Did you have a go at the wrestling, then?

[Ricc1PW]

done a bit of refereeing and ring announcing in my time. good times.

[PunkStep]

6 hours ago, Nostalgia Nonce said:

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".

This is something which fascinated me with British wrestling 15 years ago, the style and type of wrestler/trainee would quite often vary geographically- and not just per school. With RBW as you mentioned, there was a London base and a Nottingham base. It was kind of like two separate promotions- Adam Mumford would promote, run and book the London shows whilst Gerry Norton would do the same with the shows in his area. They each had their own schools with their own trainees, and the difference in style between the trainess was plain to see. The London trainees were very technical-based, after all we had Johnny Kidd, Jorge Castano and other technical-oriented trainers at the helm (Sammy Ray, Thomas Chamberlain, Tex Benedict). Plus, training in a small matted area there was only so much you could do.

The Nottingham boys on the other hand would train in a ring and had developed a high-spot indy style. Both sets of trainees got on really well too, whenever there would be a show we would have a laugh and it probably helped that we were in the same position- just trying to get noticed in the rumbles and in training. We were envious of them training in a ring every week, and they were envious that we had Johnny Kidd (I remember a few of them being in awe of the chain wrestling he was showing them, when he held a big training session for both schools before a show once).

I found that Midlands wrestlers/trainees often had a heavily American-influenced indy style about them, Northern lads tended to be the better high flyers, London & home counties was rife with technical wrestlers (it wasn't just RBW, but FWA London and Dropkixx too) and the West/Bristol seemed to be quite similar to Midlands- with quite a bit of hardcore wrestling for good measure. I mean this wasn't exclusive of course, you had hardcore wrestlers from London and technical wrestlers from the west and so on, but there was definitely a style prominent in certain areas.

[Snitsky's back acne]

11 hours ago, Liam O'Rourke said:

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

So the question needs to be asked - were you one of the trainees to get drenched by the car repeatedly driving through the puddle or were you one of the observers?

[Accident Prone]

1 hour ago, PunkStep said:

I found that Midlands wrestlers/trainees often had a heavily American-influenced indy style about them, Northern lads tended to be the better high flyers, London & home counties was rife with technical wrestlers (it wasn't just RBW, but FWA London and Dropkixx too) and the West/Bristol seemed to be quite similar to Midlands- with quite a bit of hardcore wrestling for good measure. I mean this wasn't exclusive of course, you had hardcore wrestlers from London and technical wrestlers from the west and so on, but there was definitely a style prominent in certain areas.

I can't speak for everywhere else, but you got the Midlands style pretty accurate although when I was milling around that scene it was more 'American-influenced WWF' than an indy style. Not much emphasis on the technical side of things either, but more on the showmanship aspects of pro wrestling. Hit a suplex, milk it for a bit, do another move, pose etc etc. It was also chock full of Attitude Era angles, with kidnappings and Bra & Panties matches and ref's being involved in tags and a Heavy Metal flavour among the madness. 

The indie influence never really began to bleed in until the late 00's and early 2010's, but I still saw a Canadian Destroyer off a stage in 2007 and regular sights of a young PAC strutting his stuff in front of 90 people. The first time I saw PAC he brought down an entire row of Irish flag bunting during a second rope moonsault!

[Liam O'Rourke]

3 hours ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

So the question needs to be asked - were you one of the trainees to get drenched by the car repeatedly driving through the puddle or were you one of the observers?

One of the observers. Funnily enough, this was my abiding memory (other than the time Mojo tried to jump over the wall and landed on his face on the grass, then played unconscious to scare everyone because they laughed at him).

For everyone else - we had to run from a gym where we played a little football back to the training centre in the pouring rain, maybe a twenty or thirty minute run? Four people thought they'd be clever and hitchhike back, then hide inside undercover to avoid the rain. Mark Sloan, however, could not be fooled, and forced them into a punishment where they had to stand outside, shirtless (apart from one girl who was afforded the luxury of a shirt) next to a gigantic (as in ten foot long and deep) puddle, where cars would drive by and positively soak them. It was all very amusing. However, in the greatest pay-off ever, just when they thought they were done and slowly walking away with their backs to the puddle, a van that was on the other side of the road about a minute earlier had gone around a roundabout for the express purpose of driving that side of the road so he could splash them. A camera captured all of this in hilarious fashion, showing the van turning around, the students walking towards the camera and the van coming from behind when they didn't know (and coming towards the camera to massively comedic effect) and absolutely drenching them with an almighty tsunami. It was hilarious in real time, but the video footage, with that particular angle and the revelation of the driver seeing an opportunity to have a little fun, caused Sloan to calmly declare, "That might be the funniest thing I've ever seen."

