The Beginner's Guide To British Wrestling

[brockobama]

It always comes back to the Reds smdh. Hope that Wrestling Heritage site has a full breakdown of football affiliation among the wrestlers, need to know who my fellow hopeless Spurs fans were.

[pmo]

Actually I remember Fulham singing it during their 08 great escape in reference to not being relegated so it makes sense in a football context.  For Big Daddy I think you can take it at face value especially considering he biggest rival was Giant Haystacks

[David Mantell]

I intend to have a long gradual go through this thread replying to various stuff.  A bit of background,  I grew up with British wrestling as my native territory and a lot of my attitude to it remains uncontaminated by American style smart philosophy.  As a general point, Old school British wrestling (which I consider to be still alive - more anon), especially the clean matches, should be regarded as a different rather than defective form of match which is best enjoyed the way Kent Walton encouraged his viewers to appreciate it, by focussing on the ideally continuous flow of skill in escaping/reversing/countering rather than looking for a story and perhaps not finding one.  This is how and why as I get older I find these matches the most enjoyable to watch, the flow of moves appealing to the intellect so that you actually WATCH rather than FEEL the action.  Sneer if you will, but I intend to give the old school British purist's perspective on these wrestlers and matches.

( Incidentally, isn't it rather strange in American wrestling how when someone gets an arm lever on their opponent the opponent does absolutely nothing to reverse or escape the arm lever (such as roll on the mat to untwist the arm) but just stands there selling it?  Also how the only escape from a side headlock down on the mat in American wrestling is to power ones way upward out of it rather than try and use e.g. a handstand to lever ones head out of the hold? )

[David Mantell]

On 3/31/2012 at 5:33 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

So what is it that people don't like about British wrestling? perhaps they don't like how guys do massive flips off finger locks. 

OK let's clear this one up as it's an old chestnut brought out by amateur wrestlers who hate the professional game.  This falls into two categories:

1) The basic roll as counter to arm lever.  The most characteristic British countermove used by everyone from the early days to the kids nowadays.  Also used by everyone trained/mentored (in reality or kayfabe) by a British wrestler, such as Owen Hart or Nick Dinsmore as Eugene under Regal's instruction.  Some wrestlers had alternatives - Jim Breaks would swivel round on his posterior,  Steve Grey would do the same with an oustreched leg to pull apart the wrist lever leaving the attaker's wrist free to be wristlocked back in return, Dynamite Kid and Danny Collins popularised the cartwheel, virtually all French wrestlers use the flying headscissofs.

2) The more advanced Irish Whip (also the name used for in American Wrestling for the one armed slingshot into the ropes) in which while twisting the arm lever to force the kind of roll described above, you suddenly wrench the arm upwards, forcing your opponent to jump to avoid wrenching their arm and do the roll as a somersault from which they generally land badly on their backs (although some agile souls like Pete Roberts and even Johnny Saint can manage to make a feet first landing from this.)  Even some Americans do this spot - case in point Barry Darsow as Demolition Smash in some of the Demos' matches with the British Bulldogs in '88 - don't quote me but I think he does it in their Milwaukee WrestleFest 88 match.

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Whatever it is, let's hear it. Personally, I struggle with German wrestling. The clipping and the handheld camera work always make it difficult to follow.

The trouble with German wrestling is the mixture of formats it is preserved in.  There was never actually a national West German or Austrian TV wrestling show (unlike the UK or France) but from 1979 up to 1999 the CWA religiously filmed itself in a variety of formats ranging from single handheld camcorder to professional multicamera OB setups.  To further confound the issue, many of the latter are in b/w - whether this is because they were actually shot in mono as a leftover from the days of b/w TV or because the colour has been lost through tape copying or colour signal deterioration is a mystery.

Germans went in for rounds the same as the UK (and France early on) and added their own twist of playing the latest cheesy pop hits between rounds.  You can really date a German match from this aspect - it it's playing Take On Me by A-ha, Wild Boys by Duran Duran, Blame It On The Boogie by the Jacksons or whatever else is the current fave for mobile discos at weddings, then that really sets a match in its historical context.

