Midge Ure, Cromer Pier, 20th May 2005 - Show Review

It’s not often that a musical legend comes to my hometown of Cromer, and Midge Ure is a legend. One of the founding fathers of both Band Aid and Live Aid returned to the Norfolk coast for his one-man show, and this writer knew he just had to be there.

WWE Raw, May 2nd 2005 - TV Review

It's been a while since I've done this, so here we go - live from Boston, Massachusetts, it's the WWE's Monday Night Raw! (Although it's actually early Tuesday morning here. Very damn early!)

The show starts with Eric Bischoff making a very rare appearance, congratulating Batista on his title defense while Big D snogs around Christy Hemme. Uncle Eric tells us of the Gold Rush tournament to crown the new number one contender. No doubt one of the FWA fan boys will complain about the WWE stealing their names now.

The opener is the first match in the tournament, as Christian faces Kane. With all they've done to build up Christian in the past couple of weeks, I was surprised to see him go down to the Big Red Machine, and in a match that didn't last that long. Hardly worthy of a so-called up-and-coming main eventer. If he does get drafted to Smackdown, how can Captain Charisma be considered a top contender to Cena's title. Oh, I forgot to mention, Tomko tries to attack Kane after the bell, as Christian does a runner. And before you ask, yes, we did get the We Want Matt chants. Face it peeps, it just ain't gonna happen!

Christian is then seen running through the corridors, before bumping into Ric Flair. Usual banter between heels who don't get along here.

Then Iron Sheik-lite and his little buddy come down to the ring, still fuming at their lost to the Dream Team the previous evening. Our favourite Arab-American blames his co-hort for the loss, and proceeds to slap and kick him around a bit. But rather than turn face on us, little Daivari remains somewhat loyal to his master, crawling behind him as he leaves the arena.

Next up, the guy we now apparently love, Viscera, takes on Simon Dean. Now does this sound familiar - big black guy suddenly decides that he's now irresistible to all women. It didn't work with Mark Henry, and I don't think it will work now, but please, don't drag Mae Young back out of the crypt. Despite the hype surrounding his arrival, Simon Dean is once again little more than jobber fodder, as Viscera squashes him in between chatting up Lillian Garcia.

After a brief appearance from Legs 11, Triple H complains to Uncle Eric about the fact that he's having to enter a tournament to get a title shot. It's tempting to make a joke about how he normally enters something else to get a title shot, but I won't. Uncle Eric tells Trips he should consider himself lucky to be in the tournament in the first place.

Chris Jericho then congratulates Shelton Benjamin on his victory at Backlash. Hey, what happened to Y2J's heel turn. Anyway, to cut a long story short, both guys are in the tournament.

Brief tribute to Chris Candido. No video package here, showing his tenures in the WWF and WCW. A shame.

Goldrush tournament match two here, as we see something which is more or less a battle of the generations as Shelton Benjamin takes on Shawn Michaels, and proof that a match doesn't need an extensive background story to be a match of the year candidate. If you haven't seen this match yet, watch the repeats. It's a pay-per-view quality match, and it shows that Michaels still has what it takes, and Benjamin is definitely ready to step up a level. After a back and forth match which literally had me on the edge of my seat, Michaels picks up the win after super-kicking Benjamin as he sprang off the top rope here. Get these two in the ring together again, I say.

Backstage, Edge tells us why he's entered into the tournament. I guess you can't have too many title shots, can you? At least that's what Lex Luger used to say. Edge then sorts of confronts Victoria and Lita. Perhaps he's trying to work his way through the women's roster, and was eyeing up Victoria, except that she's got better muscles than him.New tag champs the Hurricane and Rosey make their first title defense next against La Psuedo Froggies. Bog standard stuff here, nothing special to write home about.

Plug time, as we are reminded that the Raw Diva Search is returning, so if you're a brain dead bimbo looking to get your ass on television doing absolutely nothing, get your entrant forms in now.

Edge takes on Jericho in the next Goldrush match afterwards. Edge continues to put in a strong showing. A good match between the two sees Edge eventually winning after a spear. Perhaps the Y2J heel turn is back on after all.

Then it's birthday wishes to The Rock. Is the Great One coming back?

Next up, the Masterlock challenge, and Narcissist-lite offers his latest victim an American football and a jersey. Needless to say that the Mr. Masters remains undefeated.

The final match of the night sees Triple H taking on Chris Benoit, apparently suffering from concussion after bricking it at Backlash, in the final Goldrush tournament match of the night. A match worthy of main event status sees the toothless one fighting back against all the odds, with a little help from Big Dave, to defeating Triple H with the cross-face. Looks like we haven't seen the last of the Big Dave-Trips feud.

