Les Thornton
Ring name(s)	Les Thornton Henri Pierlot Checkmate
Billed height	5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)
Billed weight	215 lb (98 kg)
Born	1935 Manchester, England, United Kingdom
Resides	Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Debut	1957
Retired	1990

Les Thornton (born 1935) is a retired British professional wrestler who competed in European and North American regional promotions throughout the 1970s and 1980s including Stampede Wrestling, the World Wrestling Federation and the National Wrestling Alliance. During his career, he was considered one of the best junior heavyweights in the world at one time simultaneously holding both the WWF and NWA World Junior Heavyweight titles, and would later hold NWA title five times. In the "Hogan Era" of the WWF, Thornton was used as a jobber.^[1].

Thornton is slated to appear in a documentary about the life of fellow Briton Chris Adams in The Gentleman's Choice, where he is famous for mentioning that some of his friends who left England to compete in the United States came home in a box (Adams and Davey Boy Smith), in a wheelchair (Tom Billington, aka The Dynamite Kid) or as drug addicts (all three aforementioned wrestlers).

Contents 1 Championships and accomplishments 2 Further reading 3 References 4 External links

[edit] Championships and accomplishments

• Championship Wrestling from Florida

• NWA Florida Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

• Georgia Championship Wrestling

• NWA Georgia Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Tony Charles

• Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling

• NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

• National Wrestling Alliance

• NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)¹

• NWA Big Time Wrestling

• NWA Texas Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Tony Charles

• NWA Hollywood Wrestling

• NWA Americas Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

• NWA Mid-America

• NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

• NWA New Zealand

• NWA British Empire Commonwealth Heavyweight Championship (New Zealand version) (1 time)

• Pacific Northwest Wrestling

• NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Moondog Mayne

• Southeastern Championship Wrestling

• NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

• Stampede Wrestling

• Stampede British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
• Stampede North American Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
• Stampede Wrestling Hall of Fame ^[2]

• World Wrestling Council

• WWC World Junior Heavyweight Championship (2 time)

• Pro Wrestling Illustrated

• PWI ranked him # 320 of the 500 best singles wrestlers of the PWI Years in 2003

• Other titles

• MASW National Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

¹Records are unclear as to where Thorton was when he received the title for the first time nor is it known as to which NWA affiliated promotion he was wrestling for at the time.

[edit] Further reading

• Foley, Mick. Have A Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1999. ISBN 0-06-103101-1
• Funk, Terry and Scott E. Williams. Terry Funk: The Hardcore Legend. Champaigne, Illinois: Sports Publishing LLC, 2005. ISBN 1-58261-991-3
• Johnson, Weldon T. and Jim Wilson. Chokehold: Pro Wrestling's Real Mayhem Outside the Ring. Philadelphia: Xlibris Corporation, 2003. ISBN 1-4010-7217-8
• McCoy, Heath. Pain and Passion: The History of Stampede Wrestling. Toronto: CanWest Books, 2005. ISBN 0-9736719-8-X

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• SLAM! Wrestling - Les Thornton: A life on the road by Greg Oliver
• SLAM! Wrestling: Les Thornton - What you DIDN'T know! by Terry Taylor
• The Way It Was - Les Thornton by Percival A. Friend
• Championship Wrestling from Florida: Les Thornton
• Profile at OWW