I got one or two votes recently in the Doomies and have had some nice comments for my previous British wrestling reviews, so I thought I’d look at something I’ve had in mind for a while.
1991 – British wrestling is effectively long gone from TV, having been cancelled in 1988, but the legend still lives on, and the promotions still active probably were thankful for the WWF having exploded on the scene, meaning that the average punter would just see ‘Wrestling’ on a poster and go see it again regardless of whether it’s Hulk Hogan or Robbie Brookside.
There’s a reason why when you talk about British wrestling it’s still equated to Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks, because those were the big stars during the TV era, but not far behind was the likes of Kendo Nagasaki. In this episode of the long-running BBC arts show Arena (and check out how cool that intro and theme tune is), reporter/producer Paul Yates seeks one of the most desired and hard to get commodities in all of wrestling – a recorded interview with the masked samurai warrior.