David Mantell

Nick Aldis got VERY upset with it for showing the world old school British Wrestling as still surviving (there was footage from All Star's fan appreciation night at Fairfield Hall Croydon 2012) instead of peddling the usual narrative of it being killed off by the Americans which people like Fin Martin. Alex Shane and the New School crowd are so keen to push. It was quite good although most of the b/w footage was just colour-stripped 1970s footage. Didn't agree with Simon Garfield's belief that gimmicks etc drew more interest than the serious wrestling or that the latter subsided somehow. Serious wrestlers remained the majority like I said above - for every one Les Kellet there were a dozen Keith Haywards. Some of the serious wrestlers were MILITANTLY anti showmanship - best case in point Tommy "Jack Dempsey" Moore - but they still got pushed and gave the scene a backbone of credibility that - for this 12 year old in 1987 anyway - the WWF lacked.

Rosalind is her real name

Klondyke Kate material comes from the docu Raging Belles Atlantis Chronotis Goth is an M>F transperson who replaced Lloyd Ryan as Kendo's spokesperson in 2007. Pre-transition she (then a he) worked as a sound engineer for Thornley and Gillette's rock management company's home studio while they were out of wrestling in the early 80s. ACG came from a broken family with an abusive father who was outwardly a respectable doctor (GP) but privately a mad Kendo-hating psycho wrestling fan until the day he met Thornley out of character and he (Thornley) turned out to be a charming bloke - but stayed a dangerous abusive dad causing ACG to relocate permanently to Thornley's London home, pursue a sound engineer career and sort out her gender identity issues with transition - it's all in Kendo's book.

There's some footage in Granada TV's 1967 docu The Wrestlers of him versus Kellet. Kellet isn't doing the comedy in that one, he's in a hard fight. Not at all like his son. Big beefy moustacioed bully. Every big tubby snarly hard northern bloke with his wife and kids you ever get stuck on a train with. Like an evil version of Ted Bovis out of the sitcom Hi De Hi. Kendo was supposed to be a masked comic book superhero in Thornley's mind, but he ended up stiffing Hussey so badly that Hussey ended up the sympatthetic victim blueeye for a night, which is really saying something.

Colt did a Big Daddy tag on drugs. He didn't so much shoot on Daddy (now there was a thing someone should have done, like Pete Preston did with McManus) as generally misbehave so as to make Daddy look stupid and ineffective. It made Daddy look ridiculous anyway, and got Colt the sack.

Odd - I always found this a bit of a dissapointment. A Saint match against a lesser younger name is usually a chance for said lesser younger name to showcase their clever moves and clever counter moves against the master. Hassouni didn't seem to have too many eye catching moves. He was better back home as a tag team wrestler.

True also of Reslo and indeed the French Catch. No matter how much lawlessness there was from looser broadcaster restrictions, prooters still felt the need to push the classier higher end element of the product. Interesting.

They still had some good clean matches and helped give a window to people like Brooside and Yamada before they finally got on ITV. The "Chuckle Brothers" commentators (one of whom Max Beasely was the ring announcer for Bridges/Kendo) were of course dreadful, like a less snooty, more get-ourselves-over version of some of the French Catch commentators. Ultimately the Screensport shows demonstrate that Dixon needed to learn from working through the filter of the IBA to finally get a truly world class product (input from Thornley/Kendo on storyline ideas also helped.) One positive - Rocco had come out of his shell by this point in the time he had been away in Japan/the US as the Black Tiger, his "Maniac" persona had really blossomed. I would have loved to have seen Rocco do Pipers Pit while in New York in '84ish

This was his last one on TV and it actually got a good five years of heat-triggering show to show storylines as Kendo would repeatedly retake control of Brookside, even to the point of tag teaming with him sometimes quite efficiently, then ending the night by luring Brookside back to the dressing room and back to his lair as the crowd desperately tried to rescue him and Brookside's blue-eye compadres would be shouting from the ring "Robbie! ROBBIE!!! COME BACK ROBBIE!!!!" Brooskide had his long heavy metal hair by then and when "hypnotised" would let it hang down in front of his face and shamble around the ring like something out of Day Of The Triffids when not immediately called into action by Master Kendo.

