ButchReedMark

No, it mattered. I didn't say it didn't. Just that the basics of being a good babyface don't hinge on ethnicity.

I'd say that good selling, fiery come backs, and charisma in your work doesn't depend on ethnicity. The basics apply to all.

You'd have to start showing straight wrestlers having chats with their partners too before matches, otherwise it'd be a big "He's gay, he's different" klaxon. Personally I don't want my wrestler's humanized. real human beings are inherently boring. I want them larger than life, and bullet proof. I watch wrestling to escape real life, not to be re-immersed in it.

Nah, it's not a weird thought at all. There's always been, well until TWC died, a veritable feast of wrestling on British television from the late 80s. We've been very lucky, in retrospect.

Fair enough then. Thank god WWE didn't know the Samoans I used to play rugby with and used them as a nod to culture. Damn. They ruled.

Apparently the only thing on TWC anyone ever used to watch was World of Sport. I could swear Sean Herbert said something along the lines of it being the only real money maker for the channel.

ICW, not ISW. PCW is HEAVY on imports, so I consider it more a super indy than proper Britwres company. All Stars doing as it does, currently doing the Rhyl summer season which is it's bread and butter this time of year. Gets about 100-150 to the town hall, but it's weekly which is all they need to make loads of money on a 5 match, 6 wrestler show, especially when you factor in the biggest draw in Britwres, The Foam Finger. Welsh Wrestling's going to do very well in October with a homecoming tour for Mason Ryan to Welsh speaking areas. Britwres is doing ok.

Aren't the basics of what makes a great babyface pretty much ethnicity neutral? Del Rio should have been marketed as a great wrestler or what have you that just happens to be hispanic, rather than a hispanic man who just happens to be alright at the wrestling lark.

How should a Hispanic star be booked? Serious question because we discussed this very topic on a soon to be released podcast of Booking the WWE. I still want you to answer this question. Honestly I always think how Loss once talked about how refreshing it would be if a wrestler could be gay without it being part of his gimmick, and think that could apply to Black/Hispanic wrestlers. Why couldn't Alberto be pushed like any strong heel, just one who happened to be Mexican? No Speedy Gonzales style exaggerated accents, no one beating it down your throats that he's MEXICO'S GREATEST EXPORT, MAGGLE! It also doesn't help the writers seem to have no idea how to write for a Hispanic character despite them insisting that's the core of his gimmick. I don't see the point in having a wrestler who just happens to be gay without it being part of his gimmick, as if it's not part of his gimmick it serves no use. "While I'm a wrestling bus driver, I'm also gay, but that's not relevant. So ignore it, but don't." "What are you telling me for?" A wrestler who just happens to be gay without it being part of his gimmick would just be a normal bloke wouldn't it? And that'd be dull. There's enough dull blokes in wrestling. If anything mentioning someone's gay makes an issue that doesn't need to be made. Sexuality doesn't make someone anything, it's just a thing. Like a chicken wing. I mean, why would we know he's gay? Why would he tell us? Much like why would someone tell anyone they're straight? I mean, sexual orientation isn't an event or interesting. It's just a thing, like having blonde hair or blue eyes. Then after telling us it's part of his gimmick. If it's not part of anything, why even reveal it? He'd just be a normal bloke, like any number of normal blokes who aren't made more or less interesting by their sexual orientation. And normal in wrestling is boring.

Well Brian Dixons one.

Dolph Ziggler is feuding with Kofi for sub THE SHITS in my eyes.

The book You Grunt I'll Groan by Pallo was released years before the internet Parv. Just because folk didn't have the internet doesn't mean they were stupid. As you should know Tabloids would have "exposes" giving out terms like "Get Colour" on a regular basis. Just because you smartened late it doesn't mean everyone else did. When you're 7 you realise "he's mentioning Hulk so he's walking through people til he wrestles him". We still have old lasses twatting heels with handbags to this day on shows I work. Its not because they think its real. Its because its venting. Anyone who's seen pro wrestling pazt puberty and thought it was real I surely slow. Eople would riot and the like because its accessible theatre in the round at its lowest ebb. Its a fake version of people in the stocks vrossed wwith living vicariously. But in all fairness its probably got to this point because you and JDW are again bickerinng. You two need to fuck each other and get that tension out of the way.

I'd say Oz. The greatest pro wrestling TV show of all time. I think probably the only pro wrestling term I use in my day to day conversations is "sell". Man A: So I told him that if he carried on annoying me he'd find himself out of a job. Man B: Did he sell it?

