Why is America always assumed to be the centre of the wrestling universe?

[David Mantell]

Regarding KNOCKOUTS as a finish , here's another one from another part of the world - Adnan Al Qaisi vs Danny Lynch in early 1970s Kuwait:

 

[David Mantell]

Facebook thread about Booker T's recent comments on Mercedes Mone which dovetails into issues raised on this thread.

https://www.facebook.com/PWMMAClub/posts/pfbid0GQcm9ktG2prFMe4yFq4o739Ri65uC9qfxVDaa7s6TBmawPKHD4wRYZeHkyP367KXl

(That Alldresseduplikeavamp person sounds very clever and insightful.  Probably very handsome too!  )

[David Mantell]

On 11/22/2023 at 2:54 AM, David Mantell said:

There were a considerably higher proportion than in American wrestling and they still occur even now. All Star had them on its show on Screens port and there were plenty on Reslo too.

There was a definite imbalance towards "clean wrestlers" - say 70-30. In America it was more 50-50.

Good illustration of this - here is an entire six bout TV taping from Crawley Sports Centre 31st July 1975.

 

Six bouts total all of them singles, making 12 wrestlers total on the bill. Out of that lot, only Mick McManus is properly a heel. The nearest thing to a second heel is Mal Stuart - he did become a fairly vicious heel later on  but here he mostly clean and gets a few rounds of applause for good moves even against Kellett and a mixed response to his consolation pinfall.

That leaves at least ten out of twelve wrestlers on the show as good guys!  Four of the six bouts are blue-eye Vs blue eye, three of them full blown clean sportsmanly matches (a little needle creeps into the War Eagle Vs Czeslaw bout towards the end.) This illustrates the slant against heels in old British wrestling. They were a minority of serpents in a technical paradise.

[NintendoLogic]

On the other hand, what was broadcast on TV wasn't necessarily representative of the product as a whole. My understanding is that the TV audience consisted largely of children and grannies and the network was concerned anything too rough would scare them off. Apparently, rival promoters frequently booked so-called all-in bouts and billed it as wrestling that was too hot for TV.

[David Mantell]

On 11/22/2023 at 1:02 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

 

On 11/21/2023 at 2:48 PM, David Mantell said:

The IBA had very strict rules about fighting outside of the ring

(and also the ref being firmly in charge and not an ineffective wimp like in America much less the quasi heel figures they became in France.  Which is why you got tough no nonsense characters like Max Ward as the rule, not the exception like Roger Delaporte and Gorilla Monsoon as a special ref were.)

Again, it's a complete fantasy that British wrestling was full of gentlemanly bouts where they wrestled good, clean bouts. On any given card, there would be a number of matches like that, but there were also pure heel vs. babyface spectacles that were completely universal. 

I think on rereading, this got away somewhat from the point I was trying to make about stricter broadcasting regulations on ITV than on Antenne 2/FR3 (or even S4C or much less Screensport or straight to video/untelevised shows.).

Two things that the Independent Broadcasting Authority in the UK INSISTED on were no fighting outside the ring and the referee ibeing seen to be in control of the bout at all times. Consequently, ITV Wrestling had to operate with those shackles on the violence showable - it had to be confined and controlled - and this impacted on the overall style and feel of mainstream TV wrestling in the UK and thus the overall style of British Wrestling.

[David Mantell]

8 minutes ago, NintendoLogic said:

On the other hand, what was broadcast on TV wasn't necessarily representative of the product as a whole. My understanding is that the TV audience consisted largely of children and grannies and the network was concerned anything too rough would scare them off. Apparently, rival promoters frequently booked so-called all-in bouts and billed it as wrestling that was too hot for TV.

It wasn't what was considered suitable for kids and grannies, it was what was considered suitable for the TV audience PERIOD.

The family audiences became disproportionately the target during the Daddy era - before that the kids weren't old enough to make sense of TV and the grannies weren't yet grannies, just middle aged female fans. The only granny the IBA would have worried about was the dreaded Mary Whitehouse.

You are correct about opposition promoters hyping themselves as wilder than the TV (although they still had to put in some high-class clean matches to maintain sporting credibility in the climate).and this is even more true in the case of the tape-trading, satellite/cable owning underground of UK fans of American Wrestling, who despised the clean wrestling massive as effectively an army of Howdy Doody Bob Backlunds!

