David Mantell

I expect by this point things had moved on in those countries to the point where there was more variety in terms of channel options for a start. WCW managed to, if not sell out, then at least reasonably fill out for three nights in December '91 the Olympia in Kensington, London (home of the show jumping tournaments they used to have on BBC2 just before Christmas in days of yore) I myself went to night 3 of 3. They also had shows in Sheffield and Dublin. This was on the basis of 3 months so far of screenings of WCW Pro Wrestling at 1am on a Saturday night plus intermittent runs of rather less up to date tapes in comparable timeslots for the previous 20 months. . I imagine British (and French) wrestling had rather better timeslots in their import countries due to lack of small hours options. I think it was Max Crabtree, again in Garfield's book, who said it sold well because people in a lot of these countries couldn't really relate to a lot of British culture, but that all of humanity can relate to the concept of wrestling.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IXtKAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT79&lpg=PT79&dq="Pat+Roach:+British+wrestling+was+sold+to"&source=bl&ots=La2L6ag37l&sig=ACfU3U3YvtpVwWdX-sr5e7bKZbRz8MKikQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi_pN-l39KCAxUfXUEAHfmzDE8Q6AF6BAgNEAM#v=onepage&q="Pat Roach%3A British wrestling was sold to"&f=false

Also, Granada's famous locked away stock of 1960s ITV bouts is on 16mm film. I seem to recall you do posess a few of these, Ohtani.

Pat Roach says in Simon Garfield's book that he was shown a document that he was not supposed to see, listing all the countries that Joint Promotions was getting payments for as a result of overseas sales. We know that (O)RTF was up to something similar because a lot of the 50s and early 60s kinescope prints on Matt D's YouTube channel have captions in Arabic at the start and/or finish, indicating they were intended for overseas sale (most likely to parts of North Africa such as Algeria which France annexed at one point as well as Libya and Tunisia, and also to Syria and Lebanon which were French Mandates after the First World War.) Also, apart from that one lucky surviving tape from Jan '69, the videos on Matt D's channel go colour in 1975 when the INA was set up and could record stuff off air for itself. Anything earlier than that except that one bout is b/w 16mm film so is obviously going to be overseas sales because the only reason a Western TV station broadcasting in colour would make b/w film prints of its early 70s output would be for more backward countries which didn't have colour and/or videotape capabilities yet (famous case in point, Jon Pertwee episodes of Doctor Who). See also the 1972 Vic Faulkner vs Mick McMichael bout on rather grotty b/w film. (ITV later on made colour kinescopes of some mid 70s matches - one print which previously belonged to an airline for inflight films turned up on Ebay a few years ago.)

Geographic yes, population not so much, only about a 5:1 ratio for both the UK and France to America. Population density is MUCH higher in both those two countries than America, especially in the American South where most of these now dead American wrestling territories were operating. Market share even less if you consider there were only 2-4 channels in the UK and 1-3 in France (plus a subscription channel towards the end which carried WWF) during the time period concerned and the signals could be picked up in neighbouring countries (once on holiday in the Hague, Netherlands in 1984 I got a perfect signal for ITV and World of Sport. There was am battle royal on, btw) although a bit trickier with France and the SECAM colour signal which was non compatible with PAL TVs. Again with market reach, you would have to factor in vast overseas sales of kinescope prints.to third world countries. As well as being moneyspinners for promoters, they meant the boys were already draws - and celebs - when they went to these places (Giant Haystacks was made an honorary citizen of Zimbabwe by Mugabe). If we factor in the CWA's core territority of Austria and the former GFR, we're talking a total population of 2/3 that of the USA.

British equivalent would be a show in a single non-syndicated ITV regional franchise with the bloke who did the local news bulletin after ITN's News At Ten hosting it. Non wrestling examples would be Today on Thames TV infamous for the 1976 incident with Bill Grundy and the Sex Pistols or Granada TV's So It Goes music show hosted by future Factory Records boss Tony Wilson, a man now considered a second John Peel but at the time such a second division media shill they got Steve Coogan to play him in the movie. The first couple of years of Tiswas when it was only on in ATV Midlands would be another good non Wrestling example. In other words like I said about the same level as the 1991 Relwskow taping on Grampian/STV or Reslo on S4C which officially covered the same area - Wales- as HTV and BBC (1) Wales, (I say officially because a lot of the south and east of the republic of Ireland could get the signal and Orig Williams was able to take a boatload of wrestlers on tours of small town southern Ireland from the mid 80s to the early 00s doing deal to get halls from the local priests.). I guess the French equivalent would have been a non syndicated broadcast on a single region of FR3 (home of Le Catch from Aug 85 to circa Nov 87.) To be fair to Memphis TV, the interview set on the wrestling show looked passably like the set on Countdown with Richard Whitely on Channel 4 although studio wrestling in front of two rows of fans always made an Outside Broadcast of a house show in a town hall, leisure centre or civic theatre look slick and polished by comparison. Consider how even the WWF was prepared to stoop to using that ITV kind of venue - a theatre with some seat removed to make room for the ring and placed on the stage (now banned in the UK for health/safety reasons) and other seats turned to face the ring- for the very first RAW in 1993. In Britain, cable TV was a way of having Sky TV on the quiet so you could watch WWF - or New Catch on Eurosport - without having a ruddy great vulgar Astra satellite dish on your front wall for the neighbours to mutter about.Until the early 2010s analogue switch off, anything less than the by then 5 free to air analogue terrestrial TV stations just wasn't proper national TV.

