John da Silva

John Walter da Silva QSM (born 11 June 1934)[1] is a former New Zealand wrestler and boxer.

For other people with similar names, see John D'Silva (disambiguation).

John da Silva
Born (1934-06-11) 11 June 1934
Pukekohe, New Zealand
RelativesGarth da Silva (son)
Paul Silva (uncle)
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)John Walter da Silva
John Silva
Debut1958
Retired1977

He represented New Zealand in wrestling at the 1956 Olympics and at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games. In 1955 he held both the New Zealand Heavyweight Wrestling title and the Auckland Heavyweight Boxing title. He is of Portuguese, African, English and French Tahitian descent.[2] Paul Silva, a competitive wood chopper, was his uncle.[3]

An amateur from 1953, he turned professional after the 1958 Commonwealth Games in Cardiff. He wrestled throughout New Zealand and around the world. He retired in 1977, and subsequently worked with disadvantaged youth. In the 1994 New Year Honours, he was awarded the Queen's Service Medal for community service.[4]

He now lives on Great Barrier Island. He is the father of boxer Garth da Silva.[5]

Championships and accomplishments
  • All Star Pro Wrestling
    • NWA British Empire/Commonwealth Championship (New Zealand version) (6 times)
gollark: VAJDNNQWKF is part of the AVX-OVER-9000 instruction set.
gollark: Please note that this may or may not work on any instruction set actually used in a production CPU.
gollark: ```asmVAJDNNQWKF haskell```
gollark: See, assembly is easy.
gollark: ```asmUMSUBL rax,rspCCMPY32R1 ymm0mov: MOV #mov, rbxXRMTTLTAOTMASVPBLENDMD xmm2,xmm4```

References
  1. "John da Silva". Wrestlingdata.com. Retrieved 20 December 2013.
  2. "John Da Silva". Kiwi Pro Wrestling. 2007.
  3. Mackay, Jamie. "Paul Thomas Silva". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  4. "No. 53528". The London Gazette (2nd supplement). 31 December 1993. p. 35.
  5. Adams, Yvette (2005). More than meets the eye: a true story based on the life and times of the best blind wrestler the world has ever seen. Yvette Adams. p. 109. ISBN 978-0-9757770-0-8.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.