Was Greg the Dyke right to pull the plug on the wrestling? or was this what killed it?
my own feelings are that while taking it off the telly definitely helped its demise the fact is it was already rapidly going downhill and would have fizzled out anyway. The big stars were leaving in their droves and it was all a long way from the glory days of McManus and Pallo drawing a bigger crowd than the cup final.
Discuss.
I think WWF only really became big in the UK once Sky started showing it in the very late 80s (although ITV obviously showed a few bouts towards the end of their coverage).
As several posters had said already, if All Star had got their matches aired five or so years earlier than they did, things might have been a bit different. Joint became much too much reliant on Daddy, and he really should have bowed out in 1982 or thereabouts - after that it was just endless repetition and diminishing returns.
I'm really glad there's so much Reslo footage available, as it captured the likes of Rocco and others during the period after they'd jumped ship from Joint but before Brian got his bouts on ITV.
It's all a matter of perspective. I have seen every 70s match in circulation, and a fair few that aren't, and I think the 70s is a wonderful era. But perhaps that's because access to the 50s and 60s footage remains limited. Fans in the 70s were already complaining that the product was stale and that the likes of McManus, Marino, Pallo and Kellett had overstayed their welcome. The promoters tried introducing new talent in the mid-70s. By my reckoning, they got another ten years out of the television, which is pretty good going if you ask me. This problem wasn't limited to Britain, btw. Look at the decline in French catch from the 50s & 60s to the 80s, or the decline in German catch over the same period. The rise in popularity of the WWF not only hurt British wrestling, it also killed territory wrestling in the States. The only countries that weren't adversely affected by the globalization of WWF wrestling were Mexico and Japan. I don't think British wrestling stood a chance. The peculiar thing about Britain is that the height of the WWF's popularity in the UK was several years after its decline in the US and other countries. Britain rode the wave rather late.
In total fairness to Joint Promotions in 1988 alone some excellent young wrestlers appeared on TV. Steve Casey and Bernie Wright who continued to be stalwarts of the European Tournaments in the 19990s.Richie Brooks/Ian McGregor, Steve Logan and Steve Fury. Also the Grappler of the Year trophy was a real attempt to keep interest alive.
Unfortunately ITV did what is always done with programmes they wish to end the time of transmission varied from week to week making it too easy for fans to miss it completely
It would have required a complete change of management at Joint to have any chance of that happening. They didn't see anything wrong in what they did. Even after the tv deal was gone, Joint used the same old formula that had cost them the TV deal to dwindling crowds and returns, All Star fared better because of the flexibility of the Dixons to move more with the times but still went through some lean times. Joints unwillingness to build new stars meant the guys with potential and presence along with more established wrestlers moved elsewhere leaving Joint with a dwindling and increasingly older roster. It was even the mentality when you went to the shows and music was playing,All Star would be playing current or recent pop music whilst Joint would be playing SingalongaMax, it was old,tired, and didn't build upto much in the way of expectations for the forthcoming events of the evening, whilst All Star was building up the evening before the wrestling had commenced. Looking back it was surprising that Joint lasted as long as they did because of the disregard of the roster and the subsequent treatment of them and the paying public.
Jon Cortez and Keith Howard had some great matches in the 80's as well.
Danny Collins v Mike Bennet...it does n't get any more real and brutal than that.....was it a work, was it an old pro showing the young champ what it was really all about ? ...if we still wonder all those years later then it must have been good (unless you were Danny Collins...)
Give me Marty Jones v Owen Hart ahead of Billy Two Rivers and Johnny Yearsley any day of the week......
I think its all too easy to criticise latter day TV wrestling - however I would argue there were some great matches and some great wrestlers, young and older, still doing some good and sometimes brilliant matches. I think before All Star got their TV slot (too little too late) Dale's were scraping the barrel from time to time (I'm ignoring the Daddy stuff - yet as we ve said constantly he did get a different audience in) whilst in the halls All Star were providing great shows with many who defected alongside some good newcomers. When you think of the calibre of regular Dale/Joint wrestlers on the telly towards the end, Ray Steele, dalibar Singh, Pete Roberts, Alan Kilby, Terry Rudge, Mike Bennet, Steve Grey, Jim Breaks, really the list goes on. Finaly, Collins, Murphy, Jones, Moran and Cullen moving between promotions and providing some titanic contests - these were great days. If you compare these later day matches with the stuff from the mid 70s that we can see on Youtube...no comparison. There might have been some great characters about in the 70s but to my eyes many had passed it and it simply did not look as convincing as the stronger style adopted by the latter day stars I ve mentioned. Just my opinion like....It would be great to see more bouts from the 60s of the 70s starts in their heyday. I'm sure it would be different again.
