I decided to start this subject with this...strange image, I was lucky to find online several years ago. At the end I will share with you, my friends, why I called this image strange, lol.
These our recent discussions re baked beans brands of professional wrestling and various other subjects of similar entertaining nature (at least for me personally) made me want to share this with you, my dear friends.
In the 1800s there was a London based newspaper called BELL'S LIFE IN LONDON, it was a major British sporting paper published between 1820s and 1880s. They covered all kinds of sports and that of professional wrestling as well.
Back then there were quite a few very local, regional brands of pro wrestling in England. I said that word the "brands" again. I think I am making a legitimate case out of this nonsense, lol. Did I just call pro wrestling history nonsense. I have to be more accurate with what I say...Morell's descendants are probably still around and they can sure can attempt to take me to the court for this "nonsense".
Anyways. We are back to my favorite 40s, no not the 1940s, the very Victorian, the 1840s. Once upon a time Someone, we don't know who that person were since they haven't introduced themselves properly mailed the Bell's Life editor a question, simple, general, very basic question: WHO CURRENTLY IS A PROFESSIONAL CHAMPION WRESTLER OF ENGLAND.
The answer was a pure knockout. Such thing as Championship of England in professional (read prize) wrestling DOES NOT REALLY EXIST. And then there was provided a brief explanation why according to the editor we should not addressing this kind of question in such uninformed manner.
In the 1840s there were at least three brands of pro wrestling in England:
CORNISH AND DEVON, as a matter of fact the oldest of all and the most common of all, because it was a jacket style, traditional English kind of wrestling. It outgrew the area of its origins and was the most common style all around the country and not only that the bosses (sorry patrons) of that sport were running annual championship matches and tourneys in London the capital of the country a place where the real moneys were! And yes, this style (traditional English jackets style) existed for centuries and had many regional variations too.
CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND, relatively a new style, popular only since late 1780s early 1790s, originally it was unknown outside the area of its birth. It was still unknown to many London wrestling fans even in the early 1800s.
LANCASHIRE, a newborn style which emerged in the late 1820s in South Lancashire. It was also called the Manchester rossle. The Ashton-under-Lyne beersellers gave birth to this very unorthodox style of wrestling. And no one in England knew what it actually was outside the City of Manchester and a handful of neighbor mill towns.
The editor made it clear each of these brands has its own champion wrestler of England and they will never wrestle each other first of all because they are unfamiliar with each others wrestling fashions, secondly it will be a poor show to match unmatchables, lol and of course simply because that kind of titles unification would mean for them nothing but losing their main income. Those who run these sports (brands of wrestling) are NOT interested in having such thing as UNIFIED WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIP OF ENGLAND, he stressed.
Now I have a question, do we learn anything from HISTORY, it supposed to be there to educate us....saying educate I do specifically mean to be smarter when we approach this and similar subject.
And back to the provided image. The pic clearly shows English jacket style of wrestling, I stress English because the men are wearing tight perfectly fit fustian (or flannel we don't know for a fact) jackets. Cornish wrestling jackets didn't look anything like this. And the provided names of the two competitors, the wrestlers called GRAHAM and BEEBY tell us that they were Cumberland-Westmorland practitioners and obviously never competed in jackets. Another nonsense, oops I said it again! So much nonsense lately. The printing office had only this old visualization for wrestling...and probably didn't even know that there are some other brands of wrestling in England except the one he was familiar with...the Old English Jackets Wrestling.
Thank you for reading this. And enjoy your WRESTLING.
thank you, my friends, appreciate your comments as always, and the pennies too, so far that is all I get, the handful of pennies, I hope one day I will start finally getting some silver... shillings, florins, half-crowns, who knows maybe even crowns at some point.
anyways. they all, the patrons, were selling fans essentially the same product called professional wrestling. whether you call it styles (more suits the 1800s realities) or brands (my personal choice to call by that name the variations of the twentieth century British pro wrestling). the most important thing for me is that that they actually enjoyed the chaos, the championship muddle if you will in the pro wrestling department. One country one wrestling champ, was something that was not ever going to work in England, because no one of them ever wanted that.
ray hulm
I'll just put my two pennyworth in here and then keep quiet.
Don't keep quiet Ray. The voice of common sense (well after mine obviously).
I'll just put my two pennyworth in here and then keep quiet.
All In, Professional Free Style, 20th century catch, Catch As Catch Can Rules of 1930, Lord Mountevans. All were, if you like, different "brand names" for essentialy the same "product".
Of course, a promoter or group of promoters would want to protect their "brand" and have their own champion. I think that a wrestling style is something different. It implies a set of rules and a way of competing that has developed differently to other styles.
Regarding champions I think that part of the problem looking back is that so many of these appointed champions ended up believing their own publicity and of course some could actualy wrestle. There was a willing army of fans and historians keen to perpetuate the mythology. Still is perhaps.
Oakeley and Dale had two quite different business plans. One wanted to put on big wrestling extravaganzas at famous venues and the other flood the market with good quality bread and butter shows all over the place. I think that by the time Dale (and Joint) were top dogs Oakeley had had enough anyway and wanted to get on with his sailing holidays and Lorna Doone stuff.
I'm sorry, I have responded to half a dozen threads that all started with Bert and Ernie.
Interesting stuff, Ruslan, I think I (personally) would use the word "style", instead of the word "brand", but I can see that both words would probably work, in this instance.