Paid Members JNLister Posted November 25, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 25, 2022 The "US wrestling on ITV" history as I have it: Quote As well as the occasional WWF broadcasts as part of the British wrestling slot in 1987 and 1988, there were several cases of American wrestling appearing on ITV: Central and Tyne Tees began airing late-night/early-morning WWF tapes from late 1987. While billed as Superstars of Wrestling, the tapes were actually a repackaged version of Wrestling Challenge. The matches appear to have been recorded between spring of 1987 and spring 1988, but were not necessarily shown in order. The earliest match we have traced (which aired on the debut episode) appears to have been Raymond Rougeau v Bret Hart from either Houston on 19 October 1986 or Madison Square Garden the following day. Also on the show was Hulk Hogan & Rick Steamboat vs Randy Savage and the Honky Tonky Man from the Meadowlands Arena on 5 January 1987 and Outback Jack v Jimmy Jack Funk from the Boston Garden on 7 March 1987. The same tapes aired on Thames/LWT from June-88 to April 89. Central showed tapes from several US promotions, including Professional Wrestling from Florida (from the first half of 1989), Global Wrestling (Florida version, not the later Dallas group), and matches from the AWA/World Class/Memphis partnership of late 1988. Thames/LWT showed NWA/WCW wrestling from January 1990. Although these were still billed as Superstars of Wrestling, the shows were repackaged versions of NWA Power Hour, originally taped between July and December 1989. A second run of 1990 tapes aired between the summer and autumn of 1990. In the summer of 1991, several episodes of NWA television from mid-1990 aired on Thames/LWT on Saturday nights. From September 1991, most ITV regions began airing relatively up-to-date WCW Worldwide shows eary on Sunday mornings, though there was no consistent timeslot. LWT repeated one match each Sunday afternoon in the Sharp's Funday show. From Spring 1992, a repackaged version of Worldwide begain airing nationally on Saturday afternoons. From July 1994, the show would feature highlights of recent pay-per-view events. WCW was dropped by ITV in 1995. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JNLister Posted November 25, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 25, 2022 5 hours ago, The Dart said: This bit's wrong though isn't it? When Raw went to 3 hours, the additional hour was the first hour. It had been on from 2am-4am and it changed to 1am-4am. It meant only needing to stay up until 1 for Raw to start, but we always had to stay up until 4 for it to finish. That sounds right actually. I cut and paste from the copy I filed, so hopefully that was picked up in the edit! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merzbow Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 1 minute ago, JNLister said: The "US wrestling on ITV" history as I have it: Wrestling Challenge from late '87? That could have been Warrior's debut I saw on ITV/Central as a kid then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The King Of Swing Posted November 25, 2022 Share Posted November 25, 2022 Imagine switching to ITV and being greeted by an Outback Jack match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Jazzy G Posted November 26, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 26, 2022 On 11/25/2022 at 11:05 AM, Hannibal Scorch said: Wasn’t it a case of WWF were desperate to get programming in the UK and would do a cheap deal for a slot. It’s why it was on WOS for a very brief period and Dyke wanted wrestling off and Sky needed cheap content so got a deal done? WCW on ITV was weird. Some regions had it on in the early hours, others on a Saturday afternoon slot. It was on at 12.35 am on a Monday night/Tuesday morning, and then got repeated at 3pm on a Saturday. I remember I had a friend who would video the PPVs for me so I could watch them, usually the weekend after, so I managed to see all of them from Summerslam 93 to Summerslam 95. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted November 26, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 26, 2022 2 hours ago, jazzygeofferz said: It was on at 12.35 am on a Monday night/Tuesday morning, and then got repeated at 3pm on a Saturday. I remember I had a friend who would video the PPVs for me so I could watch them, usually the weekend after, so I managed to see all of them from Summerslam 93 to Summerslam 95. The old regional variations line comes into play here. WCW was Friday nights between American Gladiators and Married with Children in LWT if I recall. Then moved to Saturday lunchtime in 92/3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Ronnie Posted November 26, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 26, 2022 (edited) On 11/25/2022 at 2:15 PM, JNLister said: the contrasting receiver