Has Parv a subtle Welsh accent? Apart from an odd pronouncation of 'heard', he's London/south of England all the way with me Ha, I was gonna say that! I don't hear no Welsh in Parv, and I know my Welsh accents.

Not that popular here at all, really. But they've never really pushed his Welshness. It's not like Mason Ryan where they'd have him speak Welsh or mention the tiny village of Tremadog where he's from and was already known as a Welsh figure before signing, especially in the super patriotic Welsh speaking circles.

In response to the OP, All Star is great. Best roster in the UK, great matches, and wonderful barnstorming shows, as well as their summer seasons based in one town having storylines over the 6 or so weeks. All Star's the UKs best promotion and has been for a while now.

Then have Mark Henry break out of the ranks with the World's Strongest Slam on the Undertaker as He's Not Done Yet, Son.

It was pointed out somewhere else that "GF Wrestling" said out loud is "Jeff Wrestling". God loves a vanity promotion! I know I do anyway.

Well, I'll start us off. I'm a ring announcer. I do other little odds and sods, and soon the promoter wants to use me as a manager, but as it stands I'm predominantly a ring announcer for Welsh Wrestling, a successful touring company following the All Star model, and I've been doing it about 2 years. I broke in due to being an obnoxious drunken arsehole. I went to a show in a town near me and the ring announcer was fucking abhorrently bad! Really. One of the worst I'd ever seen. I was really drunk, found the promoter and told him the ring announcer was shit and that I could do a better job of it. He called my bluff, and here I am doing a few shows a monthnaround the country. Am I good at it? I'm OK, I'd say. My voice is clear and booming and I do my utmost to put the talents over. However, I'm not to comfortable and struggle a bit with the geeing up the crowd. Shouting "Let's get ready to rumble, kids!" And the whole "I can't hear you, DO WE WANT MORE?" as it's not really "me". I'm getting better at that aspect though. I suppose it's the Ring Announcer's version of showing out. I love the travelling and the boys. I normally ride with James Mason and it's a real blessing to be able to listen to him and his stories and opinions gleaned from 20 years plus of wrestling around the world. Knowing what works and why, and why he misses traditional pubs. Stopping in a greasy spoon for sausage and chips while he tells me stroies about William Regal getting sent home from an Orig Williams tour as he wouldn't drink after a show! The boys are all brilliant. We're a close knit group, no egos, we just all enjoy each others company, joking around and having fun. All really good friends with similar senses of humour, even the boss. For example, I pulled a fat girl recently and I was ribbed all tour after that. Friendly though. No malicion with any of the boys and it's a joy to work with them. Kayden Lee who wrestles for us and All Star took all of us to his local pub in Dollgellau one time after a show, and they gave us free fish and chips and the whole crew came out and had a few beers and it was just a real great night. Fantastic camaraderie I've not experienced in any other job. However, I hate the waiting around. A lot of the time we'll get to a venue on a tour about 7 hours before bell time and it's a lot of sitting around doing nothing and spending half of last nights pay on food. I also hate it when they catch me hiding and make me help set up the ring. Fucking hate putting that ring up. I'm looking forward to when the boss tries me as a manager, and really hope to win him over to the point other companies around the country will be booking me for my abilities as a second to their talent. Those are my hopes for the future.

So, a few people on here are involved in the business to varying degrees, so what do you do? Where do you do it? Do you reckon you're any good at it? How did you break in? What do you love about it? And what do you not love about it?

I remember the APA T-shirt. ALWAYS POUNDING ASS

The way he does that annoying "HA HA HA" about three times a sentence in his later promos succeeded in turning me against absolutely anything he's ever done. That and "You're going to get your ass FRANCHISED" which always sounded to me like he was going to bum them. I though he was cool as shit in 1990 as a 5 year old though. To the point of being one of my favourite wrestlers at that time (along with Jim Powers). Anything from returning to ECW post Dean Douglas onwards bores the shit out of me though.

Man crush!

There's a great little Funk/Rhodes/Bradshaw vs Lawler/Too Much six man off Shotgun in 98.

Dick Woerle being twatted by a ball of paper and wincing while Mike Interesting Rotundo gave someone an airplane spin was the highlight of the old mid 80s Coliseum Video introduction thing. Or it might have been Dick Kroll. I get confused.