Did you have a go at the wrestling, then?

[The Dart]

Never gave wrestling a try, but was an occasional referee for about 6 years.

[JimboDangerous]

Did a handful of training sessions for ACW/TAW a few years back under the guidance of Shitarse Fifty alumni and now convicted paedophile Steve “Samson” Biggs. My uncle was there at the time and convinced me to give it a shot.

I don’t think I was awful, but one week I caught an elbow to the back of the head and then the next got spiked on a suplex attempt, so promptly binned it.

Just hit 30 and while I sometimes get the itch to give it another go, I can’t for the life of me find a decent place in Bedfordshire or surrounding areas.

Edited January 16, 2019 by JimboDangerous

[BomberPat]

Some CIWW tidbits I may as well post while I'm here;

Here's a photo of the CIWW crew, as it was at the time, with Tatanka just prior to our training seminar;

Me at the back just to the left of Tatanka there, resplendent in double denim. 

The greatest unused poster art ever.

 

Me refereeing Tatanka vs. Concorde Adams. Probably the most intimidated I've been in my entire career was Tatanka handing me his head dress before the match, and me just standing there clutching it thinking, "what the hell am I meant to do with this?" before finding someone to palm it off on.

 

In the ring with Drew Gulak and the Black Knight

 

Ophidian insisting on raising my arm after his CIWW debut match. I had (at least) two broken toes from the early hours of the morning for the duration of this show, was in excruciating pain and struggled to walk, but tried to hide it from everyone on the night. Adrenaline got me through, but I have basically no memory of the show itself aside from what I've seen on video.

 

Me, in preposterous ring gear, attempting to eliminate Concorde Adams in a Rumble - maybe two years ago?

 

(Almost) the world's worst Stunner. Only the Stunner I delivered a minute later tops it.

 

 

Me throwing a decent chop for probably the first time, in amidst an awkward tussle.

Finally, my favourite two highlight packages we ever did:

 

Edited January 16, 2019 by BomberPat

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

Did a bit of ring announcing for NBW and a couple of other small promotions in the lincolnshire/Nottinghamshire area. NBW of course was run by the infamous Gerry Norton, a man who has faked more heart attacks to get out of paying people than Ric Flair has thrown chops. 

Anyway did that for a bit, and while I was a decent announcer I didn't really enjoy it. Also about 80% of the time I was bigger than the wrestlers. That's not a good visual when you are trying to make the wrestlers look as good as possible. 

I never considered an actual wrestling career. As an old, fat, uncoordinated guy with minimal athleticism I felt Ronin already had that gimmick pretty well nailed, so what was the point. 

[ReturnOfTheMack]

I trained at the Hammerlock northern facility back in the mists of time (late 90s or early 2000s) under Alan Johnson and Jonny Moss. I was in decent shape but was a young idiot who could do moved but didn't know why. 

I did a few northern feds, well, 2 that were in Barnsley. I forget the name of one, but both were shit. And that's the level I was lucky to get to. I quit within a year.

I did retrain with 1PW, but I had become fat and my body was fucked. Though I had more of an idea as to why I did stuff so my matches were probably far better than before. I did a few shows in Wolverhampton, including one quite bloody match. I knew I was far too shit, not improving and generally a blight on the UK scene so I had a final match which got good reviews of my selling by Tracy Smothers. 

[stevestryka]

On 1/15/2019 at 5:55 PM, Accident Prone said:

 

 

That looks like my old friend and running buddy "Red Tiger" Axel Bowen. 

I too was dabbling in and around the Midlands during this period and having a bloody lovely time I was as well. My "home" fed was WAR I guess, but also had matches with TAP, Brawl, EAW and a few more. I was in the same generation as some truly great workers and had some good laughs and half decent matches for the level we were along the way. I found my niche more as a cocky loudmouth heel and eventually ran a faction called The Elite...we were there first dammit! 

Had the honour of calling a lot of the following good friends for a few years before life got in the way, and we all went out separate ways:

The Judge, Spud, Falcon, Spindoctor, El Ligero, Jack Storm, Morales (now Dave Mastiff), Rob Hunter, Axel Bowen, Sk8, Tumido, Luke Phoenix, Saul Adams, Laken Xander, A Star Athlete....to name but a few

I have great memories of having a TLC match with Spud featuring an inflatable chair and a step ladder, and myself and Ligero braining some poor lady in the front row of a show as we did a ladder ride into a metal guard rail :-(

I moved to Amsterdam in 2006 and did some training under Tommy End (now Alastair Black) but work got in the way and it just eventually faded away to nothing. Mad to think where some of these guys are now, not to mention getting to share a ring with CM Punk, and locker rooms with Jake The Snake,  Colt Cabana, El Generico and Super Dragon... Madness! 