Bridges was not the ideal opponent for a singles match with Nagasaki, too much of a power-based brawler, not enough of the technical skill to bring out that side of Kendo. He was better as a thuggish heel - or else being put over by his mentor Mike Marino. It does requite its clean round at the start. I wish this could have been somebody like Pete Roberts as the defening champion. They were genuine supporters - part of what gave a late 80s Kendo match its sense of danger was the clash between the regular fans who hated Kendo and the Kendo supporters. People talk of the America vs Canada feud in WWF 1997 but there never was a situation where America and Canada were both in the same building and liable to get into fistfights ringside with each other (although as Cornette pointed out, you got something like this recently with pro and anti CM Punk factions.

Earlier on, he did get to properly bodyblock his opponents. I believe the subject of the 1977 match with John Elijah gets braoched later on in the thread. Of course his lack of shooting skills made him offensive to all the shooters, perticularly Bert Assirati after they gave Crabtree Bert's BWF British Heavyweight title ....

A few more I could name - Kendo Nagasaki vs Giant Haystacks 1977 The Iron Greek Spiros Arion vs Colin Joynson 1979 Blondie Barrett doing an ongoing cut angle in 1992

This was why I thought MJH might be a fellow Brit - I don't agree with their views but here are some ageing WWF kids saying similar things from 2:20 Personally I watched wrestling for the, er, the wrestling and found my first WWF episode to be distinctly lacking in substance - a world where EVERY MATCH was a Big Daddy match.

This is a rather selective view of that era of British Wrestling. and one which a non wrestling journalist could have written (even more so in France, it seems.) Gimmicks, comedians and villains actually made up a minority element of the locker room, even in the 1980s. The overall majority were a serious no nonsense bunch whose main credential for getting their jobs were that they were recommended from an amateur club or a submission gym. A very "dry" bunch - it depends if you like it dry or not. This proportion declined over time but still remained if not a majority then at least a plurality or at very least an imbalance. I will get back in a future post to the difference between an outright comedian like Kellett, Catweazle, Kevin Coneely or Dizzy Dave George on the one hand and someone like Vic Faulkner or Ken Joyce who could be a bt of a "cheeky chappy" but whose primary focus in their act was their serious skill. Faulkner is a particularly prominent case in point as he seems to get mistaken for a comedy wrestler - he most affirmedly was not.

A sportsmanly no contest due to one wrestler refusing a TKO win is still happening to this day - even causing a recent nearly title change to be aborted: (NB for those unaware, in old school British Wrestling, titles change on any type of win including DQs,cuts and TKOs )

LOL are you actually British yourself, then? I've already detailed how Big Daddy was an aberation- mainly the trailblazers in terms of style evolution were the younger kids people aren't happy about later on this thread (I'll get to that as and when) who found new and flamboyant ways to do things like untwist an armbar. Obviously as American wrestling became more accesible from the mid 80s (bootleg tapes of territories, WWF on pre=Astra Sky Channel, getting to see American visitors in Germany) this had an influence on peoples' style in terms of them copying moves (Brookside and Regal doing the Hart Attack on Kendo Nagasaki in late '88) and more generally in terms of what Ohtani later describes as the internationalisation of the style in Britain. A tag match pitching two heel non regular partner heavyweights against two blue-eye non regular partners - even where the lead blue-eye is someone other than Daddy - say, Pat Roach as it was in quite a few early 90s situations - is not the greatest place to show off agility nor skill so inevitably it will come to resemble an American match of the same concept. (Case in point Haystacks & Drew McDonald vs Pat Roach and Robbie Brookside. Put Robbie in against Danny Collins or his Liverpool Lads partner Doc Dean and it was a quite different story. Roach too could have a reasonably streamlined scientific match with someone like Ray Steele.)

But can anyone else provide anymore insight into the dispute? It's no good asking either side directly - all they seem to do is froth at the mouth about how the other lot are an evil bunch of sleazy crooks. Which is not really helpful to making sense of it all.