Crowds were dwindling long before 88 , even before Big Daddy.
Stadiums were shutting as well.
Even as we went into the 1970's it was tailing off.
Was it just that there was a lot more to do.
It was a lingering death and lots of things were tried , but somehow it was destined to shrink. Football on TV was getting more exposure.
You could probably find 20 reasons to put together.
One big problem is that the deception was well and truly gone. Always dubious , for some it looked real to others , and there were lots of tricks and secrecy to make it look that way.
We arrived at a time where it was rather more apparent that it was a show than ever before.
Very sad that Belle Vue was never replaced in 1982 with something else , so Manchester lost out very early.
There was no reason why WWF and our own traditional wrestling couldn’t have lived side by side. Sure the kids would have been drawn to the glitzy American flying through the air bollocks but our generation would have stayed loyal to what we knew and loved had it been run better. Everything changes and if wrestling had just shifted emphasis a bit it could still have been as good today.
Towards the end of the TV era, I had become a father, so my priorities were very different, and if I did see any Wrestling on TV, it all looked rather jaded. The last couple of times I saw Big D, he was suffering from Bell's Palsy, and in one tag match, it looked like they were wrestling in a junior school assembly hall, not many rows of seats, and a million miles away from the Royal Albert Hall.
Even Kent Walton himself sounded like he was tired. One of the last times I saw Skull Murphy on TV, he had some sort of red face paint around his eyes, trying to emulate the US wrestling fad for that, but it looked like a kid had drawn on his face with crayons. Kent said something like "I think his father would have been very disappointed", sounding like an old Uncle, saddened on seeing his nephew walk in with an earring in.
ITV had started showing WWF of course, by this point, in the Saturday slot, and various ITV regions were showing US Wrestling in the middle of the night ( I could pick up Tyne Tees TV, and Central TV, as well as my local, Yorkshire TV) and as we have said, once young kids saw Hulk Hogan and the British Bulldogs, it was always going to be a slog to get them interested in Big Daddy.
The product didn't move with the times, and in some ways, it didn't need to. Boxing has not changed, except for elaborate entrances, the bouts themselves are the same as always. The industry should have been shifted, to centre around a new generation of younger stars, with a mix of solid old pro's as well.
As usual Powerlock talks sense and there's nothing I would disagree with. As to the original question by 1988 I just didn't care. It had all become such a shadow of the wrestling I had loved I felt relieved but saddened this day had arrived. Dyke was responsible for a successful tv company, not for wrestling, so he was in no way responsible.
Good observation, Powerlock, about Kent's commentating being different or inhibited on All Star bills. Maybe he had had such intimacy with the JP promoters and had built the whole thing up on tv for them, with them, over thirty years that, with the whole clearly going nowhere and Kent pensionable, well, he just didn't have the commitment.
To answer Peter's question objectively, and considering the new technologies and wealth arriving in the Thatcher years and the related new viewer expectations, and on ITV advertiser expectations, it's very hard to say Greg Dyke did his job wrongly.
Disagree the end of ITV Saturday afternoon broadcasts killed wrestling or even meant the end of wrestling on ITV.As soon as the early hours of Christmas Day 1988 there was a WWF broadcast on ITV.Of course Channel Four in Wales continued well into the 1990s with commentary in Welsh and some of the long established venues such as Wolves Civic Hall and the Royal Spa Centre Leamington Spa continued with shows just not as often. Indeed the Spa Centre managed to have a show earlier this year before the plague struck!
All Star were brought onto the scene far too late, ITV should have been cracking the whip with Joint a good few years before they did, a lot of the tv product they provided was simply not good enough.The Big Daddy show was well past its sell by date, but the Crabtrees grip over everything at Joint was self centred and blinkered.
It was crazy that the top of the bill wrestlers could get a better pay day from a promotion that didn't have a tv deal, so it was inevitable that ITV brought in All Star, but it was too late, the rot had truly set in. I also thought that Kent Walton was uncomfortable and not his usual laid back self when commentating on All Star broadcasts. Viewing figures were dropping as were attendances at shows, particularly Joint Promotions shows, not necessarily because of the Bill's but because Max's selfish booking generally devalued the skills of the roster which in turn prevented the wrestlers reaching the drawing potential they should have.
We can blame Greg Dyke but he had a hell of an accomplice in Max Crabtree.