 

 

 

 

[LaGoosh]

What was Super Dragon like? Compared to other wrestlers there's so little info out there about the guy and seems to be varying opinions on him from fellow wrestlers.

[stevestryka]

5 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

What was Super Dragon like? Compared to other wrestlers there's so little info out there about the guy and seems to be varying opinions on him from fellow wrestlers.

From what I remember he was nice enough, it was at a show for TAP in Leicester and I'm sure he had no clue what was going on, if I remember rightly there were literally a handful on people in the audience. I also belive both him and El Generico were on the same card and neither were advertised and people thought it was cool back them to surprise the audience by booking wrestlers than the people who would want to see would only pay to see if they Knew they were on the card. 

 

Anyway I digress. Being more of a WWE guy I didn't really know who he was when he was there other than a "proper" wrestler and big bloody bloke compared to the rest of us...I also remember thinking his gear must be a nightmare to wrestle in :-).  He spoke to everyone and didn't seem to have much of an ego, certainly not with me anyway...and he had a match with the "booker" as of course most bookers love sticking themselves in with the big boys. He worked pretty stiff, but I think half of that was the fact he was actually a real bloke with actual muscles, hit an awesome curb stomp which I had never seen and thought was the bees knees! Shook hands, thanked everyone and went on his merry way. 

For what it's worth I've had positive experiences with everyone I've met really. CM punk was a really nice guy when he came in came early, spoke to everyone was happy to offer advice. We ran an angle where he came out after our top heel was pulling my little brother from the crowd (who was about 11 at the time) and he even took the time to have a chat with him and explain how things would work so he didn't get freaked out. 

Jake was nice but obviously still going through a lot of personal problems which was a shame, we were lucky enough for him to come in make it through a match and leave pretty much without incident, and he was happy to talk about the old days of WWF without sounding too jaded. 

Cabana was a bit cocky and loved his own voice and jokes, but the couple of times I was on a show with him he was always happy to put people over and let them shine in matches. 

I think by far though one of the nicest guys I met was Tommy End,  on my first session at DPW he ran drills with me personally and even asked if I had my gear (which of course I did) and would I be willing to cut a promo for a show they had coming up so I could say a British faction were coming in to take over. Made me feel very welcome. 

 

Waffling now...I'll shut up! 

[Liam O'Rourke]

On 1/15/2019 at 7:03 PM, Snitsky's back acne said:

A mate and I dared each other to do one of the week long FWA Academy courses they used to run.
In July 2003 we made the trip down to the lovely town of Fratton [pub opposite got torched the second day we were there and running into town a dodgy looking guy in a car tried to flog me a watch] to train in a warehouse next to a denture repair centre for a week. 
Toilet didn't work. We spent the first night sleeping in the car, the second in the ring and then thought we should probably get a B&B for the remainder of our stay.

I remember such epic trainees as Mojo [a fat kid with a big affro who's finisher was 'The Mo-Job'], Chico [an Irish kid with long hair who was a massive Razor Ramon mark and would chew a toothpick] and Dutch wrestlers Oger, The Fury and Tengkwa. Aviv Maayan was training at the time, as was a very young Wade Fitzgerald and female wrestler Buttercup.
Nikita, Doug Williams, Burchill and James Tighe had just filmed Fort Boyard, Robbie Brookside popped in for a session and complimented my selling ability, Alex Shane showed up during promo class and a good time was had by all. I still have a VCR of my match v Mojo somewhere gathering dust.

Holy shit, I was on that weeklong course. Talk about a small world.

[neil is brill]

I had a stab at the wrestling too. Must've been around 2002-2003. Started training with Brawl in Northampton. I was constantly getting into trouble, shitposting on their forum and all sorts. Unsurprisingly, I ended up having just one match there before "defecting" to the original EAW which was owned by two members of the shitarse 50, Special Agent and Samson.

With EAW, not a lot changed. I was still shitposting, sometimes in gimmick, sometimes not. I had just 1 match there before Samson stole the ring, broke away and formed the mega shitarse promotion ACW with fellow shitarse 50 member, Bull Harley.

I wrestled there, twice a month for 2 years. Capturing their Lightheavyweight Title 3 times. Before being dropped by them because I didn't want to wrestle for free.

I avoided being on the shitarse 50 myself by not wrestling at all that year, or ever again for that matter.

These days I just work an everymans job, whilst Samson is currently in prison for child sex offences.