What I know so far about this ^^^ : https://www.vice.com/fr/article/z4jm59/le-catch-francais-tente-de-ressusciter FRENCH ORIGINAL: A l'époque donc, les catcheurs ont une culture 100% sportive, dont ils vont peu à peu s'éloigner lorsque les managers réalisent qu'il y a plus d'argent à se faire en créant des personnages, sur le modèle du catch actuel. C'est à ce moment que les « Bourreau de Béthune » et autres « Ange Blanc » commencent à faire rêver les foules sous la férule de plusieurs promoteurs fortunés. Marc Mercier démythifie l'époque à sa manière : cash et directe. « Les matchmakers travaillaient au noir et s'en mettaient plein les poches. Ils se faisaient des milliards au black, on les appelait la mafia du catch, balance l'ancien athlète. Mon père a mené 8 ans de lutte sociale de 1968 à 1976 pour que les catcheurs aient enfin un statut et soient déclarés. Il a obtenu qu'on soit rattachés au régime des intermittents en 1976. Les matchmakers ont écopé d'amendes énormes, de 800 millions à 5 milliards de francs selon les cas. » « Après la guerre contre les télés, ils ont arrêté de nous diffuser, c'est là qu'on s'est cassé la gueule » - Marc Mercier, président de la FFCP Toujours selon Marc Mercier, cette avancée sociale a malheureusement contribué à faire plonger le catch français : « Mon père a aussi lancé une guerre contre Georges de Caunes et les télés qui payaient au black. Ils ont arrêté de nous diffuser, c'est là qu'on s'est cassé la gueule. A ce moment, le catch français a baissé pavillon, les Etats-Unis et la WWE ont repris le flambeau et la Wrestling Stars (WS) a récupéré le reste », déplore-t-il sans rien regretter de l'action menée par Mercier père. Et c'est là que les choses se compliquent, puisqu'entre Marc Mercier et la WS, ce n'est pas vraiment l'histoire d'amour puisqu'elle concurrence sérieusement la FFCP de Mercier fils. Sérieusement, et illégalement à en croire Marc Mercier : « Ils déclarent quedalle, ils acceptent des galas à moindre frais pour gagner quelques centaines d'euros. C'est ce genre d'institution qui tue la profession. Un catcheur doit donc avoir un contrat de travail, une fiche de paye, une retraite, comme tout le monde. Mais eux, ils jouent sur leur statut associatif de la loi de 1901 pour contourner ça. » Concrètement, Marc Mercier accuse certains promoteurs d'enfreindre la loi poussée par son père, qui définit les catcheurs comme des artistes souscrivant au régime des intermittents. Cette loi « stipule que le catch ne peut être organisé sous le couvert d'une association dépendante de la loi de 1901 », affirme-t-il, et c'est bien par là qu'il compte passer pour permettre au catch de se développer à nouveau. Mais rien n'est gagné : « Je suis le seul à gueuler ! J'ai été reçu par le gouvernement sous Sarkozy, mais sous le quinquennat de Hollande, personne ne m'a écouté, ils n'en avaient rien à foutre. Je vais faire bouger les choses, entamer un deuxième mouvement social dans la lignée de celui initié par mon père. Il faut qu'on arrête d'accepter le proxénétisme, parce que là, c'est ni plus ni moins que ça. » De fait, le catch français est embarqué dans une spirale négative qui l'éloigne toujours plus de sa gloire passée : aucun revenu télé et un financement toujours plus maigre qui poussent les acteurs du milieu à accepter des tarifs très bas pour des spectacles à la qualité toujours plus discutable, parfois sans assurance en cas de blessure ou sans cotiser pour leur retraite. Fatalement, les structures plus sérieuses, qui déclarent leur activité et facturent leur prestation, sont bien plus chères que les autres et perdent tous leurs marchés. Ce que Marc Mercier résume d'une autre manière : « On est en train de mourir à peut feu à cause de petits esprits qui ne voient pas plus loin que le bout de leur bite et qui lèchent le cul des proxénètes. Quand on est jeune, on ne pense jamais qu'on sera vieux un jour. On s'en branle de cotiser pour sa retraite du moment qu'on peut toucher un billet supplémentaire au black pour flamber le samedi soir. » Si Marc Mercier ne cache pas son amertume, c'est qu'il a l'impression de se battre pour l'ensemble de la profession, alors qu'il ne reçoit pas un accueil très favorable du côté de la WS. C'est le moins qu'on puisse dire, puisqu'entre les deux, le dialogue est rompu depuis bien longtemps. Pire, impossible de parler à une partie sans se mettre l'autre à dos. Ainsi, lorsque nous avons tenté de contacter "Flesh Gordon", directeur sportif de la WS et son bras droit, l'ancien catcheur "Monsieur Jacky", reconverti arbitre et entraîneur à l'école de Faremoutiers (école de catch affiliée à la WS, ndlr), chacun a eu une réponse bien à lui. Le premier s'est montré étonné, surpris de découvrir les critiques de Mercier : « Je le connais depuis les années 80, on s'entendait bien. Ça doit faire douze ans que je ne l'ai pas vu, je n'ai jamais entendu parler de toute ces histoires. Je suis un catcheur, pas un homme d'institutions. » « En France, le catch, on a l'impression que c'est la fête du slip et de la saucisse. » Célian Varini, commentateur sportif et spécialiste du catch Le second s'est montré plus véhément, voire lapidaire : « On m'a dit de ne pas vous parler puisque vous êtes allés voir la FFCP. Mercier, c'est un escroc, un voyou, tout ce qu'on veut. Il balance tout le monde, il a que ça à faire. Son père et lui ils nous ont balancés