About the best US TV wrestling in the years between DuMont and SNME was about the level of Reslo or the 1990/1993 Relwyskow tapings for Grampian/STV. The ITV and (O)RTF/Antenne 2 deals were light years ahead of anything any one American promoter had during that time and they had vast reach even to other continents with sale of kinescope prints of matches to dozens of third world countries. I've read a history of pre-CWA GFR/Austria a few months back - the VDB was about the biggest of the bunch but it was a tangled web.

No, I was thinking of the more professionally shot German stuff with multicams and a hardcam which started at an incredibly early stage given the wider evolution of the home video industry. (That's 12 July not 7th Dec btw - sergje1 uses British-style dates on his channel)

The problem with WCW Australia in this debate was that Barnett treated it as an adjunct of American wrestling. It would be like me trying to make the argument for Britain based chiefly on SummerSlam '92.

Anyway, to summarise, Northwest Europe in the 1960/1970s/early 1980s had: higher profile TV (and other media eg TVTimes) windows for wrestling greater public respectability for wrestling (esp Britain) in the case of Germany, more heavily interwoven into the fabric of traditional culture. than North America during the same period and this has lead to: the survival in 2023 of more traditional old school wrestling cultures (3 versus 1 - 2 if you count Puerto Rico)

I take it we're talking about Jim Barnett's Australian WCW of 1964-1978 (which he folded to spend more time and effort on Georgia) rather than 1920s-1950s when Australia had its OWN wrestling - George Penchef, Alan Pinfold etc

The business model in the UK and I believe France also was based on intensity of touring, not single big dates. 6000 shows per year, weekly residencies in over 30 cities.

I think he was a reputation mark rather than a belt mark. He knew about Lou Thesz obviously from Thesz's visit in the late '50s- and Assirati's (unapproved by promoters) grandstanding challenge to Thesz at the Royal Albert Hall and fancied his chances against Thesz in a "smoker" public shoot match, a win in which would establish Robinson as top shooter on the planet. He was certainly enough of a belt mark to want to get Billy Joyce to job the British and European Heavyweight titles to him - which Joyce reportedly only agreed to do once Robinson could beat him on the mat in Riley's Gym.

Having said that, I think Billy Robinson's initial motive for going to North America was a naive and youthful desire to use his vast shoot skills to double cross his way to a major American version of a world title - consider how the first thing he did in Stampede pretty much was to double cross Archie Gouldie in an eliminator match for a shot at Dory Funk Jr - and thanks to having a sympathetic Stu Hart as the promoter he got away with it.

I'd say that the territory era, or at least the 30 year gap between the end of the 40s/50s American TV wrestling boom and Vince getting the WWF onto MTV and NBC represented an extended dip period for wrestling's public profile in Amerca at a time when it was certainly much higher in Britain and for a fair while in France also. Consider how the ITV Golden Age and the NWA territories era were actually concurrent!

I think perhaps you're overestimating the global importance of the NWA World title. I didn't know of its existence until 1988 - we had our own World Heavyweight title which Quinn and Wayne Bridges fought for on FA Cup Final day 1980, Bridges won over Jim Harris in the second highest bout on the bill after Daddy vs sTax at Wembley '81 and Kendo had won from Bridges in late '87. Andre, apart from his time challenging Wanz in '87 had already been a big name back home in France and had been on World Of Sport in spring '69. Bruno and Dusty I'm sceptical about how big they were globally beyond North America and Japan.

It's evolved a long way but at the end of the day it's all still the W(W)WF. The pull away from sports based presentation further and further towards entertainment has its roots in ideas deep within New York wrestling, already in evidence in the days of Mondt and Pfefer... He was primarily based in the AWA after a start period in Stampede. He kind of went on tour to places like Memphis, British Columbia etc.

also obviously Spiros Arion, Jim Harris the future Kamala, Mighty John Quinn the former Kentucky Butcher (all of whom had already done well in Britain.) EDIT: oh yes and just months after he was in with Flair - TERRY FUNK

Don Leo Johnathan, Bobby Duncum, Steelman the future Tugboat/Typhoon/Shockmaster, Kokina the future Yokozuna ....

True, although PR is not annexed so arguably deserves separate status like Mexico. The corpse of Stampede twitched a bit in the late '00s.

Sergeant Slaughter pre-babyface concurrently with his WWF Grand Wizard phase and JCP Don Kernodle/World tag title phase. Andre in 1987 was juggling two separate World title quests - Hogan in the WWF and Wanz in the CWA. The Moondogs, Baron Von Rashcke, Colonel DeBeers, the about to be Brutus Beefcake ... Later on there was Road Warrior Hawk, Eddie Gilbert, Rick Martel, Paul Roma, WARRIOR ... I could sift through serj1e's Youtube channel for more names.

Wrestling in the most succesful European territories had a higher profile than in the US territories at the time. Even in weaker territories like Spain and Greece, there were 10k megashows going on in the early 70s. Otto Wanz in 80s Germany and Hercules Cortez in 60s Spain were household names in their respective countries.

True they were quicker off the mark on the internet although Britain caught up with this a few years later. France is still in a more primitive state when it comes to celebrating its wrestling heritage. I refer you to my remarks about Royal variety performances and other mainstream TV ops in the UK and (possibly to a lesser extent) France. Only one US wrestling territory lives on in 2023 (or indeed past March 2001) , compared with three surviving European old school wrestling cultures.