As I've become more and more involved in the British wrestling scene, (I co-own PROGRESS wrestling, running out of Central London) I've seen an awesome upturn in business for certain companies in the UK at present. Don't get me wrong, some companies are the shits, but does anyone on these forums actually follow the British scene, or is it even on anyone's radar? We sell out every show about 4-5 weeks in advance and have a waiting list for returns or holds so there obviously is a market for it in the UK.
Realistically, we just seem to be a feeder system for TNA and WWE at present, which is more than fair enough as there are ONLY indy companies in the UK. No one is on a retainer or a contract anywhere in the country, but I would genuinely be interested to know if anyone knows, or follows, or is even aware of any of the "big" companies in the UK? For example:
Just off the top of my head, they are all putting on decent to good to amazing shows that will probably never fully be appreciated by wrestling fans around the world. I'd love if people who perhaps didn't even know there was a burgeoning British scene got into it. Wrestletalk TV on Challenge TV (on freeview here in the UK) was meant to be a huge step in raising the profile of British wrestling but oddly enough they mainly talk about TNA (who are also on the same channel) and don't promote British wrestling as much as they should be, at least in my opinion.
ICW is stupidly popular in Scotland right now. Even some non wrestling fans I know have attended shows previously. Going to my first in August and I'm really looking forward to it.
It's amazing how low profile British wrestling is in the US I'm an enormous fan of wrestling worldwide, and I have not watched a match from any British wrestling promotion since Doug Williams and Paul Burchill were on their way up. That isn't because I don't want to, it's just that there's literally no dialogue whatsoever in the United States about it that I can find. I'm told that British wrestling is still relevant in Japan and Mexico, so it's just baffling how it seems to have zero foothold here.
Honestly, I would love to review a show for Cewsh Reviews to get more publicity and interest going, but I hardly know where to start. I should probably direct this straight at you Glen, since you're a co owner of a company. Would you be interested in us reviewing one of your shows?
I've been keeping tabs on things recently for a few reasons...
- Glen mentioning his work with PROGRESS which sounds great fun.
- Cabana's podcast. He works in the UK regularly and has interviewed a bunch of British wrestlers. Regal, Johnny Saint, Scurll, Doug Williams, Haskins. Lots of info about the British wrestling scene that I wasn't aware of, good stories etc. Encouraged me to pay a bit more attention.
- WWE has shown more interest in scouting talent from the UK. In recent years we've seen Sheamus, Barrett, McIntyre, Mason Ryan, PAC, Oliver Grey, Big Rob, Lewington, Kenneth Cameron, Hade Vansen, Andre Tyson, Paige, Rampage Brown etc. signed to developmental deals. Williams, Magnus, Rob Terry, Haskins and Spud have had varying success in TNA.
- One of my favourite wrestlers in the world, Fujita Hayato, making his UK debut against Zack Sabre Jr. for 4FW earlier this year and the somewhat significant buzz that came with it. Next time he's over hopefully I'll have a chance to go.
- There's a Revolution Pro show in London in June featuring Colt and a Morrison/Liger dream match. Considering going along to that.
- Ever since Quackenbush & Chris Hero encouraged Johnny Saint to come out of retirement and he had those highly regarded matches in Chikara and wXw, old school British wrestling from the World Of Sport era has become quite fashionable and more old footage has become available. I've been checking out the likes of Steve Grey, Jim Breaks and Regal's favourite wrestler Terry Rudge on youtube. There's a lot of stuff there that I'm keen to watch.
It's actually Liger/Devitt and I'm getting confused. Liger/Morrison headlined that big PWS show that happened near Wrestlemania. Dream Match though? Sure. Liger against any current flashy high flyer could probably be called that.
Actually, now that I'm looking, I have seen some of the other wrestling bloggers I know getting excited about Progress Wrestling shows. I had no idea that was your promotion, Glen. Fucking cool stuff. Checking out the website now.
Glen, you CO-OWN a promotion?! Fuck man, that's sweet. How did that come about?
I've always been intrigued at the thought of British wrestling shows but never been particularly concerned about checking something out, convinced that it would be mega cheesy or whatever. Will be interesting to read a Cewsh review on something.