Germany seems to have been the most American-friendly Euro territory so with a big influx of Americans, that would take its toll on the technical quality of the German scene.  On the other hand I have seen some quite good scientific wrestling from Germany that was practically British wrestling in another location.  Dave Morgan vs  Steve Logan (mk2 the Birmingham clean one who now runs K Star gyms) circa 1984 or Jason Cross vs Micahel Kovacs for the IWW Junior Heavyweight title in January 1999.  I would also add Johnny Saint vs a heel Terry Rudge from the mid 1980s.  German crowds marked for Saint's escapes just like Brits would for Saint against Finlay (with Paula) and Soldier Boy Steve Prince, just as they marked for the sportsmanship in Morgan vs Logan.  So clearly you don't have to be British to get these things.

[ohtani's jacket]

It's 11 years later, and German wrestling is still incomprehensible to me. It's hard enough to make sense of the handheld footage and clipping let alone understand the context of matches. There are some good matches, but it's frustrating. 

[Dav'oh]

On 7/27/2023 at 7:22 PM, David Mantell said:

the ideally continuous flow of skill in escaping/reversing/countering

The round system actively works against this, bringing everything to a complete standstill every three minutes. I'm here to watch wrestling - what am I supposed to do between rounds? Scratch my arse? Plan to take over the world? It doesn't flow - it spurts.

The tiny rings make the sport itself look tiny.

[Jetlag]

In defense (or at least explanation) of German wrestling:

1. most of what we have of it is borderline unwatchable clipped handhelds - from the time period when the territory was already going downhill. We only have 1 full match from before 1980. I'm sure if we had TV quality whole matches from the 70s-80s or even 50s and 60s like with France there'd be a lot more great matches, maybe as many as we have from Britain. Fwiw the few better filmed matches we have (the CWA  and CCC comm tapes, the few matches from Hamburg and Recklinghausen that were filmed by a professional) are often good/great.

2. the "big and heavy = money" mindset was strong in Germany, so lightweights weren't put in the focus as much as in the UK or France.

3. because of the endless tournaments and wrestling every day, guys working in Germany had to work a more efficient style and rarely could go all out or beyond their formula. The few matches where guys do go all out are outstanding and up there with best European stuff (Dieter/Morowski, van Buyten/Taylor, Bock/Inoki), and those are just from the very few snippets we have.

4. from what I know, Germany didn't have training camps/gyms dedicated to pro wrestling like the UK did with the Snakepit or other gyms, so the wrestlers here weren't as hyperfocussed on developing their craft to the technical levels of the Brits. From what I know, new wrestlers were only taught how to do a bump and learned the rest as they went along in the ring. Roland Bock and Michael Kovac basically only had one training session in the ring before they started doing matches. Franz Schumann has said he only did back bumps until he couldn't move when he was brought into wrestling by Lasartesse, and he learned the rest watching and being in the ring with other wrestlers, and he turned into a pretty decent wrestler.

5. The "American-friendliness" of the territory is more of an Otto Wanz thing, and it's something he has been criticized for. There's also the fact that he was said to be quite the egoist and didn't like other Germans or Austrians rising to stardom. The non-Otto Wanz/CWA controlled stuff like the footage from Hamburg or the shows that Axel Dieter set up in 1998/1999 feel a lot more "euro" and have produced more good/great matches on average.

 

The music between the rounds.. well, it's just a very German thing, we do love our pop music, and it would occasionally add a humorous note when the DJ would put on a specific song mocking a bald wrestler, to the amusement of the crowd. It's remarkable how long the promoters in the territory held on to ancient traditions like rounds, cards, day-long tournaments... which is something that has been criticized, but I find it quite charming. These days Germany is just another country where you see a bunch of amateur level indy wrestling, none of the wrestlers make a dime and there seem to be way less women at the shows. I prefer the rounds and pop music days over what we have now.

[Ma Stump Puller]

The German Kendo Kashin matches are amazing I'll give them at least that, dude worked twice as hard there than what he did in Japan for the last 10 years lol

 

 

[David Mantell]

14 hours ago, Jetlag said:

1. Fwiw the few better filmed matches we have (the CWA  and CCC comm tapes, the few matches from Hamburg and Recklinghausen that were filmed by a professional) are often good/great.

2. the "big and heavy = money" mindset was strong in Germany, so lightweights weren't put in the focus as much as in the UK or France.

