellington Town Hall on 21 March 1984, and in Geylang, Singapore three days later.
He underwent surgery to have had both his hips and knees replaced, and an untreated shoulder dislocation sustained during an overseas tour would continue to trouble him for many years.
He was also involved with the Cauliflower Alley Club, a professional wrestling and boxing fraternal society, and was on the board of directors at one time;[33] he became an official honouree of the organisation in 1997.
On 3 September 2009, Rickard celebrated his 80th birthday in Hawke's Bay which was attended by around 100 guests including former wrestlers Arthur Sneddon and Joe Fau.
[38] That same year, Dave Cameron of Fight Times Magazine ranked him #4 of a top ten listing of New Zealand's greatest wrestlers.