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I've been playing around with one of those AI art generator things, generating images for some of the old Anglo-Force characters in a ...

Friday 15 March 2019

RE-POST: 1 Stop Wrestling 8th January 2003

When the bods at 1 Stop Wrestling approached me about writing a series of exclusive columns for them, at first I was reluctant to accept their offer. When I first started writing on the Internet nearly three years ago, the guy I consider to be the best writer out there, SamJerry, told me never be exclusive to anyone, that your work should be seen by as many people as possible.

But ever since 1 Stop Wrestling began, they have been great supporters of the World Association of Wrestling. They've helped promote the company a great deal over the past few months, and this is my way of thanking Brett Summers and Chris Hatch for their help and support. So while my regular Two Sheds Review column wings it's way across the world wide web, visitors to 1 Stop Wrestling will get an exclusive dose of the Two Sheds medicine.



I thought that in my first column here, I'd tell you all about how I got interested in wrestling in the first place. Like many wrestling fans in their thirties, my first taste came on Saturday afternoons in the early seventies. I can't give an exact date or even year, because it happened so early in my life.

During the week Mum had a staple television diet of soap operas and game shows. It was only at weekends that she let my Dad get his weekly dose of televised sport, which, in the main, consisted of Dickie Davies and World of Sport. Of course, part of the does included the wrestling, sandwiched between the half-time scores and the full-time results.

Mum never complained when Dad watched the wrestling, probably because Dad never complained when she watched her soaps.

By today's standards, Dad would be termed a wrestling mark. He would cheer the good guys, boo the villains, and believed everything he saw, which no doubt would horrify many of today's Internet smart marks.

Children often rebel against their parents. It's a part of growing up. Perhaps this is why I always seemed to love the villains. The bad guys, be they Mick McManus, Kendo Nagasaki, Giant Haystacks, or whoever, always seemed to have more fun. Dad would have none of this though. The heroes would have to win, no matter what!

Dad's interest in wrestling seemed to wain towards the end of the ITV run in 1988, but in 1989, when we were only the second family in Cromer to get satellite television, Dad renewed his love affair with wrestling, this time with the mighty World Wrestling Federation as his mistress. Once again he cheered for the heroes, for Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior, and booed the villains, ranting about the conduct of Randy Savage, Ted DiBiase and Bobby Heenan.

Dad died of cancer in 1991. During the last few weeks of his life, when I visited him in hospital, Dad always asked me what was happening in the wrestling, he missed it that much, despite the pain he was suffering.

My saddest regret is that Dad isn't around to see that I'm working in a sport he loved so much. He would have loved it, so much so that he would have driven me to every show, as well as helping out backstage. He would have loved to hear the stories that Ricky Knight takes so much pride in telling me, and I get the feeling that my good mate Julia, Sweet Saraya to you lot, would probably have loved him for the old smoothy that he was.

My Mum and my big brother Paul may have been the two people who encouraged me the most when I first began to write, but more than anything my Dad is responsible for choosing the subject matter that made me famous, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

Thanks old man. I'll miss you always.

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