While looking through YouTube, I watched a match between Marty Jones and Jean Pierre Avert (excuse the spelling), Jones's opponent wasn't known to many over here and the contest was billed as a title eliminater for the Mid-heavyweight title. So it seems that at some point a lot of effort was made to give titles a similar sporting status as in boxing, with rankings and eliminators and some sort of meritocracy. This was a departure from our American Cousins who seemed to give a title to the current flavour of the month. There were other touches like natonal anthems being played and flowers presented to the winner.
Titles in Britain no longer seem to have this status, the why is happen is probably more obvious than the when.
Do people have memories of the late 80's and early 90's where Title matches still had a level of prestige?
Do we think a credible set of titles and a ranking system to earn a title shot would benefit wrestling again?
For many years championship matches did not appear on TV. We were often told if these wrestlers meet for the championship if will not be on TV but at the Royal Albert Hall. This added to the credibility.
Also in the 1960s some boxing magazines had a wrestling section at the back.This also helped making it credible
Glenn:
"Did they ever have ‘sporting’ credibility? I’ve never heard a promoter or wrestler describe it as a sport. Only ever as entertainment. In my view it acquired a natural audience who used to watch Victorian melodrama in music halls."
Hello Glenn, thanks for joining us. I think they did have sporting credibility. Go back to the 1960s and earlier and you will find many references to wrestling as a sport. It starts to get more blurry in the 1970s when wrestling became less believable for the reasons you will have read about here and elsewhere. Wrestling is a genuine sport. If it looked like it hurt it could hurt. That doesn't mean that it did hurt and the first rule of a pro wrestler was to protect his opponent.
There were always rumours that wrestling wasn't competitive in the usual sporting sense but despite the numerous tv exposures the believers continued to believe. Champions until the mid 1970s were always credible champions who could protect the integrity of the business.
So, the simple answer to your question is yes, the champions did have sporting credibility. As for your Victorian melodrama comment that's an interesting one and I look forward to your Master's Degree thesis on this subject
Did they ever have ‘sporting’ credibility? I’ve never heard a promoter or wrestler describe it as a sport. Only ever as entertainment. In my view it acquired a natural audience who used to watch Victorian melodrama in music halls.
There were some very credible and compelling televised TV title matched Gwyn Davies v Steve Veidor in 1976 being one that stands out to me
I think like Santa, the magic went for us all at some point. I think this makes it even more creditable that we cared about wins/loses and title changes. The like of Jones, Finlay, Bridges, Breaks made us care.
The more I read on this site, I now wonder whether titles ever really had any"Sporting credibility".
At one time everything was gospel to me, but now .......?
In the early years of ITV broadcasts title matches were rarely if ever shown on TV. When this changed and title matches were frequently shown on TV and fans began to realize the same wrestlers were in "title matches" every few weeks at venues round the country then the view that title matches were "real"began to fade
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I certainly found that as we got into the Crabtree era of Joint Promotions they seemed to have little value for the championships as any credible wrestlers to create a championship program especially at heavyweight had been devalued as sacrifices at the feet of Big daddy. The lower weights probably had more credibility. Like the states promoter's here tended to put the belt on guys who were capable of looking after themselves. The short-sightedness of the Crabtrees by devaluing the belts certainly hastened the demise of Joint, and All Star probably carried more respect with their championship matches by then.
As for a credible set of titles we now have a myriad of promotions across the UK getting them to agree on a set of unified champions across the country will never happen. We have a better chance of plaiting sawdust.
great subject. and I have a question - what to consider a title? is there a title without reference to a certain organization-promotion?