My copy has this insert pasted in, I was wondering if anyone had the story behind it?

I tore a knee ligament in a match (while rolling my opponent back for a pin!), the pain was absolutely blinding, probably worse than when I broke my back, but to the fans I think it probably didn't look much worse than a twisted ankle, so it didn't really get much sympathy. In response to the original question, my knowledge is from a different era so take it for what you will, but most wrestlers have a "the show must go on" mentality when it comes to injuries that happen during matches, so they just adapt and do what they can. In the moment you don't tend to assume the worst, you often just assume you've 'pulled' or 'twisted' something, and you just need to shake it off and carry on. Injuries in general are extremely common, it's a very physical business, most of the time we just didn't know how serious they were until a Doctor told us. The very nature of wrestling also makes it very easy to camouflage an injury, and when something 'goes wrong' on a show it can completely take the wind out of the crowd sails, both from them worrying about the injured competitor, and from losing faith in the safety & professionalism of the rest of the show, so you want to hide the serious stuff from fans when possible.

Good find, thank you! I've spent a fair bit on wrestling books this month so I might have to just cross my fingers and hope it's still around next month...

Thanks Eddie, glad to hear they did well, I'll keep an eye out. Any plans for a reprint or omnibus edition at some point?

Lib Dem MP and all round wally Lembit Opik did some stuff with Welsh Wrestling Lembit Opik is hospitalised by Kade Callous 2nd June 2012 Welsh Wrestling

Technically wouldn't The Tailteann Games in 1829 BC be Ireland's first wrestling event? 😝

In Atthol Oakeley's book he alludes to other types of fall as alternatives to the traditional pinfall of 2 shoulders on the mat for the count of 3. He mentions a 'rolling fall', which Im assuming to be from the amateur rule of a point being scored when one wrestler's shoulder rolls over the ground for a count of one, does anyone else know what I'm talking about and heard of any others?

The commentating is almost always the most offputting thing in most independent products, it seems like it shouldn't be so difficult to get right. You either get a very Americanised style, loud and brash with lots of forced excitement, usually completely missing the subtleties and storytelling of the match, or the few that do try and at least sound British end up sounding more like a poundshop Alan Partridge, desperately trying to be funny. And that's not even getting into the painfully terrible microphones they usually seem to be armed with.

I need to check my notes, but there's a medieval writer who describes watching wrestling matches at the Cotswold Games, but returned some years later only to find it had morphed into the more barbaric practice of shin kicking, which seems to be the point that it breaks off as a seperate folk wrestling style.

Hey guys, Corey Vandal here. Born in 1986 so I'm a bit of a baby when it comes to this place, but have about 20 years in the business so I don't think I'm shaking this obsession any time soon! I pretty much missed the British wrestling glory years completely, but grew up on my mums stories of the wrestling at Solihull Civic Hall (and her schoolgirl crush on Tony St Clair), and my grandfather was a huge wrestling fan who I think might have tried it himself if he hadn't signed for Wolves. My family also had some dealings with Pat Roach when he had the scrapyard. Also, I think I grew up with Tibor Szakacs/Josef Zaranoff pet bird... My mother worked at The Captain's Locker in Solihull when she was younger, and at some point in my childhood we inherited an elderly cockatiel called Packer from that same pub. It's only been with my recent research that I found the wrestling connection, but found conflicting stories on who the landlord was so maybe someone can clear that up? Noisy little bugger he was... I started out in 2000 at MPW, which was Hammerlock's expansion into the Midlands headed up by Majik & Psycho Steve. Some of you will be happy to know they ran it very old school, with pretty much nothing but shoot grappling for the first few months, and a big focus on keeping traditional British techniques alive. I'd love to find out a little more about Andre Baker and what he was up to before forming Hammerlock, my research says he was trained by Mike Marino & Peter Szakacs, but there's also websites that mention Roy Wood? I wrestled around the UK and Europe till I broke my back in the ring in 2008, then started running shows in Coventry, where I was lucky enough to meet and work with absolute gents like Johnny Kidd, Keith Myatt, Banger Walsh. Then a couple of years back my business partner became a regular at All Star, so that seemed like a good time to step back and take a break. I'm a keen student on the history of British wrestling, with special interests in the sometimes overlooked Midlands, and the forgotten years of the 90's that connects 'my era' to the glory years.