Met some cool people along the way, wrestled my first match against El Ligero, wrestled Ashton Brown too. Both were good enough to drag something out of me that resembled a wrestling match. Wrestling wasn't for me really, I'll leave it to the professionals.

[Surf Digby]

On ‎1‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 7:03 PM, Snitsky's back acne said:

I did go to a couple of sessions at 1PW's school in Doncaster ..... 1PW wrestlers like Gary Player, Donny Bull, Aaron James and Jason... somebody were training there too.

Jason Genesis? Bit of a reckless Jeff Hardy type?

My start in BritWres came when I was asked to stand in as MC for an MPW show in late 2003, this became a semi-regular thing at the shows at that venue, but because I was still a fan at heart, they'd do me a schedule without the results on so that I could still enjoy the match. #stillreal
Eventually I got asked to ref some matches, and this lead to the inevitable "Can we bump you?". So I got in the way of a Doomsday Device and took a really shit bump after being poked in the throat. It was suggested that I come to some of the training sessions so that I could learn how to get thrown around a bit better, but as I'd literally only just been signed off physio for my deformed knees, there were no thoughts of me actually wrestling.

So a month later I went to the show on Saturday night, stayed over, and went to my first training session the next morning. I was taught to bump (with anatomical levels of detail over which bits of me should be where to avoid damage), did some chain wrestling (top wristlocks), some shoot takedowns, and JekkeL tested out his new Highspots kickpads on me. It was all very enjoyable, however because I wasn't used to such physicality it took me a full week to recover.

A month later and the same thing. Show on Saturday night, training Sunday morning. This week hammerlocks. By now I was enjoying the chain wrestling and suplexing so much that I decided I'd train weekly as an actual wrestler. For that, though, I needed something more local, and as luck would have it, there was RBW in nearby Nottingham.

Well, it was RBW. The week before there'd been some sort of falling out with the guy that ran RBW London and so it became RBWA for a few weeks before becoming NBW. Head trainer was Keith Myatt, with Stixx as assistant trainer. As I was essentially still a first-timer I got put into a smaller side room with Dan Desoto and went through bumping and rolling and whatnot, and then into the ring for running the ropes, posting, etc.
We then did a tag-in-tag-out chain wrestling thing, with about 12 people around each corner. I got in, locked up, and applied one of the only two things I knew - a top wristlock.
So I took this guy's arm up, braced it with my other one, and took him down to the mat. I expected him to reverse/counter it in much the same way the MPW guys did. What I didn't realise was that there were quite a few guys at this time that liked the flippy indy stuff, but didn't dig the tradition British stuff and so could only do the bare minimum chain/technical wrestling. I also didn't know at this point how uncommon it was for people to use top wristlocks.
So, instead of reversing it, he flips out and tells me I need to let him get to the ropes. "Just do the backward roll reversal", says I, thinking he'd know what I was on about. This didn't improve matters and there was much mutterings of me "shooting".

As was very much the tradition at the time when there was a ring at training, a session would end with a rumble. Again, I still didn't really know what to do, so I just flapped around and looked for people to give bad forearms to, before something happened that I still find bizarre.
One of them grabbed me and put me up against the ropes, ready for chopping me. Righto, I think to myself. Here it comes. But it never did. He stopped an inch from my chest and stamped his foot instead. This freaked me out as I'd never seen anyone pull a chop like this (and still haven't to this day). "Is this how they wrestle up here? Have I made it look like I'm stiff everyone?" I thought. Maybe they just thought they wouldn't make contact as I was the new boy.

Now, something that not known is that I never intended to wrestle under the Surf Digby gimmick. Surf Digby was my nickname going back 5-6 years before I had any involvement in wrestling. As this never-before-seen promo pic demonstrates, my original intention was to wrestle under a mask.

I really ought to wear that cape more and get my monies worth out of it. Anyway, as everyone at training was calling me Surf and I could usually be found in board shorts or a flowery shirt, I just got booked as Surf Digby the surfer dude and that was that. Looking back, I should have used Brad Radical. It was a far better name, and I would have been minted from all the "Bradical!" T-shirts I sold.

The Proteus name did get used a dozen or so times when the shows were unevenly booked and they needed an extra heel.

The reason I abandoned the blue was because as never got booked under the original Proteus gimmick, I never got round to getting the blue tights made. What I'm wearing in that promo pic are the baggy pants I made for when I went to Blackpool as Owen Hart. True story.

