World of Sport

[Flyin' Brian]

Anyone watched this yet? Probably going to check it out before Raw. It's on YouTube, here's the link if anyone is interested. Ratings weren't great so not sure if there will be a follow up.

 

https://youtu.be/_bGACe1dgoQ

[Stennick]

I watched some of it and I guess it depends on what you enjoy. I went in hoping for something more along the lines of Progress but came out with something much lower in quality. With the ratings being half of what ITV internally projected its not likely this will air on ITV but still might have life on ITV2 down the road.

[stro]

I thought it was quite bad, mostly because it seemed like a bad American show that happened to have UK talent. JR, while excited to be there (especially in comparison to NJPW stuff), was so out of place and clearly has little to no knowledge of UK wrestling as all of his references were to 90s-00s WWE. From the backstage segments to the GM to the randomness of the matches/types to the TERRIBLE editing, it felt like it was a parody of WWE/TNA more than it was a show to showcase UK talent.

 

Couldn't stop laughing when they'd show the clips of classic WOS that seemed to be made by a completely different production team, then they cut to Johnny Saint and Marty Jones sitting in the front row to watch a 4 way ladder match to gain entry to a battle royale. Fascinating that this is what got WWE all in a huff.

 

[Flyin' Brian]

Yeah, it was almost all goofy fun I guess, but not really what I was expecting at all.

[bradhindsight]

I haven't watched yet, but this sounds very similar to when TNA went live against RAW back in January 09. Just a ton of shit thrown at the wall in a two-hour block. Interesting strategy.

 

The review we posted has garnered a bunch of back-and-forth on our Facebook page. People were engaged for at least the NYE pilot.

[FMKK]

From what I've seen of it, it's not great. The camera work is like Kevin Dunn on a coke bender, just completely all over the place. The stereotype of World of Sport among most of the public in Britain who remember it from the 80s is fat guys who can barely move (Big Daddy vs Giant Haystacks) so I don't think kicking off the show with two fat guys who weren't particularly good workers was a smart move to dispel the myth.

[TonyPulis'Cap]

Yeah, it was almost all goofy fun I guess, but not really what I was expecting at all.

 

I'd agree on the goofy fun, but to me it felt pretty disappointing overall. This maybe the fact that I'm from the UK, but sadly this was exactly what I was expecting given the channel that it was on.

 

For those in the US/other parts of the world, ITV is very much a cheesy light entertainment channel in general which, even if sometimes a bit unfairly at times, gets labelled as a cheap and tacky knock off version of the BBC. The look and feel of the WOS show was completely in keeping with the look and feel of pretty much all of their other shows that are on a Saturday night - I was actually a bit surprised they didn't have Ant and Dec presenting or hadn't found a way to incorporate other minor reality TV starts into it somehow.

 

Watching it I really wanted to like it, and the mere fact that there was British wresting on a national channel at a pretty prime spot is incredible in itself, and goes to show how the UK wrestling industry has managed to grow these last few years. About 5 or 6 years ago this was unthinkable.

 

People above have gone into some of the faults they saw, and it's hard to argue too much. JR seemed out of place, and everything was very artificial, which is funny given its a 'fake' sport anyway... for me, the whole random stipulations, having a title belt, a general manager were not what I wanted, but then I can see why they might have thought that was the way to go, given the proliferation of WWE in the way wrestling is seen as being presented. It was sadly never going to be a Progress or a Rev Pro looking show, but I kept hoping it would manage to capture something of the vibe of the original WOS.

 

I think in their minds that's what they were doing; clear good guys/bad guys, nefarious cheating, 'outlandish' personalities - but somehow everything just kind of missed the mark. It was almost - and this sounds more harsh than I'm trying to be - but a bit like a parody of a wrestling show, as if confirming all the cliches of wrestling that the average man on the street might give.

 

As I say, given the channel it was on, the likely audience they were going for, and not really knowing what the input of wrestling people vs TV producers was in putting it together, this was always likely to be the output I thought it would be. It's hard, given those constraints, what they could've done to improve things, but I think having more profiles of the people - where they could've blended some reality with kayfabe - where you got to know more about them would help and some more bits about the old time stars - those clips were the best part. Maybe a tournament format might have helped the overall show and give it a bit more of a consistent feel? For those who remember back to the UK Revival event that was on Bravo back in the very early 2000s, that's what they went for, and while they were clearly playing to a more hardcore audience I thought that format would've worked better.

 

Despite everything above(!) I didn't hate it, but it did leave me cold. I am very happy that great and hardworking talents like Dave Mastiff, El Ligero, Zach Gibson etc get huge exposure and I think that if they knew they had a number of episodes to tell better stories rather than it just be a one off event it would get better, but my underlying feeling was more that I was watching an episode of Gladiators.

[stro]

Speaking of Zack Gibson, the disconnect of him being the only guy doing classic WOS style (including doing a Jim Breaks special IN FRONT OF JIM BREAKS) getting booed for the technical wrestling was pretty indicative of the show as a whole to me.