Unscrupulous Promoters

Quite recently a new promotion Jurassic Wrestling was set up in Harwich by disgruntled young wrestlers who left a promoter expecting them to appear for the "experience"

what about unscrupulous promotes who created the wrestlers. I heard of one occasion when a promoter was held in a hot shower until he agreed to pay the agreed wages. Any other examples ?

Sorry for the poor quality of this bill , but it's a gem in that it proposes a masked wrestlers competition.

All bar one must unmask.

I bet there was some right copycats in this lot.

Not much doubt that Jefferson put this show on , I would have thought. He took some beating and was a regular user of Mick McManners.

Orig did some shows in Newcastle with WWE knock offs in the smallest ring I have seen. He billed Drew Mcdonald as a Canadian villain fighting one of the WWE stars. They finished the night with a rumble and the ring was full with 4 wrestlers.

Max let the standards slip,Orig W was totally unscrupulous,and Brian was Brian IMO.

I'm pleased with the title of your thread, Peter. Because it also serves to highlight the importance of the discipline imposed by Joint Promotions. All too often we hear complaints about that discipline - the Mike Judd syndrome - but look about at what happened without it.

Professional Wrestling's credibility was held intact with great fragility. For 20+ years Joint Promotions successfully fought off all manner of threats to create an important and even respected industry at national level.

Unfortunately, the changing Joint Promotions then became unscrupulous themselves, as listed in some replies above, and the whole thing crumpled.

I think that for one very short period of time Max Crabtree had Davey Boy Smith touring at the same time as Orig Williams and Brian Dixon were using Dynamite Kid so rival Promoters had rival British Bulldogs - who actually were feuding in real life! There was a famous occasion when Dynamite Kid turned up to pick a fight at a venue near Wigan where Davey Boy was wrestling

It was either the late 80s or early 90s and i recall a late night ITV debate show hosted by John Stapleton was discussing this very topic. I cannot for the life of me remember who the promoter was they had in the studio but he was accused of duping the public by having wrestlers appear on posters like certain American counterparts, such as Johnny South as the "Legend Of Doom" instead of 'The Legion Of Doom' etc. So basically a play on words to attract the public and probably just this side of legal. The promoter faced many of his accusers and tried to explain himself out of his predicament. The odd thing was though the promoter had the Dynamite Kid advertised as "The British Bulldog" and the complaint was that Dynamite wasn't Dave Boy Smith although he was one half of The Bulldogs!!!!!!

There was nearly a riot at a venue I do not remember but it was in Great Yarmouth in 1992 when the advertised wrestlers did not appear. The manager confirmed it would not be returning

These sort of scams may have worked once but most of the disgruntled parents would not return

not unusual, what sometimes happened was promoters who did a runner leaving unpaid bills queered the pitch for any other promotions wanting to come into the area/venue etc. I have seen a bill where none of the advertised wrestlers appeared, also you has what I called 'stars in your eyes wrestling' with big name WWE/WCW wrestlers advertised on the poster but on the night you got an unreasonable facsimile, disgruntled parents couldn't understand that it wasn't the real deal appearing at the local community centre for a few pounds a head.