While I'm here, that pic of me splashing off the top rope was against "Mad Dog" Manning, who usually did mostly comedy stuff. However on that particular night he had a load of workmates seeing him wrestle for the first time and wanted to really go the extra mile as they weren't really into wrestling. Full credit to him, he worked his arse off that night getting thrown about and taking some big bumps.

My first appearance on a show was as part of a rumble at Killamarsh near Sheffield October 23rd 2004. I got myself pumped, and when my number got called I ran through those doors like the Ultimate Warrior. However, the guy that went out before me was taking a leisurely stroll to the ring so I got stuck behind him, but with my feet still going at double speed so I basically skipped to the ring like Ralph Wiggum. Bradical personified.

Arms like noodles, but great hair. I'm actually doing the front splits in the first picture, but whoever it was I gave the camera to didn't think to include that part. I can't remember much of what happened other than I got stomped on a lot, and there's a photo of me having picked up Nitrus of the Northern Alliance and swinging him round as a makeshift weapon.

My first proper match was part of a tag gauntlet that had me and Corey Vandal (as The Beach Boys, despite there being a joke for over a year before this that if he ever returned to wrestling we'd get put together as Team Wipeout) go up against SWA's The Lowlanders. This is notable for a) Graham Dunbar of the Lowlanders being an early incarnation of Grado, and b) a monumental fuck-up before we even got in the ring. Me and Corey had come up with this entrance where we'd split and go round opposite sides of the ring, and as we pass each other, we'd give each other a big gay Top Gun style high five, then carry on round, get in and meet in the middle. So we come out, we pose for a second, and we take off. However as we come towards each other, the adrenalin's got us going too fast that Corey runs straight into me and essentially gives me a shoulder block.

After the shit-show that was my debut (I've watched it recently, it's horrible. Grado's giving me so many cues that I'm not picking up on) I didn't have another match until October 22nd 2005, when I got pitched against the mighty Staxx. This was far better match and as my first singles match, I'm actually happy with how it went. Just before the match though, one of the other guys warned me that if I see him going for a double axe handle, I'm to get the fuck away from him. From a double axe handle? Seriously? Yep, because in his previous match, he'd gone for the double axe off the top rope, and upon landing, promptly emptied his bowels all over the ring. Now I'd heard about the incident, but wasn't aware that it was him. Anyway, it all went fine and I finished the match unsoiled.

From there I started working regularly around the midlands, and then camps and outdoor events down south. I got to wrestle overseas (in Sheppey), and while I wasn't earning a living from it, I was earning enough to cover my gym membership, supplements, training sessions, seminars, etc. so it at least paid for itself. I only had one serious injury from when some 18 stone twat thought it would be funny to do a big jumping slapstick bump when I was going for a crucifix pin and drop all his weight on me. My ribs went crunch and after finishing the next weekends bookings (which was fucking awful. Try keeping up with Robbie X when you can't take a proper breath) I was on the shelf for about 8 months.

I could ramble on all day about those 6 years, with all the backstage shenanigans, getting an old school "initiation" (oh, actually that one put me out while I had physio for three months. Dislocated AC joint and torn rotator cuff. I'd forgotten about that one), sexually ravenous St John's Ambulance ladies, coming face to face with Hulkamania Fan, and the aftermath of the SHITARSE FIFTY.

Before and after a hair vs hair match.

 

Feinting a 619 before botching a dive.

 

Being a cunt to Pete Dunne

 

Turning heel and kicking the shit out of kids with surfer gimmicks. No arrests were made.

 

MORTAL KOMBAT!!! I was possibly the highest paid wrestler in the country that night, getting more than £1 per second of match time.

 

My last match, getting leathered by "Wild Boar" Mike Hitchman in 2010.

Whilst I'm sad that that's where it ended, it was a decent match and I'm glad I went out on a good one.

 

 

 

 

[carolann]

I started with BRAWL in Northants as a manager, eventualy graduating to one or two spectacularly awful matches - managed a few different wrestlers, worked on shows as a mangager (and sometimes ring announcer) for KStar, Sovereign, SBW and a few other promotions.  Ran a promotion called UWL for a year then quit wrestling - about 15 years ago now.

I love wrestling, made some really good mates and learned a lot, but i was never good at it by a long shot.

 

EDIT: If I joined this site in 2006 like my profile says then its actually about 13 years. Still a long time 🙂

Edited January 17, 2019 by carolann
realised i cant count

[simonworden]

Probably the least interesting of all the stories here, in 2005 first year of University when shit is still a doddle I found out there was a training school down the road essentially well, if you drove or could figure out the buses, something I couldn't do at the time so just used the trains. I was in the best shape I had been in for years, nothing athletic i'd just lost a load of weight and decided based on the physiques at the time of most of the young new wrestlers around the area that I was just as capable as they were. So I decided to check out RBW's school around Enfield, I only went for 1 session to watch...not even participate.