Edited January 17, 2019 by Liam O'Rourke

[Snitsky's back acne]

14 minutes ago, Liam O'Rourke said:

One of the observers. Funnily enough, this was my abiding memory (other than the time Mojo tried to jump over the wall and landed on his face on the grass, then played unconscious to scare everyone because they laughed at him).

For everyone else - we had to run from a gym where we played a little football back to the training centre in the pouring rain, maybe a twenty or thirty minute run? Four people thought they'd be clever and hitchhike back, then hide inside undercover to avoid the rain. Mark Sloan, however, could not be fooled, and forced them into a punishment where they had to stand outside, shirtless (apart from one girl who was afforded the luxury of a shirt) next to a gigantic (as in ten foot long and deep) puddle, where cars would drive by and positively soak them. It was all very amusing. However, in the greatest pay-off ever, just when they thought they were done and slowly walking away with their backs to the puddle, a van that was on the other side of the road about a minute earlier had gone around a roundabout for the express purpose of driving that side of the road so he could splash them. A camera captured all of this in hilarious fashion, showing the van turning around, the students walking towards the camera and the van coming from behind when they didn't know (and coming towards the camera to massively comedic effect) and absolutely drenching them with an almighty tsunami. It was hilarious in real time, but the video footage, with that particular angle and the revelation of the driver seeing an opportunity to have a little fun, caused Sloan to calmly declare, "That might be the funniest thing I've ever seen."

A couple more notes from that - the police had to intervene to stop the activities as a few cars made repeated trips just to drench them [possibly encouraged by the rest of the group] and there was about 30 of us making 'a scene' on the streets of Fratton. Plus, the Dutch guys were the ones in possession of said camera and, upon watching it back, we noticed that 'The Fury' had zoomed in on the arse of a young lady who was walking past. His justification? 'Hey, she had a good ass!'.

Edited January 17, 2019 by Snitsky's back acne

[neil is brill]

6 hours ago, stevestryka said:

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.!

I was known as Damm Hammer. Not really sure where the name came from or who gave it to me, I just ran with it. I was known for being thinner than a pencil and was hated by everyone for being a gobby little prick.

In ACW I "wrestled" as Silver Mask. It was a fun way to waste my weekends but no promoter ever should've taken me seriously as a professional wrestler. I was just a guy in my late teens/early twenties being a bit of a knobhead.

[Jimi]

Great to see some of the names I trained, watched and worked with back in the midlands. I started with a school called UPW(A)? In 2002 as the token jock. Loved training with Ace anderson, Dave Kobiashi, Steve Justice and Marco diFiore as well as a handfull more over 3 years. During that time I made good friends with MTX Jem Brown, Caroline also listed above with Brawl and UWL, Shabbaz and Xaviour (Dan Hedges) at some BRAWL training sessions and various shows. I vaguely remember going to AEW, BHW for a fucking Farce of a night in Melton Mobrey, Sliced Bread Wrestling! 5 star and several All Star butlins shows and a couole for Blondie Barrett where I had my lightbulb moment of Less is more after watching them main event.  I may have helped Petey Stanniforth get his promotion going in 05-06 and did a gig for him once in luton.  Wrestling or sharing a lockerroom with those above, Robbie Brookside a couple of times. P.N. Newz, Brian Danielson, UK Pitbulls, Johnny Storm my 1st singles match with Louis Zerr, probably the 1st official match against a registered disabled person (xsaviour has CP, in a charity end of a Faction match) in the uk in 05??? Of course I out him over in a post squash fluke

From 06 to 2010 I made sporadic appearances and trained at SSW in central Scotland.  Had a good run and helped to establish their top face and local hero after being allowed to have squash warmup matches then main eventing the same night.  But then I got overworked in my real jobs, got fat as funk and other tedious shit.

 

Working on a way to DDP my old ass back into the game.

 

Jimi Infinity