5.It's remarkable how long the promoters in the territory held on to ancient traditions like rounds, cards, day-long tournaments... which is something that has been criticized, but I find it quite charming.

6These days Germany is just another country where you see a bunch of amateur level indy wrestling, none of the wrestlers make a dime and there seem to be way less women at the shows. I prefer the rounds and pop music days over what we have now.

 

1.  What exactly was the purpose of professionally filming these matches, given that they didn't have a TV show?

2 This was something Germany had in common with the USA  which again links back to what I said about it being the most American-friendly Euro territory.  In the UK, George Kidd is generally credited with overturning the whole "bees do the work/drones get the honey/lightweights have the skill/heavyweights get the money" (actual 40s/50s UK backtage proverb) attitude and managing to suceed as a main event act, and then passing that tradition on to Johnny Saint.  Still, when Saint gets used as something better than a squash cushion for people like Colonel De Beers, the German audiences respond positively to him as they also do to the Birmingham Steve Logan.  (Why and how America became so heavyweight-centric is a good question - we hear how Frank Gotch and Strangler Lewis were mainstream sports stars in their day, but were George Bothner, Benny Sherman and Ad Santel given that treatment?)

5 Yes, I like rounds too, the gaps between give natural rest periods for the wrestlers to focus their energies on the action during the round (as well as giving a TV commetator like Kent Walton some space to talk about background colour details such as a wretler's track record or outside the ring life.  In 2023 Premier Promotions still use rounds for everything but All Star and Rumble use them mainly for certain formal occasions (in Rumble's case for Nino Bryant's British Lightweight title defences which are held under full blown Mountevans rules.)  New SChool/Americanised promotions do it occasionally as a gimmick match and when they do, they usually call it "World Of Sport Rules" or somesuch.

6)  This reminds me-what is the current status of German/Austrian Old School Wrestling?  I know EWP replaced CWA but are they still going? If not, - who if anybody - has taken over the Traditional German/Austrian scene?

[David Mantell]

On 7/30/2023 at 3:59 AM, Dav'oh said:

The round system actively works against this, bringing everything to a complete standstill every three minutes. I'm here to watch wrestling - what am I supposed to do between rounds? Scratch my arse? Plan to take over the world? It doesn't flow - it spurts.

The tiny rings make the sport itself look tiny.

The rounds remove the need for rest holds during the match.  This doesn't mean that you do away with headlocks etc but that they instead become links in the chain.  Without rounds, old school British wrestlers have to resort to other things to create gaps, such as leading the family audiences in clapping etc.

Originally though, it came from  the periods in Olympic Freestyle wrestling which in turn got the tradition from old Greco Roman pro wrestling in the 1800s.

The tiny rings would be actually more realistsic for bouncing off the ropes, except that running the ropes is used a lot more sparingly in the British style.  Reslo had a slightly larger ring (which Orig Williams loaned to WCW for the December 1991 Roar Power tour) and so did the Royal Albert Hall shows. Come to that, so did the EWF shows in France for Eurosport New Catch (and obviously the CWA rings).

[David Mantell]

On 3/31/2012 at 6:20 AM, FLIK said:

As a general rule, i've found 60's & 70's > 80's by a good deal as the further you get into the 80's the more it becomes about showy/entertainement style stuff and less about the pure sport style which is what drew me in. 

Joint in the late 80s is a schism between the Daddy tags on the one hand and very serious technical wrestling on the undercard - Premier Promotions in the 21st Century is basically like a 1980s Joint show minus the Daddy tag main event.  

Before it got on TV, All Star (like Reslo and French wrestling) was somewhat pushing the boat out in terms of entertainment and American influences - in restrospect the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA)'s restrictions were a good restraint, cutting out a lot of the wilder out-of-the-ring/weapons/brawling of the Screensport shows, while retaining Brian Dixon's good eye for creating storylines and angles that he would continue to exploit several years after the end of ITV coverage.

[ohtani's jacket]

I should point out that if we had full matches available from the 60s, 70s, and even the 80s, that German wrestling would have as many classics available as any other European country. It's the recorded history of German wrestling that's a mess, not the wrestling itself. Something is better than nothing, and beggar's can't be choosers, but I wish we had a better picture of German wrestling just like I wish we had more footage from Spain and Greece. 