Lots of the Leisure Centre shows and the camp shows (Butlins et al) are angled at families and children, so yeah, they can be a little cheesy, but using PROGRESS as an example, our shows are over 16's and run out of The Garage in Islington, which is ordinarily a rock venue, and we're the only wrestling company to run in Central London. It's smart wrestling for smart fans, l believe, run by 3 of us who love pro wrestling and don't see why British wrestling has to be stuck in the 80's. This explains it better to be honest, if you're interested : http://progresswrestling.com/about/
If you fancy having a look, we have our debut show, Chapter 1 (“the best debut show in British wrestling history” - Rob McNichol of the Sun newspaper) Chapter 2 & Chapter 3 on download for half price at the moment for only £5 English pounds at http://progresswrestling.com/merch/ but there's free matches on the website too. Chapter 7, which was this last Sunday (sold out, as every show has been so far - lucky us) is probably the best show we've ever put on. So delighted with it. It's just such a great atmosphere when wrestling is done right. (At least in my opinion).
Actually, now that I'm looking, I have seen some of the other wrestling bloggers I know getting excited about Progress Wrestling shows. I had no idea that was your promotion, Glen. Fucking cool stuff. Checking out the website now.
It would be really interesting to see what you think of Chapter 7 from this weekend.. When a download is available, I'll ping you a link if you'd like?
Yeah just to echo what Mike Hunt was saying, wrestling is absolutely stupidly popular in Scotland just now. ICW is absolutely tearing it up but the full effect of that has lead to a lot of local shows getting really good turn-outs too. What's really nice is that there are a bunch of companies in Scotland now who are all working together and talent-swapping to get the most out of the guys.
There's a bunch of ICW stuff up on YouTube as well as an incredible documentary by Vice Magazine centring around Grado (who is my second best friend aside from Drew McIntyre). Really good time to be a fan in the UK right now.
ICW is the closest thing we've found to ourselves in the UK. Adult based, great workers, and bit hardcore heavy, but a great company. Got shafted on their TV deal too. Horrible stuff.
I don't think there's anything in the UK such as "talent - swapping" though. Everyone is an independent contractor trying to get booked as much as they can wherever they can. There's probably only a handful of guys in the country who can consider themselves true professional wrestlers (El Ligero, Nathan Cruz, Rampage Brown off the top of my head, and a few others) who actually earn their living through wrestling all over the country.
Noam Dar if he didn't sound like a massive bam has the potential to be a huge huge star in uk wrestling and possibly abroad. Jack jester, Wolfgang, Mickey Whiplash and Kayleigh Ray are fucking amazingly talented as well.
Noam's promo for us on Sunday wasn't bad at all. TNA already sniffing around him and Regal's already put him over to the WWE Office. He'll be signed in the next 12 months for sure. 19 years old, fucking charismatic and a great worker, and a proper nice lad too.
Whiplash is a freak! Modern day goldust, remeber seeing him for the first time and genuinely being shocked at what the guy was wearing in combination with his strength and move set makes him horribly impressive.
I anyone is keen on checking out current British talent, I'd recommend checking out the following guys:
Nathan Cruz
Rampage Brown
Zack Sabre Jr.
Marty Scurll
Jimmy Havoc
Noam Dar
Mark Haskins
Paul Robinson
The London Riots (James Davis and Rob Lynch)
Project EGO (Martin Kirby and Kris Travis)
El Ligero
Dave Mastiff
Grado
Mikey Whiplash
RJ Singh
Mark Andrews
Eddie Dennis
Will Ospreay
MK McKinnan
The Hunter Brothers
It would be really interesting to see what you think of Chapter 7 from this weekend.. When a download is available, I'll ping you a link if you'd like?
Bloody hell. I know we're not exactly a "typical" example of British wrestling, but tickets went onsale to the mailing list at 10.30pm last night and we've already sold out 2/3rds of the building by 4pm today. The more exposure British wrestling gets, the more people come out of the woodwork and actually say "actually, I'd quite like to see some wrestling".
Wrestling in Britain has always seemed weird in the past. Whenever WWE or TNA went there, people were rabid for it, but no indy seemed to be able to stay afloat. MichaelC suggested that it was probably to do with how badly the big boom period of the 70s burned everyone out. It'd be nice to see that come around.
