UK wrestling in 1993

[David Mantell]

On 2/14/2021 at 9:59 AM, Statto said:

I remember enjoying (or enjoying hating, they were heels opposite Daddy most times I saw them) the Undertakers act when I was a kid - I would have been 10/11 in 93.

Father/son team better known respectively as Pitman's Hercules (father) & Johnny Angel (son, he of the FWA comeback with the crackling entrance music).

They were done up more like Paul Bearer than Taker really - white faces with dark round the eyes, black suits etc. Instead of an urn they carried a tiny (infant, I assume) coffin, which frequently got used as a foreign object.

I don't recall ever seeing the Johnny South "Hawk" Legend of Doom in person, but I have seen Ricky Knight doing the "Animal" version a few times.

The  Undertakers were Big Daddy's last ever opponents - 29th December 1993 in Margate vs Big Daddy and Tony Stewart.

Adams senior was also Crazy Dave Adams from the 1992 Battle Of The Brits VHS (later 2 volume DVD series).

Johnny South as the LOD eventually beat Marty Jones to end his final World Mid Heavyweight title reign April '99 (That make two people who had to get into fancy dress to beat Marty for his title after Steve Wright as Bull Blitzer on ITV.) 

Dave Duran was a heel Animal Legend of Doom around this time - the gimmick evolved out of his Road Warriors tag team with the late Jim Munroe who lost on ITV to Brookside & Regal about 6 months from the end of ITV wrestling.

 

Edited September 6, 2023 by David Mantell
Battle of the Brits info

[David Mantell]

On 2/13/2021 at 7:24 PM, DAVEYJONESGIANTSQUID said:

Hi everyone I am new to the forum.  I am interested in finding some information around the UK wrestling scene in 1993 for a project I am working on. 

Big Daddy retired- as stated his last match was 29th Dec Margate vs The Undertakers.

Kendo Nagasaki retired the second time just as he was about to have a second feud with impersonator King Kendo (Bill Clarke) who had allied with Lloyd Ryan after he fell out with Kendo.  Instead Lloyd Ryan managed Dale Preston as King Kendo against all Nagasaki's old enemies like Haystacks, while Clarke also retired.  Before all this Paul Neu (ex PN News) came to Britain as the American Avalanche and teamed with Nagasaki against Giant Haystacks and Scrubber Daly early in the year.

James Mason made his professional debut.

Robbie Brookside's Video Diary was filmed.  The Liverpool Lads lost the British Tag Team title to Vic Powers and Steve Prince after Doc Dean and Robbie Brookside banged heads in the ring and knocked each other silly (I believe this was a shoot accident, hence them being urinated off about it at the start of the video diary.) Prince and Powers lost it to the Superflies a few months later.

Prince also bear Doc Dean that year for the British Welterweight title and held it until 2000 when TWA set up a new version which Storm and Fleisch passed back and forth between them in the early Noughties.  British Lightweight title went Tony Stewart > Jimmy Ocean > Steve Grey (opposite of 1991).  Tony StClair won back the British Heavyweight title from Dave Taylor.  Mal Sanders lost Mick McManus'sold Euro Middleweight title to Steve Grey but won the Euro Welterweight title after Danny Collins moved up the weights-he spent the next year passing it back and forth with Jason Kashmir Singh.

Ricky Knight and Saraya launched WAW.

Ann Relwsykow's promotion in Scotland (the only bit of Joint not owned by Max C) did two more TV tapings for Grampian/STV as other people have mentioned.

 

[Cutting Edge of Bluntness]

Where did this fit in exactly? Clearly not a tribute show but very much influenced by WWF at the time.

[davertfnewman]

3 hours ago, Cutting Edge of Bluntness said:

Where did this fit in exactly? Clearly not a tribute show but very much influenced by WWF at the time.

Johnny "Muscles" England, at that point well into middle age, recruited a bunch of bodybuilders from a gym in Staffordshire/the West Midlands and trained them up for quite a bizarre show with the world's biggest ring, some obvious ripoff gimmicks (the Taxman) and a comedian and his mate on commentary.

[Butch2000]

The commentator is Liam Galvin of “shit British gangster flick” fame as a director of all those bollocks Dave Courtney films. He used to be on the tent stop on Playbus.

[TibBo]

I went to see a Villa match in 93 and remember seeing a poster with Axis the Demolisher on it, which was Demolition Ax under a copyright free version of the name I believe? Can’t find much about it online, but it must have been a show in Brum somewhere

[powerlock]

They did a show in Newcastle, the ring didn't turn up, so they rescheduled to the following evening and gave everyone a couple of quid back.