equipment of Sky’s circular dish and BSB’s flattened “Squarial”, the latter designed to appear less vulgar to middle class homeowners 30+ years later, the joke I heard queueing for lunch has just come back to me: - What do you call that small box on the back of a SKY dish? - A council house. Those night-time programmes around 1988 were my introduction to American wrestling, too. So much more exciting than that Big Daddy rubbish that we used to watch! It turns out that my dad used to be quite the fan in his childhood, and he brought a scrapbook I'd known nothing about to our house a few months ago, full of notes and autographs. I'm going to assume that he had somehow come across "Wrestling" in a TV listing around 1988/89, and decided to record it. One day he told me he had something to show me: the Rockers despatching opponents with their signature tandem offence, with the slow-mo recap explaining that the referee was correct to disqualify them (I think) for taking more than five seconds after the tag. And there was Lord Alfred Hayes talking about this astonishing Demolition, who sounded truly unbeatable. I went to school imaginging this Bad News Brown whom Hayes had referenced: I pictured him as a villain from the Wild West. I don't think I saw too many other episodes (and it's fair to say that those memories above might not have been from the same one) but I knew that the American wrestling was great, and within a year or two several cousins and a couple of uncles were often watching the PPVs on (rented?) VCRs at my grandparents'. Getting SKY in late 1991 was the dream; there always seemed to be some WWF programming on, and it was the time when Bret Hart was on every episode defending the IC title. I loved him beating the Barbarian by playing possum and then rolling him into a Small Package. That became my go-to finish when playing wrestling with my brothers. Magical times! Edited November 27, 2022 by Ronnie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Ronnie Posted November 26, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 26, 2022 (edited) Eh, double post, so I'll add something else to tie in to how magical those times were. My eldest nephew spent a few weekends with us when he was younger. One of our regular activities was watching bits from old PPVs and matches from a Hogan DVD set. It was a bit selfish because I was making this child watch what I wanted to: the match with the Evil Twin; anything with the Twin Towers, and so on. He was still awake at 11-ish one night when he should've been asleep, so I popped my head around the door to get him to bed. He didn't argue but wanted to show me what he'd discovered on the internet first. "He's going to have searched 'boobies', isn't he?", I thought to myself. Not at all: he was on YouTube and had searched the term "The Million Dollar Man", unearthing tonnes of material he'd been cycling through whilst he should've been asleep! I saw him a month ago. He's now 15, and at least 8 inches taller than me. He seems a bit old before his time, talking about how rugby (he's a player) is too soft these days and wrestling's not as good as it used to be. I thought I'd better check which era he was referring to, since you can imagine his generation not enjoying today what they grew up with: it was WWF 1988-92, of course! Edited November 26, 2022 by Ronnie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JNLister Posted November 26, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 26, 2022 3 hours ago, Ronnie said: One day he told me he had something to show me: the Rockers despatching opponents with their signature tandem offence, with the slow-mo recap explaining that the referee was correct to disqualify them (I think) for taking more than five seconds after the tag. Don't remember them being DQed but WWF Magazine did a bit where they were accused of illegal doubleteaming: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Ronnie Posted November 27, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 27, 2022 8 hours ago, JNLister said: Don't remember them being DQed but WWF Magazine did a bit where they were accused of illegal doubleteaming: It may very well have been that. I can't be sure of the result, only that a lot was made of the double-teaming taking more than 5 seconds. Perhaps it was the heel commentator complaining. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JNLister Posted November 27, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted November 27, 2022 7 hours ago, Ronnie said: It may very well have been that. I can't be sure of the result, only that a lot was made of the double-teaming taking more than 5 seconds. Perhaps it was the heel commentator complaining. Yeah, earlier in the piece they say Jesse Ventura was leading the accusations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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