[Jetlag]

1 hour ago, David Mantell said:

 

1.  What exactly was the purpose of professionally filming these matches, given that they didn't have a TV show?

2 This was something Germany had in common with the USA  which again links back to what I said about it being the most American-friendly Euro territory.  In the UK, George Kidd is generally credited with overturning the whole "bees do the work/drones get the honey/lightweights have the skill/heavyweights get the money" (actual 40s/50s UK backtage proverb) attitude and managing to suceed as a main event act, and then passing that tradition on to Johnny Saint.  Still, when Saint gets used as something better than a squash cushion for people like Colonel De Beers, the German audiences respond positively to him as they also do to the Birmingham Steve Logan.  (Why and how America became so heavyweight-centric is a good question - we hear how Frank Gotch and Strangler Lewis were mainstream sports stars in their day, but were George Bothner, Benny Sherman and Ad Santel given that treatment?)

5 Yes, I like rounds too, the gaps between give natural rest periods for the wrestlers to focus their energies on the action during the round (as well as giving a TV commetator like Kent Walton some space to talk about background colour details such as a wretler's track record or outside the ring life.  In 2023 Premier Promotions still use rounds for everything but All Star and Rumble use them mainly for certain formal occasions (in Rumble's case for Nino Bryant's British Lightweight title defences which are held under full blown Mountevans rules.)  New SChool/Americanised promotions do it occasionally as a gimmick match and when they do, they usually call it "World Of Sport Rules" or somesuch.

6)  This reminds me-what is the current status of German/Austrian Old School Wrestling?  I know EWP replaced CWA but are they still going? If not, - who if anybody - has taken over the Traditional German/Austrian scene?

 

1. Commercial releases, the CWA stuff would be released on VHS and the CCC stuff too on a smaller scale. I dunno if the Hamburg/Recklinghausen stuff was originally intended for commercial release but it was filmed by professional cameraman with 1 camera from ringside and I know those tapes were sold by the promoter on a very small scale first as VHS and later as Video-CD.

2. German and Austrian fans very much loved lightweight guys like Mile Zrno, Steve Wright or Schumann, and those guys were given big title matches as a showcase fairly regularily, they just weren't made into big drawing acts. Other beloved guys like Franz van Buyten, Axel Dieter or Achim Chall were also not that huge tho they were certainly bigger than the lightweights in the UK and France. Whether or not the crowds here will accept a lightweight as a major star is still subject to debate.

3. The rounds were simply used to make it look more like a real sport and probably to make storytelling and getting heat easier in the matches (a heel could simple get heat by attacking the face during the break and later a face could retaliate). Boxing had rounds, so does amateur wrestling, so why not pro wrestling? There are still some promotions that run rounds matches in this country once in a blue moon but they are getting rare.

6. EWP did pretty well running in the old Hannover territory appealing to the old fans who were still left, drawing 500-700 fans on good days, but in the last few years they pretty much went belly up after the former owner Eckstein stepped back and there was some kind of spat in the management. Jeff Jarrett is still their official world champion since winning the title in 2018 because since then they haven't been able to gather the money to fly him back in from what I heard. They only ran a handful of shows in the last year and haven't run any in 2023 so they might be done.

Another promotion, POW split from EWP and they pretty much took over the old EWP location in Hannover. I'm not sure it's an old school promotion but they at least try to appeal to the old fans by using guys like Ulf Hermann (yes, Ulf Hermann is still going and doing hardcore matches in 2023). Another promotion is Catch Factory in Leipzig which is a project of Johnny Rancid who is an ex EWP guy, they still somewhat try to keep up the old school image by using cards and running rounds matches here and there. Other than that there's Karsten Kretschmer, a guy who was brought up in the old Hamburg territory by Lasartesse, tho he hasn't run any shows in years. Austria is a bit luckier as they have EWA, which is run by Michael Kovac. I'm not sure they run round matches still, but Kovac has a decidedly old school attitude (especially towards wrestlers who weigh less than 100 kgs).

In total, there's no promotion left who still mainly runs round matches. They are reserved for rare occasions or title matches. It makes sense, since most fans and wrestlers in this country now never had any contact with the old style of wrestling and only know wrestling from what they saw on TV.