[David Mantell]

P.S. I was going to post all this to the British Wrestling thread, but it turns out that the discussion about the traditional imbalance in favour of blue-eyes/babyfaces/clean wrestlers was on this thread so my latest thoughts went on here as well.

[David Mantell]

Also, the ending of Kellett/Stuart is another good example of a knockout finish.

(In America except for the WWF, Kellett would have been DQd for breach of the Over The Top Rope rule.)

[ohtani's jacket]

A quick look at other shows from 1975 lists Jim Breaks, Alan Dennison and Sid Cooper, Mick McManus, Brian Maxine, Bobby Barnes, Steve Logan, Giant Haystacks and others making regular appearances.

There's a Woking taping from 11/5/75 that has three straight heel vs. face matches featuring Sid Cooper, Bobby Barnes and Judo Al Hayes with Zoltan Boscik and  Klondyke Jake matches that were taped but didn't air, so it was likely an entire show of heel vs. blue eye matches. 

Wrestlers were expected to wrestle clean , and it is true that there was less violence than in other countries and that the refs upheld the rules more strictly than in other places, however it wasn't a technical wrestling paradise. I wish it were, but it was professional wrestling and people came to see the personalities as much as the action that happened inside the ring. 

[David Mantell]

There were heels, yes, but they were in disproportionate short supply in Britain, it wasn't 50/50 like most other places.

And yes, a big part of why there was less violence, especially on ITV, was because of the power of TV regulators. Combat sports are, by their very nature, violent but wrestling on British TV was always depicted as a very controlled sort of violence, confined to the designated zone (the ring) and under the control of the referee - who was generally a dominant Max Ward type, unlike Delaporte or Monsoon who were rarities.

(Promoting a classy upmarket product was also a good way to keep the Maurice Herzogs of this world at bay, as British wrestling had already learned with the LCC.)

[David Mantell]

On 11/23/2023 at 5:18 PM, David Mantell said:

 

 

Regarding referees being shown to be in control of violence.  In the above 2KO tag match, blue-eye Tony StClair goes berserk, throws the referee out of the way and mercilessly batters heel Mighty John Quinn with punches.  For his pains, StClair - still only on his first public warning - is given a summary DQ. Quinn also gets a third public warning and hence a DQ for pulling the corner pad off once too many times.  The two DQs are counted as one fall apiece and the bout is reduced to a singles match for the deciding fall for remaining time, which Naggers wins (on a knockout!). Afterwards StClair is left standing shamefaced in the ring very embarrassed at having let partner Neil Sands down.

In any American territory I can think of in that same period, the 1980s, except perhaps for the ref bumps,  StClair's fisticuffs with Quinn would be considered good clean wrestling! In fact, I think it's fair to say that would have been considered good clean wrestling in most American territories even in the 1970s!  In the UK in 1987 it is only showable on TV as something illegal which not only brings down the severest consequences on the perpetrator but which he himself takes a guilt trip over!

[ohtani's jacket]

Don't forget that All In wrestling was popular in England in the 1930s until the London City Council banned it. When wrestling returned under the Mountevans rules, wresters were meant to adhere to the rules. Over time, those rules were bent or manipulated for dramatic effect since it was all a work.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a State Athletic Commission or any other authority that had quite that much influence over an American promotion. The closest equivalent I can think of is the Comisión de Box y Lucha Libre Mexico D.F.

Another factor, aside from ITV regulations, is the fact that Joint barely made an effort to create any sort of continuity on television. Occasionally, there would be a rematch of a match that happened on television a few weeks ago, or the continuation of a heel or face turn, but it was largely up to Kent Walton to catch those details. Promos and angles were rare, and what the audience tuned into for the most part was a house show from a specific part of the UK. There was barely any self-promotion aside from Walton praising the local promoters every now and again. It was an outdated television format by the time the 70s rolled round. The presentation was similar to the original 1950s US wrestling broadcasts. That said, the big name heels were always in demand for TV. Breaks and McManus appeared on TV far more than the blue eyes. As did Haystacks and Kendo when he was a heel. 

