Hello everyone, this is my first post on the forum but I have spent many happy hours reading old messages and hugely enjoyed looking at the posters and anecdotes from the past.
My background is that as a teenager in the 1960's, and then into the 1970's, I went to wrestling many times and had a season ticket at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon, where there were weekly Tuesday night shows.
I saw many of the stars of the day including Kendo Nagasaki, Wayne Bridges, Mick McManus, Jackie Pallo etc - sadly, I never saw Big Daddy or Giant Haystacks.
I also saw several shows at the Royal Albert Hall, including one of the MM/JP bouts - if I remember rightly it was where JP got a very bad cut and had to retire from the contest.
Marriage and a ready made family then intervened but I have always kept an interest in wrestling since I stopped going.
Being rather naïve back in the day, I had no idea that the results of the matches were pre-ordained! I did wonder at the time how the regular MC, Francis P Blake, knew when to appear, ready to announce a fall or submission which always happened shortly after he came back into the auditorium!! Years later I found out why!!
My genuine question is this....... was professional wrestling always staged with results agreed in advance from when it first started (not sure when that was - early 1900's? I know you experts will tell me) or was a decision made at some point after it became popular that this would happen.
Just asking out of curiosity.
It is great that this site helps keep our happy memories of yesteryear alive, even though sadly so many of those who entertained us are no longer with us.
I look forward to any responses.
Kind regards. Peter
MMA promotors discovered in the very early days that a bill with only four or five legit fights could mean a very early finish and leave fans feeling short changed when some matches lasted seconds rather than minutes. Conversely when the number of fights was increased it could turn into a very long night. Pro Wrestling Events of course usually give a very accurate finish time in advance
Hello Peter, thank you so much for your very interesting question. I won't generalize, and will try to be specific in my answer, I will speak about my own 'little journey' which I had, it was a great hobby of mine which lasted 15 years. I did research English pro wrestling of the late 1800s, early 1900s, but most intensely I researched 1820-1870 North-West region, to be more specific Manchester, or South Lancashire variation of pro wrestling, and have to admit that it was not much different from what it was in the XX century, or nowadays. Promotions attached to the local arenas, and venue owners, the bosses who owned business and owned 'titles', and who decided who was going to win or be the next champ, and rasslers 'hired personnel' who were paid very little for their job which was advertised as a legit sport with hundreds of pounds at stake in almost every match, etc. I wrote a book on this subject called 'THE STORY OF CATCH'.
1967.
It was THE MATCH OF THE CENTURY. Certainly planned. McManus would/could never have done anything to draw blood.
The amounts of money involved were so small, that it's probably embarrassing for the protagonists, even later, to admit what they got. I'd imagine that, even with those elevated ringside prices, Pallo got £50 and agreed to £60 if he was prepared to blade himself with Max Ward's assistance.
McManus would have made much much more for himself.
Thank you again for all the really interesting replies and references to the Gallery etc.
As far as the MM/JP Royal Albert Hall bout was concerned (Anglo-Italian's reply) I guess it was the 1968 one if that is when JP was cut. My recollections of it are inevitably vague after 54 years but I do remember JP's wife at ringside screaming to stop the bout, due to the severity of the cut.
I have seen references on here to "fake" blood being used in bouts so I don't know if this was a genuine cut and therefore against the script - or if it was planned. Any views?
The other thought about seeing the bout is that the significance of being there grew over the years as my wrestling knowledge increased, and I am pleased to be able to say I saw one of their fights. I certainly did not appreciate in 1968 what a huge bout it was - this being due to my young age at the time and being new to the wrestling scene then.
As I said, the replies were so interesting to read and I totally agree that even knowing the "truth" now does not take away from the entertainment value of the wrestling and I loved every minute of it.
I also note the comment about the injuries not being faked and clearly many wrestlers ended up with badly affected bodies in later life. I recall reading a lot about how the late great Wayne Bridges (a regular at the Fairfield Halls) suffered as he got older.
As a complete aside, one of the memories I have from Fairfield Hall days is being one of several fans there having a very heated (but entirely friendly!) "discussion" ringside with referee Joe D'Orazio after he failed to disqualify a villainous wrestler who had just beaten one of our favourites, thanks to some underhand tactics. We all explained to Joe that we could have done a better job of refereeing the contest! I'm sure he had a good laugh about it with the villain concerned and his victim, back in the dressing room. Happy days!!