aux impôts pendant 40 ans. Moi je dis les choses, je mens pas, il nous empêche de vivre de notre métier avec ses conneries. » A ces accusations, Marc Mercier répond volontiers : « Jacky Richard, c'est un fraudeur de première catégorie qui touche sa retraite grâce à la lutte engagée par mon père et qui me chie dans les bottes aujourd'hui. Il me déverse des cuvettes de merde sur la tête tous les matins. Ce sont des accusations en l'air faites par des mecs qui perdent leurs procès. » Insultes, accusations et petites phrases, le monde du catch français n'a pas perdu l'habitude du trash-talking et de la catchphrase. Malheureusement, tout ceci ne se déroule pas sur un ring, et reste en petit comité. C'est bien ce qui attriste Célian Varini, un autre observateur avisé du catch français. A 35 ans, après être passé par une flopée de chaînes télé, il est devenu l'un des commentateurs les plus calés sur ce sport qu'il a découvert pendant son enfance passée en Floride, émerveillé par les exploits de Hulk Hogan et les premières éditions de Wrestlemania. Autant dire que le retour en France a été un choc, qui le pousse à dresser un bilan sans concession de la situation actuelle : « Je me souviens de la première fois que j'ai vu du catch français, ça devait être en 1992, sur Télématin. J'avais l'habitude du décorum américain, des mecs très musclés, de jolies gonzesses, un spectacle son et lumière devant des milliers de personnes… Là j'ai vu deux grassouillets de l'âge de mon grand-père en train de se chamailler dans un gymnase vide. C'était le truc le plus triste du monde. En France, le catch, on a l'impression que c'est la fête du slip ou de la saucisse. 95% du temps, ce sont des gens à la condition physique et au niveau athlétique pitoyable qui se produisent devant 40 personnes. Vu qu'il n'y a aucun contrôle ni aucune régulation, il y a des dizaines et des dizaines de structures. Parmi elles, il n'y en a même pas dix qui sont sérieuses, et encore, quand je dis sérieuses, je veux dire qu'elles arrivent à organiser plus de deux galas par an. Quand ils voient ça, je comprends que des anciens comme Mercier soient énervés. » Face à la guerre des chefs qui déchire le catch français, Célian est partagée entre la tristesse de voir la discipline qu'il aime tant toucher le fond, et l'amusement, tant la situation touche parfois presque au comique : « Le catch c'est un milieu tout petit où tout le monde se bouffe le nez. Ce qui est vraiment triste là-dedans, c'est qu'ils se battent pour très peu de gloire et très peu d'argent. Ils s'écharpent pour être le numéro un de la fête du village, ça a un côté presque pathétique. Les Mercier, Flesh Gordon et autres, ce sont des anciens amis devenus meilleurs ennemis. Monsieur Jacky par exemple, il est là-dedans depuis ses 12 ans et demi. Il a jamais rien connu d'autre. Si vous lui enlevez sa petite aura de catcheur, vous lui enlevez tout vous comprenez ? » Dans ce marigot où s'entremêlent guerres d'égos, luttes symboliques et frustrations,... ************************************* AUTO TRANSLATION TO ENGLISH: At the time, therefore, wrestlers had a 100% sporting culture, from which they gradually moved away when managers realized that there was more money to be made by creating characters, on the model of wrestling. current. It was at this time that the "Bourreau de Béthune" and other "White Angels" began to make the crowds dream under the rule of several wealthy promoters. Marc Mercier demystifies the era in his own way: cash and direct. “The matchmakers were moonlighting and filling their pockets. They made billions black, they were called the wrestling mafia, balances the former athlete.My father led 8 years of social struggle from 1968 to 1976 so that wrestlers finally had a status and were declared. He obtained that we be attached to the intermittent regime in 1976. The matchmakers were fined huge, from 800 million to 5 billion francs depending on the case. » "After the war against TVs, they stopped broadcasting us, that's when we broke our necks" - Marc Mercier, president of the FFCP Still according to Marc Mercier, this social advance unfortunately contributed to sinking French wrestling: “ My father also launched a war against Georges de Caunes and the TVs which paid black. They stopped broadcasting us, that's where we broke our necks. At that time, French wrestling lowered its flag, the United States and WWE took up the torch and Wrestling Stars (WS) recovered the rest, "he laments without regretting the action taken by Mercier. father. And that's where things get complicated, since between Marc Mercier and the WS, it's not really the love story since it seriously competes with the FFCP of Mercier son. Seriously, and illegally according to Marc Mercier: “They declare quedalle, they accept galas at a lower cost to earn a few hundred euros. It is this kind of institution that kills the profession. A wrestler must therefore have a work contract, a pay slip, a pension, like everyone else. But them, they play on their associative status of the law of 1901 to circumvent that. Concretely , Marc Mercier accuses certain promoters of breaking the law pushed by his father, which defines wrestlers as artists subscribing to the intermittent regime. This law “stipulates that wrestling cannot be organized under the cover of an association dependent on the law of 1901”, he says, and it is through