It just needs one big company to have the funding for TV and not make it look like crap. I recently sat down with a few workers and discussed that abomination of a programme that some company out of Blackpool put on TV recently (on some sky channel like MY.tv or something) which was so horrendous, that if you watched it you'd immediately think that British wrestling was still in the shitter and being performed in front of 50 people. Not the case at all, just a lack of exposure at present. Hence my bone of contention with WrestleTalk TV, although luckily for us, whenever our talent are on there they always put us over, without prompting, which is nice.
I went to Chapter 7 and it was the second best wrestling show I've ever been to, behind Summerslam 1992 when I was a 9 year old mark who ate anything WWF produced up happily.
PROGRESS was genuinely immense, all the matches were strong, great involvement from the crowd and a great atmosphere to boot. Everything you want really. I recommend this heartily to anyone - and you know I would use such an opportunity usually to take the piss where possible... but it was fantastic.
Hey, if you need a review pal I'd be happy to do so; England's wrestling scene has somehow managed to fly under my radar, and I'd like to correct that.
It was so funny seeing all these people basically beg Glen for a job. Just these fat cunt fanboys going on about a potential manager role in the pub afterwards. Hilarious.
Hey, if you need a review pal I'd be happy to do so; England's wrestling scene has somehow managed to fly under my radar, and I'd like to correct that.
The problem for me is I can never seem to find any decent promotions running shows in the east midlands. And whoever mentioned that show that was on sky recently is spot on, I literally turned it off because the opening promo was so god awful.
The problem for me is I can never seem to find any decent promotions running shows in the east midlands. And whoever mentioned that show that was on sky recently is spot on, I literally turned it off because the opening promo was so god awful.
Full Card
El Ligero (c) vs Noam Dar - PROGRESS Title Match
Darrell Allen vs Xander Cooper vs Joey Lakeside vs Eddie Dennis - Natural Progression Series 1st Round
London Riots vs Project Ego
Jimmy Havoc vs Zack Sabre Jr (w/ special guest referee Nigel McGuinness)
Mark Andrews vs Will Ospreay
RJ Singh vs Danny Garnell
Marty Scurll, Rampage Brown and Paul Robinson vs Nathan Cruz, Mark Haskins and a mystery partner
plus extras
Sad news about McManus, even sadder after reading some reports, apparently he lost the will to live after his wife died and was refusing food and drink . RIP.
William Regal @RealKingRegal 1h
Very sorry to hear of the passing of one of my childhood heroes Mick McManus.I only got to see him Wrestle live once.It was on my....
William Regal @RealKingRegal 1h
9th birthday and remember him giving me an autograph.Got to know him in the 80's and he was always nice.Great man.
William Regal @RealKingRegal 1h
Mick,along with "Iron Man" Steve Logan and "Cyanide" Sid Cooper were the reasons as a child I wanted to be a wrestler.
i can't say i've ever really caught an English promotion. I'd like to start checking them out. one question though is there a general style difference between English and US pro wrestling? I'm a fan of old school Catch Wrestlers like Billy Robinson, Gotch, Thesz, Sakuraba, Tamura and the like. Are there alot more technical mat wrestlers than we see in the states?
As someone who was almost born during a wrestling card in Battersea Town Hall (according to my mother anyway!) in 1970, I've been brought up watching wrestling. It's a crime we've not had a proper TV coverage for quite a few years. The short lived Wrestling Channel was a brief hope, and it was good to see some local UK promotions getting exposure. I had no idea about PROGRESS but having now read abit about it on their site, I am actually thinking of going to see my first UK promotion in almost 20 years! You'd think Challenge TV or even Channel 5 would pick up on the upswing in interest in UK wrestling and take a punt.
For anyone that's interested Insane Championship Wrestling, the most popular scottish wrestling promotion, have been putting a highlights show online. They are up to week 15 now I've watched a fair whack of them and they are pretty good. Can't wait to attend my first show of theirs in August.
thats the first episode. Give it a whirl and see what yous think. Watch out for GRADO!
So we've got Tanahashi and Liger working a couple of shows in the UK, Lucha Britannia filming a TV spot, The Steiners winning tag gold in Preston (yes, you read that right... Jesus Christ) and for ourselves (Progress wrestling) just sold out our next show on July 28th 8 weeks in advance at the annoucement of Doug Williams vs Darrell Allen vs Noam Dar. British wrestling is a crazy old world right now.