[Butch2000]

So Steve Lynskey didn’t  make it to Newcastle either?

[David Mantell]

14 hours ago, Cutting Edge of Bluntness said:

Where did this fit in exactly? Clearly not a tribute show but very much influenced by WWF at the time.

Early example of "Americanised" New School promotion.  Jackie Pallo's Wrestling Around The World a couple of years earlier was the first. WAW (at least in terms of their initial manifesto), Hammerlock, EWA (Jason Harrison) UWA, FWA, GBH, 1PW,  IPW:UK, IWW, UKW, LDN (except the Academy/"Sprit league" sub-brand), RPW, WOSW and all the rest followed up to the present day.

From about the mid 80s there were effectively two wrestling fandoms in the UK.    There were the fans of (traditional British) Wrestling like myself who lived for Sat afternoon on ITv and their local hall and liked watching clean matches like Johnny Saint vs Vic Faulkner.  And then there were also a lot of "American Wrestling fans" in the UK who traded tapes of territories and who DESPISED the old British wrestling.  Fin Martin seems to have been one.  By the 1990s these people were doing their own American Style shows and hoping to wipe out the post-ITV traditional British wrestling culture forever by replacing it with generic American indie wrestling.  Like most American indie wrestling from the mid 90s onwards, they would generally style themselves after ECW. Powerslam used to champion these promotions as the "future" of wrestling in the UK at which point they would fall flat on their behinds.  These days they usually make a big hullaballo about how British Wrestling "died" in 1988 (a big fat lie worthy of a whole essay unto itself!) and that they are the GREAT REVIVAL of wrestling in this country.  They typically get a TV show with some obscure local cable network, last about 2 years then keel over, often from trying to run some big overpriced mock-PPV event.

Meanwhile All Star remains the biggest and longest running company in the UK and looks likely to continue, especially now it has outlived even Brian Dixon himself.  (And John Freemantle's uncompromisingly old school Premier Promotions down in Sussex carries on as the second oldest surviving company. And there's Steve Barker's Rumble Promotions from the 90s has made a comeback since the pandemic and is doing OK for itself.)

Edited September 7, 2023 by David Mantell

[Dean Ayass]

On 2/14/2021 at 4:08 PM, RancidPunx said:

When did Hammerlock start promoting their own cards ?

 

I don’t suppose you have complete Hammerlock complete cards/results @JNLister ?

 

 

Hammerlock first ran a show in front of an audience of family and friends in November 1993. I specifically remember that it was the Saturday after the first UFC. Doug Williams mafe his debut on this show and future star Justin Richards was timekeeper, with myself acting as MC. These ran monthly until Andre booked the Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone for a show in front of a paying audience. I think this was March or April 1994. I used to post reports and results to the old RSPW (rec sport pro wrestljng) group which might be archived somewhere on the old Wayback Machine (have I got the name right?) gimmick.

[Browser Brady]

What was the biggest non WWF or WCW crowd drawn in UK wrestling in the 90’s ?

[JNLister]

1 hour ago, Browser Brady said:

What was the biggest non WWF or WCW crowd drawn in UK wrestling in the 90’s ?

No idea of the answer, but it's probably not a big one-off, "destination" show like it would be these days. My guess would be one of three things:

1) A Big Daddy or British Bulldog tour date by the Crabtrees that did unexpectedly well/was in a big venue.

2) A very early 90s All Star show in one of their bigger venues when they were still living off the TV exposure and had the likes of Rocco.

3) A very late 90s All Star or tribute show that made the most of the Attitude era boom (though that really took off in 2000 with WWE on Channel 4.)

The TV tapings in Aberdeen for Scottish ITV in 1990 reportedly did 2,000 so that could be it. Other than that, it's probably one of the above three types of show happening to do well in a big venue, rather than it being a promoter going all out to maximise one particular event.

[CavemanLynn]

I was always under the impression it wasn't so much "one big crowd" when it came to British wrestling, so much as it was about dozens of shows multiple times a week individually drawing hundreds all over the UK a night. So although an individual gate wasn't spectacular, it meant that on any given night, thousands of punters were at shows, with dozens of workers getting a wage.

[Browser Brady]

Thank you lads……

 

Last few questions ….

 

Was Andre Baker much of a worker ? In-ring that is
 

What ever happened to Gary Steele and why did he stop wrestling ?

 

Was there anybody else from the hammerlock era that potentially could have gone a lot further than they ultimately did ??

Edited September 8, 2023 by Browser Brady

[JNLister]

The full Gary Steele story: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z2bYw7HFUOzFcODDXMwhPIVp7tFx3jOa/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=102997796146870262104&rtpof=true&sd=true