this that he intends to go to allow wrestling to develop again. But nothing is won: " I'm the only one yelling!" I was received by the government under Sarkozy, but under Hollande's five-year term, no one listened to me, they didn't give a damn. I'm going to shake things up, start a second social movement in line with the one initiated by my father. We have to stop accepting pimping, because there, it's neither more nor less than that. » In fact, French wrestling is embarked on a negative spiral which keeps it further and further away from its past glory: no television income and ever more meager funding which pushes the players in the field to accept very low prices for quality shows. always more questionable, sometimes without insurance in the event of injury or without contributing to their retirement. Inevitably, the more serious structures, which declare their activity and invoice their service, are much more expensive than the others and lose all their markets. What Marc Mercier sums up in another way: "We are dying fast because of little minds who see no further than the tip of their dick and who lick pimps' ass. When you're young, you never think you'll ever be old. You don't give a damn about contributing to your retirement as long as you can get an extra black ticket to burn on Saturday night. » If Marc Mercier does not hide his bitterness, it is because he has the impression of fighting for the whole of the profession, whereas he does not receive a very favorable welcome from the side of the WS. It's the least we can say, since between the two, the dialogue has been broken for a long time. Worse, impossible to talk to one party without alienating the other. Thus, when we tried to contact "Flesh Gordon", sports director of the WS and his right arm, the former wrestler "Monsieur Jacky", reconverted referee and coach at the school of Faremoutiers (wrestling school affiliated to the WS , editor's note) , everyone had their own answer. The first was astonished, surprised to discover Mercier's criticisms:"I've known him since the 80s, we got along well. It must be twelve years since I've seen him, I've never heard of all these stories. I'm a wrestler, not a man of institutions. » “In France, wrestling feels like it's a celebration of underpants and sausage. »Célian Varini , sports commentator and wrestling specialist The second was more vehement, even lapidary: “I was told not to speak to you since you went to see the FFCP. Mercier is a crook, a thug, whatever you want. He rocks everyone, he has that to do. He and his dad taxed us for 40 years. I say things, I don't lie, he prevents us from living from our profession with his bullshit. “ To these accusations, Marc Mercier responds willingly: “Jacky Richard is a first-class fraudster who receives his retirement thanks to the fight started by my father and who shits in my boots today. He dumps bowls of shit on my head every morning. These are empty accusations made by guys who lose their cases. »Insults, accusations and little phrases, the French wrestling world has not lost the habit of trash-talking and catchphrase. Unfortunately, all this does not take place in a ring, and remains in a small committee. This is what saddens Célian Varini, another wise observer of French wrestling. At 35, after going through a slew of TV channels, he has become one of the most savvy commentators on the sport he discovered during his childhood spent in Florida, amazed by the exploits of Hulk Hogan and the first editions of Wrestlemania. Suffice to say that the return to France was a shock, which pushes him to draw up an uncompromising assessment of the current situation:“I remember the first time I saw French wrestling, it must have been in 1992, on Télématin. I was used to American decorum, very muscular guys, pretty chicks, a sound and light show in front of thousands of people... There I saw two plump guys my grandfather's age bickering in an empty gymnasium. It was the saddest thing in the world. In France, wrestling feels like it's a panty or sausage party. 95% of the time it's people of pitiful physical condition and athleticism performing in front of 40 people. Since there is no control or regulation, there are dozens and dozens of structures. Among them, there are not even ten who are serious, and again, when I say serious, I mean they manage to organize more than two galas a year. When they see that, I understand that veterans like Mercier are upset. » Faced with the war of bosses that is tearing French wrestling apart, Célian is torn between sadness at seeing the discipline he loves so much hit rock bottom, and amusement, as the situation sometimes almost borders on comedy: "Le wrestling is is a very small environment where everyone puffs their noses. What's really sad about this is that they're fighting for very little fame and very little money. They tear themselves apart to be the number one of the village festival, it has an almost pathetic side. The Merciers, Flesh Gordons and others are old friends turned arch-enemies. Mr Jacky for example, he has been in there since he was 12 and a half years old. He never knew anything else. If you take away his little aura of a wrestler, you take everything away from him, you understand? » In this backwater where ego wars, symbolic struggles and frustrations intertwine, ... (goes on to profile Tom LaRuffa)