I actually enjoy Amateur/Olympic, but can understand that I am in a minority here.
It's a reason why I like MMA as well, the take downs and submissions, like a real version of pro wrestling, without people jumping off the corner post, or turning their back on their opponent to argue with the crowd.
Not many, professional wrestling as you know is a spectacle, it's entertaining and it's exciting, amateur wrestling as skilful as it can be is rarely that.
As an ex professional wrestler myself, I’m not going to get into the argument of whether the contests were fixed or not, but I would just like to ask a very simple question; this I think would answer the original question of peter.s:
“How many people would attend an amateur wrestling match, even at the level of World/Olympic championships as opposed to professional wrestling as we know it, or have known it in the past”?
Cheers
Whole bouts choreographed would probably apply in WWE as apart from a finishing move most matches are pretty similar and follow a WWE style. AEW has a bigger range of wrestling styles so a match will probably be talked through allowing improvisation especially with the more experienced wrestlers. The 'indie scene' is where you tend to get matches on the 'fly' I do enjoy these shows as the matches vary greatly in content and innovation (and sometimes quality), but you never know what you're going to get.
Before the Internet we were largely oblivious that a lot of the matches we saw at our local hall had done the circuit a couple of dozen times before we saw it , the Kung Fu v Kendo mask match is a prime example, we all saw it in our own local hall before McManus ( it should have been Kendo) unmasked Kung Fu on TV . All pre determined results but generally great entertainment , thumps, bumps and injuries weren't faked.
Agree with the above (of course), modern wrestling is choreographed, with each move and sequence worked out in advance (for the most part, anyway).
Back in the old days, the vast majority of wrestlers had some basic amateur experience, it was pretty much mandated by Morrell, De Relwyskow, and others, before you were invited in, to try your hand at the Pro game.
I guess what I am driving at, is that the wrestling usually just "flowed" (not sure of a better word to describe it), because if anyone missed a move, his opponent would just do something else, and it all worked.
Certainly wrestling itself was "fixed" because the majority of holds and throws require the opponent to sell the move, the Irish Whip being the most celebrated.
That stance of "It's all fixed" is what we as wrestling crackpots have to come up against when we talk wrestling with the uninitiated. It's such a superficial, lazy and ignorant stance.
It was beautiful to watch these guys working spontaneously together, Far from worrying about the scores, I was always attentive for:
- to what extent a wrestler did or did not sell the opponent's moves or gimmicks.
- how much effort they put in.
- how they tried to arouse the audience.
- to what extent they varied their performances.
- the wildly varied reactions of the crowds. Choice one-liners like those from Graham's lorry-driving Arthur still tickle us pink to this day.
- things that went wrong and how they adjusted.
- danger.
- spontaneous creativity.
- any real animosity. They were so good at their craft that this remains very difficult to spot, and we are usually wrong when we think we have seen something.
The result was pre-determined. Probably to ensure order amongst the participants. But the bouts were not planned or rehearsed. A few such as Nagasaki planned some elements of the bouts - but quite to what extent the co-worker was interested in complying with such detail remains open to doubt.
"Fixed" is such an unsatisfactory word. "All fixed" is plainly untrue. "The results were all fixed" could be classed as true.
There is so much more to it, Peter, and that ìs probably the fascination that has us still debating it all these years later.
You lucky blighter, sounds like you were at Pallo v McManus IV in 1967. Dust that memory off and tell us about it.
After a while of watching wrestling every week you developed a feeling as to when the winning move was about to come. Often when a villain was being battered the good guy would just go one throw or posting too many and his opponent would turn the tables and gain an unpopular victory. Or the double knock out where one guy would get to his feet blind side of the referee but collapse again without the official noticing; you then began to question things!
However having said that and, due to my job at the wrestling, observing many of the wrestlers at close quarters, especially some of the more seasoned individuals, the broken noses, cauliflower ears and scar tissue about the body certainly wasn't faked.
Oh, and as to when it was first "fixed", probably back in ancient Greece, or Rome!
Welcome on board, Peter!