[Jetlag]

18 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I should point out that if we had full matches available from the 60s, 70s, and even the 80s, that German wrestling would have as many classics available as any other European country. It's the recorded history of German wrestling that's a mess, not the wrestling itself. Something is better than nothing, and beggar's can't be choosers, but I wish we had a better picture of German wrestling just like I wish we had more footage from Spain and Greece. 

Probably true, though Gernot Freiberger (@catchmuseum on Twitter) has done a good job digging through the history and writing various articles. I think the main reason it's all such a jumbled mess is because of the various promoters all doing their own thing, and foreign fans thinking that all German territory wrestling = CWA which adds to the confusion. Not to mention weird stuff like people thinking that Indio Guajaro was Rene Guajardo.

[David Mantell]

> I wish we had more footage from Spain and Greece. 

We've got video of a rough and ready looking couple of Greek shows from September 1987 filmed in what look like a converted underground carpark with a spectacularly shabby ring.  It's only where in one match where the camera turns round to reveal a rostrum of about 300 fans that you realise it's actually a "theatre" and not just a garage gym.

 

[David Mantell]

19 hours ago, Jetlag said:

1. Commercial releases, the CWA stuff would be released on VHS and the CCC stuff too on a smaller scale. I dunno if the Hamburg/Recklinghausen stuff was originally intended for commercial release but it was filmed by professional cameraman with 1 camera from ringside and I know those tapes were sold by the promoter on a very small scale first as VHS and later as Video-CD.

Ah, that would make sense.  It seems a bit odd releasing commercial videotapes of wrestling as early as 1980 but then the Pallos put out their videotape in 1981 (albeit probably also as a demo tape for ITV to see what they could do. )

[David Mantell]

On 3/31/2012 at 6:51 AM, NintendoLogic said:

Personally, my biggest problems with British wrestling are the absence of storytelling,

If you grow up with a style like this, then you develop enough of an appreciation of the tehcnical skill involved not to need any storytelling, you can just watch it as a sporting contest.  The same probably held true for the pro wrestling of the early C20th.

THIS doesn't have any storytelling in it either, but does it really matter?

Storytelling wasn't completely uknown in Britain however - Jackie Pallo talks about it in his book in 1983 but it mainly relates to blue-eye (babyface) vs heel matches which were not the overwhelming majority in Britain that they were in other territories.

 

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the lack of drama due to the almost complete absence of nearfalls, and the uniformly horrible finishes. 

Well you have the clever escapes from the submissions instead of the 2 counts.  Not sure what you find "uniformly horrible" about the finishes - I like all the folding presses.  One detail I pick up on is that in order to escape the folding presses - and thus create near falls! - is for the wrestler being pinned to start moving to get out BEFORE the folding press is completely in position.

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One other note in light of that one thread criticizing Gorilla Monsoon's announcing: Kent Walton talked all the time about how so-and-so wasn't going to get a submission with such-and-such hold. And he's in the Hall of Fame. Is there a double standard?

The British style - especially the clean matches - was a play-by-play man's dream as it gave a LOT of scope not just for calling holds/reversals/escapes but also analysing them and this is something Kent Walton not only threw himself into with gusto but also encouraged his viewers to do.  I compare him to the DJ John Peel as both of them were public service broadcasters who set out to teach their audiences to appreciate a particular artform - be it the technical wrestling match or Rock music (and other pop music forms).

[David Mantell]

"Skill and speed is what they (the public) really like" - Kent Walton (during Saint vs Faulkner 1981 IIRC)

[David Mantell]

On 4/1/2012 at 4:17 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

Well, ultimately they were matches filmed at halls around the country, but c'mon Big Daddy was not pure sport.

Getting slightly ahead of myself here but Big Daddy was an abberation in that although he was a MASSIVE mainstream attraction with the family audiences, he also alienated such vaste swathes of both the talent base and the adult fandom that all that was needed was an enterprising promoter to cash in and create a RED HOT product both in terms of content and the box office that would rival Joint to the point where it was indefensible for it not to have a slice of TV.  Enter Brian Dixon and utlimately his time with Kendo Nagasaki as lead heel which blew Joint out of the water and established All Star as the biggest UK promotion right up to the present. 

Joint continued to traipse round the halls as the Big Daddy Roadshow and then in 1994 the Davey Boy Smith Roadshow but once it no longer had a household name to build itself around, it plummeted (although with Max ready to retire and neither of his sons interested in taking over, it made little difference.)