This might help - it's a special one from November 1980 for a 25th anniversary trophy. Kent Walton actually speaks to camera at the start which is unusual. At 39:54 it goes on to the second week of the tournament. I remember the TVTimes special for this from 1980 (well I don't need to remember it, I've got it all nicely photocopied from Birmingham Central Library.) with a group of four wrestlers' partners (including a young Jeanie "Lady Blossom" Clark) taking tea at the Ritz and talking about their husbands. Also here's a nearly full episode of the standalone wrestling show from "Season One" Sept 1985 up to the end of 1986 while Joint was playing out the last of its exclusive contract and before All Star and WWF got let in the door:

(Add snobbery against wrestling - of course America is a far worse place even than France for this, with wrestling having been seen for decades as irredeemable prolefeed- hence the attitude of people like Kevin Dunn and even some of Vince's hangups about even the word "wrestling" etc.)

Some more thoughts on the Herzog episode - it shows the different attitudes between the UK and France to their respective working classes and their culture. Britain celebrates its prole culture and puts it all over TV and exports it to the rest of the world while the French try to hid theirs out of site, living in the HLMs out in the distant banlieus, out of sight and out of mind of the cultured world of wine and art and phlosophy France likes to project to the rest of the world. (And out of sight and out of mind they stay, at least until they start having a riot ... ) So maybe it's not a surprise that a former mountaineer turned Gaullist sports minister would turn round and demand "what is this vulgar (expletive) doing on our Television?" whereas in Britain it was seen as a more salt of the earth thing - until the mid 80s when ITV started rebranding to yuppies with an East Coast US idea of what the good life was-and even then they had to put a lot of time and effort into sabotaging the viewing figures to get away with the cancellation (and if the WWF boom had occured a year earlier or the contracts run a year longer, that would have been all blown out of the water.)

British wrestling was also off air during the summer until World Of Sport came along with the bigger stars heading off to the German tournaments and the smaller fry and indie wrestlers heading to the holiday camps (as they still do to this day.) It tended to have quite a few off weeks around the year particularly in summer even after WOS came along. The Maurice Herzog episode is interesting because British Wrestling had already hit that crisis point in the late 1930s when Slam Bang Western Style proved just too much for the London County Council and other authorities and All In Wrestling got banned. I talked on the British Wrestling thread about Kent Walton pushing the idea of high-end pro wrestling with a classy upmarket product with only a few heels as the serpents in this paradise, and much of that was as much to do with countering any potential Maurice Herzogs out there as it was getting lofty booking such as the Royal Albert Hall and regular ITV coverage for Joint Promotions.

CWA matches were also included as inserts in Eurosport New Catch and Reslo. At least one episode of Reslo was done entirely on location at a CWA show in Germany with Orig Williams down at ringside (he was already a familiar figure to the German fans as Bull Power Leon White's coach for his loss to Otto Wanz in Wanz's retirement match and his win over Luc Rambo Porier for the CWA title Wanz left vacant.)

The final three years of standalone bouts are more like American wrestling shows of the period with no jumps back to a studio and from the Jan '87 revamp onwards, even promo interviews - which was awkward as hardcore trash-talking doesn't come as naturally to Brits as it does to Americans.

Incidentally, they changed the theme music (and the wrestling advert break music) about two and a half years ebfore the end. (Only wrestling in this is a shot of Big Daddy bodychecking Barry Douglas as the masked Battle Star in the titles plus a plug for an Alan Kilby bout which gets cut out but it gives you an idea of the general context. And yes, they'd moved wrestling from the teatime slot to the lunchtime slot some months before WoS came off air).