As far as "fans" go, we have some great knowledge between us, and people like Ron , Hack, The Ost, Anglo Italian and Main Mask (and others, sorry to all those I have missed out), post some fantastic pictures of Wrestling bills, programs and posters from yesteryear.
We have a few wrestlers occasionally popping up on here, and chipping in with the conversation.
Please join in whenever you can, everyone is welcome.
Depending on the experience level of the participants, in a lot of cases it was “You’re winning 2-1 in Round Five” and it was pretty much up to them how they got there. See under the infamous Rocky Wall - Mike Marino audio recording.
Go to the Gallery in the menu bar above and this will take you to the Wrestling Heritage site.
To see the password protected pages on Heritage you will need to join if you haven't already done so (Heritage is a separate site from the Talk Wrestling Forum).
Click the link for Ron Historyo Albums, then the London-New Brighton tab and you will find more of Ron's Croydon clips.
For the period you're looking for from the Gallery Menu click on Anglo Italian and you will find 1970s Croydon.
From the Gallery menu again click on The Ost for another Croydon collection.
Thank you very much for those bills, hugely interesting. I would not actually have seen them as we did not move to West Wickham (from where I got the bus every Tuesday to the Fairfield Halls) until 1967. I would be massively interested in any bills from them for the following few years (obviously not all of them as there were 40-50 shows a year). I did wonder whether you might have the the bills for the matches between Clayton Thomson and Mick McManus which I referred to in detail earlier today on the "The Wrestler you missed....." post.
Thank you again very much.
Peter enjoy a few bills from your old times. 1963
And yes , almost always an arrangement except when scores were settled and the odd flare up of temper against working a bit too stiff.
What an interesting opening post Peter. I'm envious of your own wrestling heritage - McManus and Pallo, Royal Albert Hall. The Royal Albert Hall was too far away to even figure in my dreams. Anyway, very interesting, welcome, and hopefully you'll reach further back in your memory and join other topics. It's surprising how one thing leads to another and memories come back. Around 2004 when I started reading forums I thought I had nothing of interest to offer. Some might say that's still the case.
To answer your question. Well the pre-arrangement of results post war is now well and truly a cat out of the bag. Reading 1930s newspapers as I often do, it's sometimes hard to believe these matches were not genuine - promoters were far better with their illusions with more quick results, straight falls wins and of course the violence. But there can be little doubt that read what was revealed in a number of court cases, knowing that wrestlers half killed each other and still wrestled most nights of the week and we can be pretty certain that 1930s results were pre-arranged.
That's as far back as my knowledge goes, but have read the words of many "experts" (if there is such a thing in wrestling, which I would question) and there seems to be strong opinion that results from the late 19th/early 20th century were pre-determined, including our illustrious Hackenschmidt.
And then, good grief, go back to the 19th century and read Ruslan Pashayev's work and even then wrestlers worked for specific promoters and did the job they were told to do.
None of that takes any of the skill and respect away from the wrestlers, and of course it was all no doubt more nuanced than I've made it sound. But the answer to your question .... a lot older than your grandma.
Read Ruslan's Out of Darkness
Welcome to HERITAGE PETER S.!! In The Wrestling The Promoters were Telling a
'Story' and Creating 'Story Lines' to Build The Sport's Popularity!-And Of course Sell
Tickets! So right from 1930 Certain Wrestlers had 'Runs'-Especially the Champions
and The Masked Men!-Some were better than Others Skill Wise-a Few were
Shooters-Guys so good they would always Win in a Real Fight and were Very Hard
to Beat!-All This-Heroes and Villains/Characters were all part of The 'Theatre'!
'Contoversial' Decisions-2-0 Wins/Losses-Some 'Claret' now and again-The Fans
Didn't know what to Expect!
The Real Fan didn't actually Care what had been arranged in the Dressing Room
as long as the Bout produced lots of Thrills and Spills!-Obviously they weren't Happy
if their Favourite Lost-but maybe he'd get his 'Revenge' next time!
A Good Example was BLACK MASK-the 1st Hooded Wrestler to Appear on ITV-
had an Undefeated Run from 1958-1962 before finally being Unmasked!
From then on he promptly started Losing to the Very Same Wrestlers he had Beaten
in such Spectacular Fashion!!
So you have to Remember Professional Wrestling is a Spectator Business so the
Promoters have to Control its Continued Success!!
MAIN MASK