Conclusion - one of the best Raws I've seen in a while. A little disappointing that Christian didn't go over, but the first round of the Goldrush tournament delivered two excellent matches, especially the Michaels/Benjamin bout, which earns the Match of the Night award.

WWE Backlash 2005 - TV Review

The WWE presented their latest pay-per-view offering, Backlash, from Manchester, New Hampshire this past Sunday, headlined by the return match between Triple H and Batista, and featuring the return of a legend.

WWE Wrestlemania 21 - TV Review

Well, it's that time of year again. The granddaddy of them all, Wrestlemania 21, came at us from the Staples Centre deep in the heart of Hollywood, and seeing as how everyone else is writing a review of the show.....

WWE Royal Rumble 2005 - TV Review

It's a known fact that after Wrestlemania, the Royal Rumble is my second favourite pay-per-view of the year, which is why I've decided to take a more in-depth look at this year's show.

27th December 2004-2nd January 2005

A Happy New Year to you all, and welcome to the first 2005 edition on Two Sheds On TV, taking a look at wrestling on television during the last few days of the 2004 and the first couple of days of 2005.

The Trials & Tribulations of The Wrestling Channel

When The Wrestling Channel was launched in March of this year, those of us who didn't spend vast amounts of money with tape traders were very optimistic. It meant that since the demise of WCW two years before, British television viewers had a viable alternative to their weekly dose of WWE programming.

But if you were to log onto TWC's forum now, you would find it full of negative comments, with many formally loyal viewers now predicting the end of the channel only seven months since it's debut.

So what has gone wrong? Why are so many people turning against the world's first ever dedicated wrestling channel?

The Rise & Fall of the USWA

For those of you who haven't been reading in the past few weeks.....

In 1988, three regional promotions formed an alliance, Verne Gagne's American Wrestling Association on Minnesota, the Von Erich's World Class Championship Wrestling in Dallas, and Jerry Lawler's Championship Wrestling Association in Memphis. This resulted in a pay-per-view show, the AWA's Superclash III, which was headlined by a title unification clash between AWA Champion Lawler and WCCW Champion Kerry Von Erich, which Lawler won.

But backstage, politics soon destroyed the alliance. Gagne refused to pay Lawler and the Von Erich's their share of the gate and pay-per-view revenue. This meant that Lawler refused to defend his new title in AWA territories, and the Von Erichs were depending on that money to survive.

The Rise & Fall of WCCW

In my last instalment, I chronicled the history of the American Wrestling Association, one of the wrestling promotions that was show when satellite television was first introduced in Britain in 1989. The AWA, and GLOW, were more or less up-to-date when first broadcast, but when the Lifestyle channel finished the GLOW run, they turned back the clock a few years, showing classic wrestling long before The Wrestling Channel ever did.

Think of wrestling in Texas, and you immediately think of two things, the Von Erich family, and World Class Championship Wrestling.

When the GLOW run cam to an end, Lifestyle began showing World Class shows from the early eighties. This was when the territory was still a division of the National Wrestling Alliance, and before Vince McMahon purchased Capitol Sports from his father and began his national expansion.

The Rise & Fall of the AWA

Last week I wrote about one of the wrestling promotions that appeared on satellite television when the Astra service was launched in 1989, the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (GLOW), which was broadcast on the Lifestyle channel.

Lifestyle''s sister channel on Astra was Screensport. During it's time on air the channel showed a wide variety of promotions, including the National Wrestling Alliance, Jerry Lawler's USWA, and a few others. But at the start the most prominent promotion on the channel was at one time one of the big three in America, Verne Gagne's American Wrestling Association.

However, the sad thing is that as far as British wrestling fans were concerned, we saw the AWA towards the end of it's existence. Although it had a national television contract with ESPN, poor business practices and an ever decreasing work force meant that by 1991, the AWA was no more.

Top 10 Supercard Sunday Shows

With The Wrestling Channel having been up and running for just over two months now, I thought I would take the opportunity to take a look back at the segment which has become the flagship of the channel, the Supercard Sunday slot, and take a look back at the past ten Supercard shows, ranking them in order of preference.

The Worst Wrestling Promotion in History

When Sky launched their television service via the Astra satellite in 1989, not only were we given four channels from Sky themselves, but various other channels catering for a variety of tastes. Some of these channels would only last a couple of years or so, and only a handful of them made it on to the Sky Digital platform.