As strange a question as this may sound, I couldn't find it on your website:
What do your belts look like?
Ahh, well, you see, we don't like that most British companies have these cheap Pakistani made belts that look like kids' or replica belts, so we decided not to have one. If/when we do, it'll be something special, but, instead, we have a staff (lovingly christened by our fans as the "Nazi Staff". A statement rebuffed by one of my co-owners Jim Smallman on various occasions: "It's not a Nazi staff... IT'S FUCKING REGAL.")
Ha, that's pretty cool. Have you looked into having a proper belt made? i only ask because i'm curious as to how the design process works and how much a custom belt costs. All the local Indy companies here in CT use (well, used. most are out of business now) WWE replica belts with their logo stuck on via sticker and it looked horrendous.
Check this out, Hero. A good quality belt will run you a thousand if you go to the high class guys who do it for indy companies. If you want the guys that do it for WWE and UFC, you're looking at twice that.
So I watched my first British wrestling match in years last night. The 2012 Preston City Wrestling Royal Rumble. I hadn't heard of PCW, but apparently they are doing quite well. Which is more than they can say for Northend...
Anyhow, spoilered thoughts...
We start with Dave Rayne (a heel) and Ruffneck, a Hernandez sized wrestler who guzzles beer on the way to the ring. Well, of all the gimmicks in ECW, The Sandman's seems most suitable to have a British version! He comes out to AC/DC's Back in Black. Every wrestler has a theme. They also borrow the fan count down and the WWE's buzzer.
So Ruffneck roughs up Rayne, and number 3 is Mikey Whiplash, who is doing the time honoured British cross dressing gimmick. Seems to be more Adrian Street than Lenny Lane, mind, though I did note that despite Whiplash doing all the Some Mothers Will Have 'Em routine, he still acted less camp than half the folk doing that in the QMU club nights.
The 2 heels throw out Ruffneck, much to the fans disdain.
#4 is Sam Wilder, who is in and out pretty quickly. Then... DOUBLE CROSS! Dave Rayne tosses out the Michael Crawford lookalike.
#5 is Keith Myatt, who judging from music and attire, is, I assume, the tag partner of Ruffneck. Rayne immediately does the old man with the bad back impression in the ring. Myatt, for those who don't know, used to wrestle for World of Sport in the early 80s. The old man holds his own though.
#6 is Axl Rage, who gets the "you fat fuck" chant. Heh.
#7 is The Red Saint, a man dressed as a devil.
#8 is Danny Blaze
#9 is.... EL RUFFNECKIO! A man who looks vaguely familiar comes out, same beer drinking, same mannerisms, but he's wearing a lucha mask! And he gets in the ring, and Myatt (his actual tag partner when he doesnt have a mask) gives the whole "you look familiar, but I clearly don't know you" act, while the fans chant "He's not Ruffneck!" Hahaha amazing. I love mask gimmicks. Mr America and The Giant Machine and all that.
El Ruffneckio and Myatt - who have never met before, obviously - team up to toss out Axl.
#10 is MOTHMAN! It's a wrestling moth! He comes into the ring, but...Rayne and co TEAR HIS WINGS OFF! This is the most heinous act since Crippler Stevens piledrove Snuka into the Concrete.
Myatt goes out here, to fan disdain.
#11 is G-man, out to the Snoop Snoop Song.
#12 is VOODOO. He comes out and immediately casts a voodoo spell on everyone in the ring. Hes got the ring at his mercy, What will happen?
He... makes everyone in the ring dance to the Village People! YMCA!
(At which point, your honorable reviewer nearly choked to death laughing)
#13 shows up, and everyone is still dancing. Steve Xavier dislikes this, and beats up VOODOO, causing everyone to fall down and the trance to be broken. The lights go off, and when they come back on, Mothman is disorientated and thus easily eliminated.
Yes, they used light disorientation to eliminate the Moth. I love it.
I love less the fact that Voodoo was immediately tossed out too. Booo. We wanted In The Navy for an encore!
