Heritage Day set me thinking about South Africa's wrestling history. This month marks exactly 30 years since the WWF (now WWE), the world's largest wrestling promotion, first toured South Africa and Africa in September 1996. 2026 will also be remembered as the year South Africa had to bid farewell to the wrestling legend Jan Wilkens, who passed away on 19 April.
Jan Wilkens and Hulk Hogan
Wilkens has long been called South Africa's Hulk Hogan because of his popularity and success in the ring. Wilkens was 11 years older than Hogan and had already started wrestling in the 1950s, but both were active in the 1970s and 1980s. Hogan was the world's most famous and popular wrestler during wrestling's explosion in the 1980s, wrestling's golden era. Hogan passed away in July 2025.
Wilkens achieved success locally and internationally. In the 1960s he toured in England and won matches at Wembley and the Royal Albert Hall in London. In 1973 he wrestled for the Japanese promotion New Japan Pro-Wrestling, and according to records he competed for the CWA world heavyweight title that same year. He was a record six-time EWU world champion in the heavyweight division between 1974 and 1987. According to records he held the title for almost five years, from 13 November 1976 to 3 October 1981, which is also a record. He was South African heavyweight champion from 1974 to 1984.
Hogan himself wrestled for New Japan Pro-Wrestling in the early 1980s. In his career from 1977 to 2012 he was a six-time WWF/WWE champion and six-time WCW heavyweight champion. His WWF title reign of 1 474 days in the 1980s is the third longest in history.
After Wilkens, Phillip Paul Lloyd, who wrestled as Justin Gabriel in WWE, is South Africa's most successful wrestler. He won the WWE tag team championship three times. In my opinion he is the best tag team wrestler South Africa has produced.
Only time will tell who South Africa's next Jan Wilkens will be. One thing is certain, though: Jan Wilkens was South Africa's Hulk Hogan.
André van Eck, Worcester
This article is an automatic English translation of a Nuusflits article originally published in Afrikaans. Read the Afrikaans original.