Speaking of All In wrestling, I am certain that fans of American wrestling would gravitate heavily towards the independent UK promotions of the time if there was more footage available. I can imagine the likes of Dominic Pye being hugely popular with American fans. 

 

 

[David Mantell]

On 1/21/2024 at 10:28 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

Don't forget that All In wrestling was popular in England in the 1930s until the London City Council banned it. When wrestling returned under the Mountevans rules, wresters were meant to adhere to the rules. Over time, those rules were bent or manipulated for dramatic effect since it was all a work.

And therein lay the problem - Slambang Western wrestling was okay for pre-war smalltown America but just too much for Thirties England.  The term "All In" got somewhat scapegoated for the general level of unacceptable violence (No Holds Barred never meant No Tactics Barred) but the trend after the war was to go for a certain level of high class respectability towards one end of the product.  It helped protect wrestling from the British equivalents of Maurice Herzog just as much as it assisted in getting cushy gigs such as regular ITV coverage or shows at the Royal Albert Hall.

We do have a fair selection of opposition footage from the 1980s - Reslo, Screensport, Jackie Pallo's video - and yes, it does contain a lot of violence that would never have been acceptable on ITV - choking with TV cables, hitting with ringside objects including chairs, ring bells and even PVC road barriers (LOL!) used as makeshift crowd barriers, gimmicks such as cages, chains and ladder matches (especially on Reslo)  and PLENTY of fighting outside of the ring (almost as much as on French TV in the late 70s and through the 80s).  Even so, they all counterbalance this with a fair amount of clean matches in order to maintain the basic level of sporting credibility and I expect this was true of earlier UK independent wrestling also.

On 1/21/2024 at 10:28 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

It was an outdated television format by the time the 70s rolled round. The presentation was similar to the original 1950s US wrestling broadcasts.

Nobody in Britain really regarded it as out-dated - it felt more like how Boxing was presented on TV.  Televised Boxing was a lot like how French TV Wrestling was presented  - a big marquee match popping up on random nights here and there.  ITV Wrestling - especially those final few years under Mike Archer's producership -  looks a lot better on screen than pretty much all studio wrestling shows of the later period US territories did.  And the one time the WWF experimented with a taping location similar to those used by ITV - that theatre in NY where the first few Monday Night Raws were shot in early 1993 - everyone proclaimed it to be a breath of fresh air.

[David Mantell]

By the way, even if it later became a byword for ring anarchy (and a derogatory term for pro wrestling used by non-fans as well as a derogatory term for the American wrestling game used by Mountevans purists like Kent Walton)  All In was quite clean no nonsense wrestling at least to start with ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neNToe0DCBY
 (you'll have to click on the link as it's not letting me embed.)

[David Mantell]

Getting back to the general topic of querying America's status as the world epicenter of pro wrestling, Jim Cornette and Brian Last made an interesting point on their podcast this week (Drive Thru episode 326, near the end of the show), pointing out how far in advance the wrestling TV in early 1980s Japan was compared to America at the time and noting how in Japan back then, Wrestling was on national network TV over there, a luxury beyond the dreams of any US territory of the time.

To this I can only agree and would point out the high profile TV slots in the UK and France during that same period as similar situations.

[ohtani's jacket]

What was special about Japanese wrestling in the early 80s wasn't that they had network deals (Japan is a much smaller country than the US and had no cable television at the time.) The impressive part was that for a small pocket of time, wrestling made into the prime time TV hours. It didn't last that long but it was impressive by pro-wrestling standards. However, I don't think there's a straight connection to be made between US wrestling and overseas territories because of the share size of America and how many different affiliate stations the US had. Not to mention cable. The UK and France are also much smaller countries. I don't think France any high profile wrestling TV of any sort in the early 80s. The UK was struggling at the time. The afternoon WoS spot didn't really compare to the Japanese prime time slots as far as I'm aware. Japan was arguably the biggest wrestling mecca in the world in the early 80s. The UK was minor. France was irrelevant for the most part. 

[David Mantell]

We have no viewing figures for France (nor any context) but in 1988 ITV Wrestling on Sat lunchtimes was still averaging about 3 million (down from 5-6 million before the moved to lunchtime).  Exponentially, that's double what Raw gets every week.  As a proportion of respective national populations, it's something like roughly eleven times the size (3mil/60 mil = 1/20th of the population,  1.5mil/333mil = 1/222nd of the pop).

