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ITV World of Sport: Tapings postponed until July?


Psygnosis

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16 hours ago, Rosler28 said:

World of sport would be best suited if it was a online show where it showcases different matches from different promotions on a weekly basis serving as a advertisement for a different wrestling promotion each week. Basically like wrestletalk but without the bias towards NGW

Nothing should ever be anything like wrestletalk. I've seen more entertaining chemical weapons attacks. 

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19 hours ago, Rosler28 said:

World of sport would be best suited if it was a online show where it showcases different matches from different promotions on a weekly basis serving as a advertisement for a different wrestling promotion each week. Basically like wrestletalk but without the bias towards NGW

What on earth would ITV gain from funding that?

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2 hours ago, Rosler28 said:

After building up the scene they can cumulate it all by having a big arena show where they can put it on itv box office.

People try to catch a live stream online rather than pay for ITV Box Office for legit sports, never mind wrestling that will probably be tucked away on ITV4.

How long do you think some exec at ITV is going to allow to “build up the scene”. If it isn’t making money from the off, it’ll be binned off after one series, or even part way through if the viewing figures are really bad. 

That’s not to say that I want it to fail, I honestly don’t, but as others have mentioned already, the concept of “get British wrestling back on the telly” is completely different to what it was 10 or so years ago when the FWA was the big thing in britwres. Progress and ICW are probably the two biggest names in UK Wrestling, and both have built themselves up over time and without TV. Progress are running Wembley Arena in under 6 months time, but they’re not setting up to fill the place from the off, they’re selling tickets and then setting up accordingly so that they don’t put on a show that looks like the crowd has come in Empty Seat Fancy Dress. If the recent dibacle of 5* Wrestling has taught anybody anything is that sticking British wrestling back on the telly, even if it is on a tinpot channel like FreeSports, is that wrestling is still very much a niche venture. Progress and ICW learned to crawl before they learned to walk, and is the reason why they have a loyal/dedicated fanbase who have been with them as they have grown and also why both promotions have good working relationships with WWE. 

The folks at ITV don’t care about stuff like “building the scene”. They’ve got space to fill, and they need 45 minutes worth of content that they can wedge 15 minutes of adverts around. If/When wrestling doesn’t work, they’ll try something else or just stick on You’ve Been Framed, which costs next to nothing to produce.

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On 21/04/2018 at 4:27 PM, Rosler28 said:

World of sport would be best suited if it was a online show where it showcases different matches from different promotions on a weekly basis serving as a advertisement for a different wrestling promotion each week. Basically like wrestletalk but without the bias towards NGW

I've long thought that wrestling, while more hours are being produced than ever, is regressing to a relatively small, hardcore fanbase who admittedly are willing to pay for it.

But I can't think of anything better to gain more widespread exposure than a weekly, broad appeal, show on terrestrial TV. Not everything has to appeal to hardcore fans, they are pretty well catered for as it is.

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ITV press release confirms a 10 part series with an hour slot. They got 5 tapings which is more than enough to cover that whereas with those 2 planned shows last year, it seemed really questionable as to how to get enough stuff out of them for 10 weeks worth of footage. I was thinking if it did work out, maybe it could be worth looking into doing a live season finale. Get a decent sized venue. Around the 1,000-1,500 mark and plug that throughout the run. Would that work and what would be a good call?

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Wow, they've killed off any buzz for this by being completely silent for over a year haven't they?

Do we have any idea which wrestlers will be involved? I'm sure it was mentioned on here that quite a few of the wrestlers are no longer under contract. The obvious ones being Zack Gibson, who has signed a developmental deal with WWE (same with Joe Coffey perhaps?) and Viper, who featured in the Mae Young Classic.

Similar to WWE announcing the UK Title tournament in the wake of the WOS NYE one-off, I wonder if the timing isn't a coincidence given the announcement of the WWE Royal Albert Hall show? Or perhaps WWE caught wind of this before it was announced, and the Royal Albert Hall show is in response?

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It was moved after 5 weeks.  Gentleman Jim Hewitt was the star of the show, he should be as proud of his achievements on the show as he is of his son getting married to an American actress on FA Cup final day.

 

This from the Wiki page is brilliant

  • The UK Pitbulls tag team appeared on the follow-up show with Jack Osbourne, but serious wrestlers declined to appear.
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On one hand, I’d say it’s good that there is a commissioned attempt to run a series after the uncertainty of the project when Jeff Jarrett reportedly botched the first attempt. If done right, it could give wrestlers a national platform and bring British Wrestling to terrestrial television.

But herein lies a potential problem- ITV have an entertainment template. An almost identikit approach. See the medium to big shows audience with zooming, sweeping and jump-cut camera work and manufactured experience dubbed with appalling music. Ant and Dec vehicles, X-Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, The Voice, their game shows, etc. 

And an untested show like this may be micromanaged within an inch of its life. 

Do I think we’ll get Celebrity Wrestling again? Probably not but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s even less of a ‘Wrestling’ show than the New Year’s Special.

 

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