On a dark January Saturday/Sunday morning (I forget which day) after not drinking with my hall mates and feeling like a left-out chump I make the freezing cold walk to Hatfield Station about 30 min walk away, I follow that by taking a replacement bus and having a 20 minute wait for a train at Alexandra Palace to get up to Enfield or somewhere else in that vicinity. Arriving just at the beginning they let me in as agreed to watch, the people participating must have thought what a twat I looked. After the session which besides not having a ring in this martial arts centre was a solid beginners session, no BS, bullying or anything I spoke to Tex Benedict the head trainer who seemed nice but joined the long line of people who think they have met me before under the name "Chris".

I really wanted to go back and do it but in the end the cost to get there along with the time and the interruptions to my drinking and hopeless attempts to attract women  made me procrastinate doing so. I found year 2 and 3 quite hard at Uni too so wrestling probably wouldn't have won out anyway.

 

The only other brush to the other side of the barriers was helping out someone who is still an integral part of the business to film a  low-level show many years ago in Lymington with about 30 people half of those were comps too. I didn't have a clue about how to use a camcorder nor film a wrestling show from ringside, the barriers were so close to the ring and with me being a big guy I was worried people couldnt see so ended up sat in the corner filming from a stupid angle. They never used my footage from what I saw, mostly as the promotion never got it's act together and also it was so bad they used a guy who was filming for fun's camera work instead. I remember my footage from the rumble being ok but that was because I went behind the crowd at the side and zoomed in...I wasn't asked to film again.

[stevestryka]

8 hours ago, neil is brill said:

I had a stab at the wrestling too. Must've been around 2002-2003. Started training with Brawl in Northampton. I was constantly getting into trouble, shitposting on their forum and all sorts. Unsurprisingly, I ended up having just one match there before "defecting" to the original EAW which was owned by two members of the shitarse 50, Special Agent and Samson.

With EAW, not a lot changed. I was still shitposting, sometimes in gimmick, sometimes not. I had just 1 match there before Samson stole the ring, broke away and formed the mega shitarse promotion ACW with fellow shitarse 50 member, Bull Harley.

I wrestled there, twice a month for 2 years. Capturing their Lightheavyweight Title 3 times. Before being dropped by them because I didn't want to wrestle for free.

I avoided being on the shitarse 50 myself by not wrestling at all that year, or ever again for that matter.

These days I just work an everymans job, whilst Samson is currently in prison for child sex offences.

Met some cool people along the way, wrestled my first match against El Ligero, wrestled Ashton Brown too. Both were good enough to drag something out of me that resembled a wrestling match. Wrestling wasn't for me really, I'll leave it to the professionals.

I would have probably been dipping in and out of EAW at the same time with some of the other WAR boys...what was your ring name :) ?

Good old Special Agent, or as he was otherwise known "Nick The Idiot" what a guy, I remember Samson well as well, had no idea he turned out to be  right wrongunn though, bad times.!

[stevestryka]

2 hours ago, carolann said:

I started with BRAWL in Northants as a manager, eventualy graduating to one or two spectacularly awful matches - managed a few different wrestlers, worked on shows as a mangager (and sometimes ring announcer) for KStar, Sovereign, SBW and a few other promotions.  Ran a promotion called UWL for a year then quit wrestling - about 15 years ago now.

I love wrestling, made some really good mates and learned a lot, but i was never good at it by a long shot.

 

EDIT: If I joined this site in 2006 like my profile says then its actually about 13 years. Still a long time 🙂

YES!  I knew I recognised the name UWL...I remember one of the showed well, I seem to remember the ring being right up against the stage and has having pretty much no room around the outside to do anything...managed to find the card online:

Wild Weekend 28/2/04,Bugbrooke Sports & Community Center,Northampton

Bad Attitude def Midnight Casino
X-Saviour v Tommy Stevens no contest (match interference)
Kobayashi,Ace Anderson & Frankie Fernandez (UPW) def Lucien,Scottie daniels & Jonny Pesci (BRAWL)
Honey Ryder & Falcon def Angel & Chevo Gonzales
Spin Doctor def Steve Stryka
Louie Zerr & Red Tiger der The Murderers
The Judge def S J Walker
MTX def Spatch,Shabazz & Aron Rivers for UWL title

I think that was around the middle to end of the years I dabbled...good memories :-)