Especially in a country with no cable TV,  a prime slot on nationally networked TV is a BIG media window.

[David Mantell]

6 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I don't think France any high profile wrestling TV of any sort in the early 80s.

It was  on ANTENNE 2 !!!!!! How much more high profile could you get in France of that time?

Until August 1985 when it got moved to FR3 where it stayed until November 1987. After that, a few early episodes of Eurosport New Catch were screened on TF1 in 1988.

France had 3 channels at that point. TF1, Antenne 2 and the FR3 network (a similar set up to ITV but state run, launched Dec 31st 1972). TF1 and A2 were the former 1eme and 2eme Chaine until around 1975 - 2eme went colour in October 1967,  TF1 went part time colour in Sept 75 and full time in 1977. All three channels had adverts. A forth channel CANAL+ started in 1984 which was encrypted and you needed to pay for a decoder, and which carried the WWF. 

We know from the speaking clock time signatures on the INA video recordings on Matt D's YouTube that Le Catch was on a variety of nights of the week usually about 2230 to 2330, the same time of evening as ITV's midweek wrestling show in the UK in the 60s/70s. There is some evidence also on Matt's channel of a Sunday afternoon 1700h slot

[David Mantell]

6 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

The UK was struggling at the time. The afternoon WoS spot didn't really compare to the Japanese prime time slots as far as I'm aware.

The Saturday afternoon slot was deceptively good because it was on directly in front of the football results without even an advert break to separate them. You only had to tune in a few seconds early to catch the end of Big Daddy's latest exploits and then be hooked enough to tune in that bit earlier each week. (Even most proud anti-wrestling sneerers in Britain admit to having tuned in reach week "Ha! We used to watch that every week before the football results came on. It was sooo fixed!". (Yes but you still watched, didn't you!) Big Daddy was on a rising boom up to 1981 and coasting along 1982-1985. The move to lunchtime was a deliberate effort to sabotage viewing figures so it could be removed and programming perceived by advertising execs to be more attractive to higher income viewers could be out in its place.

[David Mantell]

JNLister this is the thread I was telling you about on the comment on YouTube. The overseas sales stuff is a few pages back.

[David Mantell]

6 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

The UK was minor. France was irrelevant for the most part. 

Anywhere could seem minor if no information existed about what was going on.  I first heard of Hulk Hogan in December 1986 with the trailers for the new look ITV wrestling shows with WWF specials coming in the new year 1987. I first heard of Ric Flair in 1988 reading an imported PWI.

Bear in mind Japan had NTSC TV whereas Britain and France had PAL and SECAM so that in itself was an obstacle for tape traders. (Traders the other way brought tapes back from America to satisfy the growing cult of PWI reading, ore-Astra Sky Channel WWF watching crowd, many of whom despised all the clean matches on ITV the same way American smart fans despised Bob Backlund as some sort of offence to gimmickry and crowd working.)

[David Mantell]

14 minutes ago, David Mantell said:

JNLister this is the thread I was telling you about on the comment on YouTube. The overseas sales stuff is a few pages back.

(How do you tag people in posts?)

[Ricky Jackson]

Just now, David Mantell said:

(How do you tag people in posts?)

Use @ before the name

[David Mantell]

Thank you. 

@JNLister see above posts. This is the thread I was telling you about on YouTube.

[ohtani's jacket]

Being shunted around in late night TV slots is not really my idea of high profile. There's no evidence that Catch was even consistently shown on French TV in the early 80s. If it was, the archives are missing plenty of episodes. It doesn't pass the eye test either, as the drop off in quality from the 50s & 60s to the 70s and 80s is striking. Was there a US territory with television that was worse than French Catch at the time? 

ITV had a higher profile, but after the Wembley shows there was a noticeable downturn. If you compare 1983 Japan to 1983 Joint Promotions, there's no comparison. The buzz around wrestling in Japan at that time was closer to the buzz around wrestling in the UK during the 60s. 

I have no problem calling European wrestling one of the major centres of pro-wrestling along with Japan, Mexico and the US, especially with the research that Phil has been doing into other European countries like Greece and Spain, but not the centre.