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10 years ago... Notorious 'BritWres' incident


Big Benny HG

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this thread has been a fasicnating read, i was on the supporters bus from London on the day and reading the opening post brought back some memories of the actual day which i'd pretty much forgotten about.

 

Wrestling is some corrupt shit.

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The main Alex Shane cronies were Dean Ayass, Elisar Cabrera, Lynskey and that guy Barry champa(something), they were always around Alex at every FWA show telling him how amazing he was and ordering little teenage hopefuls around to do all the hard work on the promise of a spot one day.

 

Of course Alex also had quite a few wrestlers who always stuck by him, along with various other people involved in wrestling in some capacity. My memories of the time were that the FWA was making a lot of noise in the UK and people were starting to think it might really become something, so people were very keen to get involved in the promotion.

 

Reading this thread reminded me of another incident, do you remember Strong Style Tapes? they were the regular tape trader at the FWA for a while and the guy started to put out flyers for Strong Style Wrestling coming soon, he wanted to promote and was talking about his first show featuring a round robin of Jody Fleisch, Johnny Storm and AJ Styles or something. Story goes Alex found out and told anyone who was thinking of working the show that they would be fired by the FWA. I remember some people talking about if he would really fire Jody and Johny over such a thing, anyway the SSW show never materialised. The story maybe bollocks but this is what I heard at the time.

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Just in case anyone thinks such stuff is/was new, there's a great post by a Graham Brook on the Wrestling Heritage forum about two independent promoters back in the day (1970s I think):

 

At the other extreme, I once MCd a show at The Town Hall, Congleton, for Manchester promoter "Big Boy" MIller involving only four wrestlers. Stuart (Big Boy) had actually booked quite a good show as he was trying to build up the hall. At that time in Cheshire most municipal hall bookings were handled by the caretaker/general manager and Stuart genuinely thought he had sealed an agreement that he would be the sole wrestling promoter there. However, the caretaker had done a deal with Adrian Street who was promoting a show there the following week. Not only that, but Adrian (or his minions) had been through Congleton and its environs posting their bills over Stuart's or leaving Stuart's as they were with the exception of the addition of a strip reading "CANCELLED" posted across. Stuart realised that this would be his last show at the hall and wanted to kill the place for Adrian's show the following week but leave the building intact. He therefore cancelled six of the ten wrestlers he had booked and instructed me to go out and announce that six wrestlers had been involved in a fatal car crash on the way to the venue and ask for a minute's silence. Amazingly, the crowd bowed their heads and were silent for the called-for minute. I then announce that a tournament would be held with A wrestling B, C wrestling D and, after the interval, the two losers wrestling for third and fourth place followed by the two winners. I also acknowledged how disappointing this must be for the fans and told them to hang on to their tickets. "If you bring them next week," I announced, "we have a wonderful show starring Adrian Street and you will be admitted absolutely free of charge as compensation for tonight." We got out in one piece but I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall the following week when all these punters turned up at Ada's show with their tickets from the week before and not expecting to pay. Needless to say, this ruined the hall and when Terry Gudrun (Gudrum?) attempted a show a year or so later the place was virtually empty.
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Reading this thread reminded me of another incident, do you remember Strong Style Tapes?

I remember Strong Style Tapes had a stall at every FWA show and hearing he got caught selling bootleg RF shoot interviews and ROH videos at the Frontiers of Honor event with Rob Feinstein knocking about.

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Dino Scarlo, that's a name I haven't heard for years! Was he another Shane cronie?

 

He was the son of old British wrestler Tony Scarlow I believe. Somebody will correct me if not...

 

Yeah, he also wrestled on WoS himself when he was about sixteen, too.

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Dino Scarlo, that's a name I haven't heard for years! Was he another Shane cronie?

 

He was the son of old British wrestler Tony Scarlow I believe. Somebody will correct me if not...

 

Yeah, he also wrestled on WoS himself when he was about sixteen, too.

 

 

He also trained both Jody Fleisch and Jonny Storm when they were younger, and from personal experience he is the most motivating, awesome wrestling trainer I ever met.

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Yeah, as I understand it, wrestling was always a bit of a racket. I remember reading various rumours about McManus and the like. Also, it was one of the reasons I wasn't surprised when people alleged that Savile was a gangster - wrestling back in the 60s, he must have either had gang connections to get in (given that it was a closed shop and he was hardly the biggest of blokes), or he got his connections after having somehow got in.

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Here is Mark Kay's review of the event for WrestlingX.com, published days afterwards. The title was blatantly nicked for Chapter 4 of my book...

 

No Ring Circus

 

It’s 11 o’clock. The Truth and I have just made the short trip back to Morecambe from Blackburn after watching the wrestling show that never was - GWF Aftermath.

By now anyone reading this will know the story. The last GWF show in Preston was blighted by the no-shows of various wrestlers, this time it was the ring that no-showed. This just has to be a promoter’s worst nightmare.

How am I feeling at this time? Angry? No.

Sympathetic? Yes.

Many fans were angry, chanting “F**k you, Farrer”. But in my opinion, the man acted with honour, courage and dignity in a very difficult situation. Let’s look a the sequence of events.

4pm - A reasonable enjoyable Fanfest. I not a big fan of Fanfests but Greg is in his element. He wondered around introducing himself to the likes of Doug Williams, James Mason and the UK Pitbulls, as well as chatting at greater length with Five Star Flash, journalists Phil Austin and Mo Chatra. Despite all the heat of recent weeks, the fans we spoke to, including several from UKFF, were all really top blokes.

5.30pm - The Truth is timidly booed as he goes to the toilet in McDonalds. He’ll be scarred for life after that.

6pm - The first of hint that anything was wrong was when fans turned up for the show. After a brief wait, it was announced that the ring hadn’t turned up but a second ring was on its way. We are told to come back at 7pm. Oh bugger, we’ll have to spend another hour in the pub. It’s a hard life. As it happens it give us chance to meet a few fellow fans. Everyone is still in good humour.

Just after 7pm - Back to the St George’s Hall. In the foyer we meet Julian Radbourne, WAW’s webmaster (and WrestlingX columnist). Myself and Julian have e-mailed each other but had never actually met.

“Who’s this fine figure of a man?” asks Julian as I walk over. I think this was a compliment. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t calling me fat.

Sometime later we take our seats in the balcony. Comedian Ted Robbins was at the show and has graciously decided to do a turn. He told a few jokes, got some kids up on stage and told a few more jokes. It wasn’t the most hilarious stuff I’ve ever heard but, to give the guy a lot of credit, he hadn’t turned up to do a show. It kept everyone entertained for a while.

After the Ted Robbins’ interlude we’re back to the bar. Hurray.

Edited by Victor Is God
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As far as I'm aware, I paid everyone back. There were certain people from certain companies plastering this board with messages to make it seem like 100s were out of pocket. I've been playing poker for 8 years now and didn't have any reason not to send 50 quid back to someone, if I needed to clear my conscience over anything that I could've done something about it'd have been done by now.

So I will be getting that

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Just in case anyone thinks such stuff is/was new, there's a great post by a Graham Brook on the Wrestling Heritage forum about two independent promoters back in the day (1970s I think):

 

*snip*

 

That's so Bruiser Brody style it's unreal.

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