in the good old day before High Definition Colour TV we used to watch wrestling in black & white in low res, not helped by recording being films. then came colour which could be a bit hairy. the television sets would be set up with to much colour and the cathode guns out on alignment, let alone some of studio cameras could drift, especially the valve ones. all this often produced an image which was soft and hide what what was really happening
how many of the school would have be able to adapt to modern TV with its extra definition and you could see what was really happening, like blows not landing etc. could they have survived
I have to disagree that workers appearing in the early days of TV would have to adapt and be more careful over certain moves,but I would say that wouldn't I.Well it wasn't my ear,but what I knew of those workers if anything they were told to tone down and I know from several they started bothering about their appearance.This was an era when lads went in hard and no I'm not trying to fool anyone but it was a harder game to get into and stay in.Most of the guys were of the Alan Woods mould a wrestler greatly underrated I watched from the back at wolves when he tore apart a lad called Eric his chest was turning purple when he returned to the dressing room and this poor sod was a neighbour of Alan.Whilst I get the comments about Two Rivers and Johnny Yearsley that was due to the promoters and Two Rivers who was lazy not Johnny Yearsley.In full glorious colour in the 80s we had somersaults from no contact back of the head slaps dropkicks not in the same county as their target and some superb lads underused by megalomaniac mismanagement. rant over.
I can remember watching sport on a Saturday afternoon on a low resolution, flickering black and white screen , Grandstand would have fight of the week, scrambling which all riders would all be covered with mud, that I don't know how the commentator recognised the riders through that layer of mud or if he just made them up, as winter approached rugby league was the same everyone covered in mud, strips unrecognisable, flicking over to the wrestling we could tell the difference in the opponents although it wasn't the greatest picture and the smokey fog from hundreds of ciggies hanging around the ring could sometimes be seen even back then. But for a young lad who watched that grainy picture actually going to a live show was so colourful and exciting, not just shades of snowy grey, and that made it more exciting not just for me but no doubt for so many more. Without those grainy shows at 4pm on a Saturday afternoon I might never have got into wrestling, those grainy shows opened a door to so many of us.
I recall us renting a 24" in 1964 due to Granny's poor eyesight. The neighbours were queuing up to see this "home cinema" of its time! On a semi-related note, WWE/F have been doing a great job on restoration of the old footage and bringing it up to an acceptable standard for modern viewing.
Remember very well Mom & Dad getting the first “Bush” 9-inch television for the Coronation. Subsequently a magnifying screen to make the 9-inch a 12-inch screen! Later a proper 12 inch for the better viewing capabilities, but then early sixties my older Brother (born 1938) said “would ‘it be great watching the snooker in colour”! So, there we were watching the occasional snooker match with Joe Davis etc, (which really was great in colour), but I was always asking “when are we going to watch the wrestling!
Cheers
the big leap in the late 60s was going from 405 lines to 625 lines which produced a better picture. what is interesting is how good a lot of the old shows look on digital which is mainly down to transmission, no echoes or distortions.
TV screens had been as little as nine inches and pretty round edged. I remember getting only BBC1 and we got a box to get ITV in the late 1950's. By about 62/63 it was all the rage to own a 17 inch screen. I think this was considered huge and a brilliant improvement.
I think there was another leap at the end of the 60's to 24 inch screen.
These days my computer screen is 24 inch.
When I first saw Billy two Rivers it was probably on a 14 inch screen and the TV was in a wooden cabinet.
You sat up close , but of course in those days everyone pulled their chair up to the fire to get warm and the TV was nearby.
Maybe you are adding yet another reason to our ongoing very long list of reasons for wrestling's demise.
Probably the unclear tv images just made it all the more intriguing to get down to your local hall and see wrestling live.
Mind you, you are applying the benefit of hindsight. I can't remember in the sixties anyone in my family complaining "This would be better in HD." The only complaint we had mid-sixties was that my auntie's house could get BBC2 and we couldn't. She went on and on about The Man from Uncle.
As TV has improved wrestling has become a close up sport, a lot of the arena shows feature large screens in the venue as well as the clarity and close up filming for the viewer at home. I would think there would have been a few who would have had to wrestle 'smarter' because of the camera. but I wonder how many didn't make the transition when the cameras came into the wrestling business at the beginning?