Dave Rayne has used the lights going out to dive under the ring, ala Jerry Lawler. Its a pisstake though, as he makes it very obvious, and at one point even makes the following tweet:
Dave Rayne @DaveRayne 21 Apr 12
Live preston rumble tweets! 15 men in. Still going strong! Currently under the ring. Shhhh
He later announces he is trending Preston wide.
#14 is Saqiq Ali, doing the grumpy foreigner gimmick I think. Lack of context issue.
#15 is JD Sassoon. El Roughneckio technically goes out here, but the fans implore him to continue, so he just enters the ring like nothing happened.
#16 is Scott Maverick and #17 is Chris Rampage.
#18 is Lionheart. I've heard of him. And he cleans the entire ring. Everyone hits the floor. He's Diesel'd the match.
#19 is Kris Travis, and #20 is Joey Hayes. Those two eliminate Lionheart, before going at it on the apron ala Storm and Snow in the 2002 Rumble.
#21 is Bubblegum, as the previous 2 men eliminate themselves, and then someone else runs in and eliminates Bubblegum. Again, in context that probably made sense.
#22 is CJ Banks, who nobody seems to like.
#23 is Kay Lee Ray, a female wrestler, who the fans seem to love, and who throws out Banks.
#24 is Carmel Jacobs, so we have a female Rumble for the time being.
#25 is Mad Man Manson who gets the equivalent of the Austin pop from about 50 people. He drags out Dave Rayne and throws him back in the ring, allowing the women to beat him up for a bit.
#26 is Dave MASTIFF, who looks proper massive, as in Big Daddy size nearly. He throws out Manson to mega boos, and then no sells the women before eliminating them.
By the way, KLR looked more mobile in the ring than half the WWE divas.
#27 is Noam Dar, who gets a big reception, and comes out to Oasis. They do the "Big Star coming" entrance where it takes a minute, then Dar gets in the ring and is immediately tossed out by MASTIFF. Hahaha.
#28 is Corey E. He gets killed by MASTIFF. MandyC notes that for a guy that size MASTIFF is quite agile.
#29 is THE HAMMER. Not Valentine, Sean. He throws out Corey, then hammers into the MASTIFF and eliminates him.
#30 is Des the Referee! The Referee is coming out to win the rumble, and he gets the big reaction, then almost immediately tossed out.
The Hammer smashes into Rayne, but Mastiff enters and tosses out Hammer.
Des Rayne has done a Shawn Michaels!
This match had Voodoo, the Village People, divas, cross dressing, wrestling Moths, masked gimmicks, Heels tweeting their secret master plan, wrestling referees, a Devil... it can only possibly be rated a gazillion stars.
And if you wanted to see this MOTY for 2012, you can see it here:
I'll be definitely looking out for more of Preston City Wrestling in the future.
Does anyone know of a comprehensive, cross promotion site where I can see what wrestling is happening where and when? I recently missed a show in Nottingham featuring Jay Lethal through ignorance and would like to get to more shows.
Does anyone know of a comprehensive, cross promotion site where I can see what wrestling is happening where and when? I recently missed a show in Nottingham featuring Jay Lethal through ignorance and would like to get to more shows.
Ticketmaster.co.uk and search Nottingham is genuinely the only way imo. Then go to each promotions website. Sounds like a great idea though.
Cheer's lads. The only thing I can see within reasonable distance at the min is a promotion doing a run in Blackpool, where PN News appears to be headlining, meh.
Yeh they keep announcing new people every few days, so fuck know who it could be, though there is rumor of a NOAH wrestler coming over, not that I know anyone from that promotion.
This makes me happy to be seeing so many people discussing going to British shows! Also, Jimmy Havoc is one of my best mates. Genuinely scared for him in the ring with Sabu...
Sounds good. I'll be in Edinburgh getting pished for the majority of the day so imagine I'll be pretty scooped by show time! But a wee drink in the venue would be good.
Also did you see that awesome kong/kharma is coming to icw fierce females in September, classic grand. Will be attending my first all female show then!
This makes me happy to be seeing so many people discussing going to British shows! Also, Jimmy Havoc is one of my best mates. Genuinely scared for him in the ring with Sabu...
Dont be worrying, Havoc has cut a promo saying how much hes looking forward to it and how he is going to be more hardcore than Sabu. 4 fucking days
British Wrestling
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Originally Posted by Cewsh
. RIP.
