Facts from Future Pro Wrestling Crowning Glory, Wallington Hall, May 12th 2013

One of the things I enjoy most about wrestling is when there’s something you can get behind and follow – someone to root for and to urge on to triumph, someone to want to see suffer and get their comeuppance. Not too difficult to do (one would think) when you’re broadcasting globally every week; but a bit tougher when you’re a UK company and run a handful of times a year, and your audience is bound to have a collectively short memory.

How fortunate, then, that FPW, for their second anniversary show, ‘Crowning Glory’, hit on the simplest and best of all wrestling fables – the title challenge.

It might seem odd that FPW have managed to run for two years without crowning a champion; as compere and co-founder Matt Burden said in the ring today, it was something they’d discussed as soon as they came up with the idea for a promotion. So this may be judged as long overdue, and well deserving of the occasion being immortalised in cupcakes (see image, above left).

And it was just as straightforward and compelling as anyone could have wished.

Fact: The Bhangra Knights are running a tag-team training seminar

Any wannabe tag-team wrestlers should get down to IPW:UK on Sunday, where the Bhangra Knights will be leading an in-ring seminar.

It’s billed as “for anyone wishing to become better versed in the details of tag team work, and learning how to better apply tag psychology to matches” – so it’s not for beginners.

“You need to have a very basic level of experience: being able to bump, run the ropes and know some basic holds,” says RJ Singh, one half of the Knights. “Tag-team experience isn’t needed as we will be covering all the basics of that too.”

Preview: ‘Spandex, Screw Jobs and Cheap Pops’ – behind the scenes at FPW

 This is an extract from the forthcoming book ‘Spandex, Screw Jobs and Cheap Pops’, taken from a chapter profiling some of the top promotions in the south-east of England. Obviously this isn’t the complete section – you’ll have to buy the book to read that! – but some edited highlights. Hope you enjoy.

When you walk into the Wallington Hall, it’s a state of organised chaos. Something about it is reminiscent about an end-of-term disco, as a clutch of boys huddle together in the corner, and the grown-ups march around setting out the furniture, with a group of men wiring up the lights and a group of women in the kitchen laying out the wares for the tuck shop.

Except this is February 2013, not the height of summer before six weeks of holidays, and this is the venue that Future Pro Wrestling have declared home.

Interview: Mad Man Manson on business, sports entertainment, money and maths

I hate to break kayfabe, but I don’t think Mad Man Manson’s actually that mad after all.

That’ll come as no surprise to anyone who saw him in the pre-PCW Festive Fury Q&A alongside John Morrison, Chris Masters and Eugene, when he held forth on the state of the UK wrestling scene and what he perceived as unprofessional, unbusinesslike conduct.

And that’s what we’re discussing now.

“It is a business. It is a job. You charge your price,” he says. “I’ve got my price; if you can’t afford it, fair enough, good luck with your show, and if you need me again, give me a call. But other people, who love wrestling so much, they’ll go down in their price. They’ll say they charge fifty quid, and the guy will hum and hah and say, ‘Oh, well, I can’t really afford that, can you do forty?’ and they’ll say OK.

“That doesn’t work in Tesco if you go in to buy a loaf of bread and it’s priced at 50p and you say, ‘Well, I’ll give you 40p.’ It doesn’t work, because Tesco doesn’t love you. But these guys love wrestling so much that they’re screwing themselves.”

And they’re screwing the other wrestlers on the scene, of course. 

Preview: a sneak peek at Spandex, Screw Jobs and Cheap Pops

For the month of May, TOWIS will be rebranding as…er…TOWIS.

In the four weeks prior to the publication of Spandex, Screw Jobs and Cheap Pops, The Only Way Is Suplex becomes The Only Way Is Spandex, and you’ll have the chance to read excerpts of the book (which is already available to pre-order).

So before we get to 1st June, here’s a little hint at what you can expect to read in the book:

• British wrestling in the media – how important is TV coverage really? There’s also an exclusive look back at 2001′s ‘Faking It – Ballet Dancer to Wrestler’ featuring NWA Hammerlock, with interviews with the key participants
• Competition – how much collaboration between promotions is healthy? (This section includes an extended look at last year’s FPW Futuremania shenanigans.)
• Wrestling training in the UK – the dangers of a bad school
• How wrestlers cope with serious injuries, and how they balance the bruises with having to go into the office for their day job
• How ring announcers and referees learn their role and make it possible for wrestlers to shine
• And, obviously, interviews with British and British-based and -trained wrestlers – including the likes of Magnus, Doug Williams, Nigel McGuinness, Zack Sabre Jr, Marty Scurll, the Blossom Twins, Rhia O’Reilly, Saraya Knight, Majik, Danny Garnell, Jimmy Havoc, the Owens Twins, Nikki Storm, Prince Fergal Devitt, El Ligero, Iestyn Rees, Noam Dar, Mark Andrews…and more.
• If you’ve enjoyed reading TOWIS over the past two years, please support Spandex, Screw Jobs and Cheap Pops, available to pre-order now and will be in all good bookshops – plus it has its own Facebook page.

Facts from Southside Wrestling, Raw Deal 2, Stevenage, April 27th 2013

If I’m completely honest, my favourite part of Southside Wrestling’s Raw Deal 2 came at the start of the second half, as the partisan crowd voiced their objections to Stixx and his very own voice of the voice of the voiceless Harvey Dale.

Rather than being outraged and offended by the really rather pathetic homophobic abuse, the pair did what any self-respecting Punk/Heymanesque duo should do, and hugged instead.

And much as I like El Ligero, I was sneakily pleased that Stixx picked up the win as well.

More about the forthcoming ‘Spandex, Screw Jobs and Cheap Pops’

With just over a month to go until the release of ‘Spandex, Screw Jobs and Cheap Pops’, TOWIS editor Carrie has been chatting to Wrestling Fusion about her wrestling fandom and the book itself.

Next week here on TOWIS there’ll be more about the book – plus some sneak previews!

You can join the book’s Facebook group – and pre-order it on Amazon now!