The biggest failure of the whole Big Daddy strategy was that it created a serious gap in the marketplace for an alternative.

[ohtani's jacket]

57 minutes ago, David Mantell said:

"Skill and speed is what they (the public) really like" - Kent Walton (during Saint vs Faulkner 1981 IIRC)

That may have been what Walton liked, or at least what the persona he presented to the public liked, and it's generally what I like too, but it's stretch to say it's what the public wanted. The majority of the audience were into the characters and were there to cheer the blue eyes and boo the heels. Walton was an interesting guy. He could be fairly forthright with his opinions at times and wasn't shy about sharing his views on a wrestler or match. Some of the boys didn't particularly like him and would rib him by feeding him false stories to share on air like that lie about Ivan Penzekoff being a pig farmer. There are times when Kent had to BS about why the fans weren't responding to match he thought was technically excellent, and of course, he had to shill the main events.

The way we've viewed WoS over the years has been largely inorganic.  It would be more enlightening to watch full episodes than random matches, and fans like myself who have actively sought out the great workers and great matches don't usually put a huge amount of stock in the Catweazles of the world. At its best, there was something on the card for everyone. There tended to be more storytelling in the halls where the promotor would be looking to draw folks to the next show, but occasionally it would seep over onto the TV, especially when there was a title chase or the occasional angle. You have to piece the footage together since it's not week-to-week like US wrestling, but it's not completely absent from the broadcasts. Walton would often mention past bouts if they were relevant to the match at hand. 

[Robert S]

21 hours ago, Jetlag said:

1. Commercial releases, the CWA stuff would be released on VHS and the CCC stuff too on a smaller scale. I dunno if the Hamburg/Recklinghausen stuff was originally intended for commercial release but it was filmed by professional cameraman with 1 camera from ringside and I know those tapes were sold by the promoter on a very small scale first as VHS and later as Video-CD.

At least in the 90ies CWA also provided (sold? - or maybe the TV station filmed their own material) clipped stuff (usually from the Heumarkt, IIRC) to Austrian TV ("ORF") where it was shown in Sunday afternoon potpourri blocks (in a very non-serious way).

[David Mantell]

52 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

 it's stretch to say it's what the public wanted. The majority of the audience were into the characters and were there to cheer the blue eyes and boo the heels. 

 

It's what at least some of the public wanted and what many others sort of swallowed - the idea that they were better, more cultured people for being able to get into this more highbrow sort of wrestling.  Also legitimate Lancashire wrestling was still a big folk sport in the 50s/60s and there was a crossover element between fans of that and the more purist element of the Pro wrestling fans. 

Having said that, there were clearly times when the fans reacted like Kent wanted them to and he was happy to draw attention to that fact and that Skill and Speed quote was a particular case in point.

 

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It would be more enlightening to watch full episodes than random matches,

LOL yes it would be enlightening sitting through a FULL FIVE HOURS of On The Ball with "Saint & Greavsie" (former footballers turned pundits Ian St John and Jimmy Greaves) a bunch of horse races, some other unusual sport, FINALLY the matches and then the football results.

Seriously I obviously did watch the wrestling section as a full "episode" many a time in my youth and basically it was part of a complete programme with the same anchor man Dickie Davis who had been introducing all the other sport all afternoon and did so even on Saturdays when there was no wrestling, doing a brief introductory spiel to each match then handing over to Kent Walton and then at the end of the match popping back to the studio for a bit for Davies to wrap up the match and then intro the next one then hand back to Kent at the venue.  Sometimes there might be an advert break just before the main event or even between rounds in a particularly epic match and this had its own distinct music from the rest of the show.

Here's a trailer on a Friday night for the next afternoon's WOS - including some wrestling of course! - which might give you some insight into the general context in which matches were present.

 

[David Mantell]

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).

 

[David Mantell]

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.

 

[David Mantell]

1 hour ago, Robert S said:

At least in the 90ies CWA also provided (sold? - or maybe the TV station filmed their own material) clipped stuff (usually from the Heumarkt, IIRC) to Austrian TV ("ORF") where it was shown in Sunday afternoon potpourri blocks (in a very non-serious way).

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.)