While Sky achieved great success with the WWF, other channels had hit-and-miss affairs with companies such as the NWA, AWA, USWA, GWF, and others.

One particular channel that experimented with wrestling was Lifestyle. During the week they aimed their programming at a female demographic, but at weekends they looked for a family audience, and as Sky's family audience was glued to WWF shows, Lifestyle had a wrestling show of their own, and in my opinion, it was the worst wrestling show I have ever seen.

Founded by David MacLaine in 1986, the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, or GLOW, came to us each week from the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. Each week the show began with the roster dancing in the ring, in full wrestling attire, rapping along to an early eighties synth-pop backing track.

The Stars of TWC

This week for my TWC column, I thought I'd take a look at a few of the wrestlers who seem to be getting more attention on the channel than anyone else.

I'm a JBL Fan - & Proud of It!

I think it was about eight or nine years ago when I saw the first big television match of a man mountain of a wrestler in the WWF. Dressed in a cowboy hat, carrying a cowbell to the ring, and accompanied by his Uncle Zebakiah, Justin "Hawk" Bradshaw put in a hell of an effort against the phenom himself, the Undertaker.

In those days, Bradshaw was just another generic big man wrestler in a company filled with over-the-top and sometimes outdated gimmicks, at a time when they were also being soundly beaten in the Monday Night Wars by a company that would cease to exist just a few years later.

Although I was impressed by his efforts against the Dead Man that day, I never thought that he would ever be championship material. Well, I thought he would enjoy a run as Intercontinental Champion, but as far as the big prize goes, that was certainly a no-no.

Is Mike Tyson WWE Bound?

Well, it had to happen. After nearly twenty years as one of the most feared men in professional boxing, Mike Tyson was knocked out by Britain's own Danny Williams in the fourth round this past Friday night.

Now, a lot of you may be wondering why I'm discussing the exploits of a boxer in a wrestling column. Well, read on.

Mike Tyson is one of the most famous people in the world at the moment, and one of the most controversial. Everyone knows of his exploits in and out of the ring, but you have to admit, at one time, Tyson really was the toughest man on the planet.

A Tribute to "Bomber" Pat Roach

It's a sad fact of life that as you get older, people that you've admired since you were a child pass away, seemingly before their time.

Just a few weeks ago I was watching the old World of Sport shows on The Wrestling Channel one afternoon, and, with a great deal of interest, saw a few matches featuring "Bomber" Pat Roach.

I hadn't seen Pat wrestle since I got hold of an old British wrestling video about fifteen years ago, so my memories of Pat as a wrestler were somewhat cloudy. But seeing him in action, particularly in his match against Ray Steele, reminded me just how damn good he was.

The Trials & Tribulations of Rob Van Dam

When I first heard a few weeks ago that Rob Van Dam's contract with the WWE was up for renewal, a large part of me wished he wouldn't sign an extension.

I first saw Rob Van Dam wrestle during the ECW invasion of Monday Nght Raw in 1997. I was immediately impressed. Showing a great combination of skills and charisma, it was obvious that he would go far in the wrestling world. I continued to watch his career with great interest during his long ECW TV title reign, a championship run that was only ended when he broke his ankle in a match with Rhyno.

When he joined the second ECW invasion of Raw in 2001, this time teaming with the WCW faction to form The Alliance, RVD once again showed the flashes of brilliance that captured my imagination four years previously. His high-flying, hard-hitting, hard-core style made him the most popular member of the Alliance faction, even though he was meant to be a hated heel.

What's in a Name?

What's in a name? Well, if you're trying to forge a career in the wrestling industry, a name is one of the most important things you can have.

Just ask Steve Austin. When he first entered the WWF, he was given the name of The Ringmaster. Nobody gave a rat's ass, and Austin knew it. Wanting to take on a more serious character, Austin went to the creative team and asked for a new name. They gave him a huge list of names that would suit his new serious, cold, serial killer-like character. And right at the top of that list was Chilly McFreeze.

Can you imagine this - "And that's the bottom line, because Chilly McFreeze said so!" Sends a chill down your spine, doesn't it. A short time later, Austin's ex-wife Jeannie accidentally came up with the Stone Cold nickname, and the tag stuck.

Replying to Brock Lesnar's Press Release

Last week, former WWE Champion Brock Lesnar released a statement giving the nine reasons he had quit the company. I thought it would be a good idea to offer my own views on his reasons.

The Demise of Total Wrestling

The international wrestling scene was dealt a tremendous blow this week with the announcement that Total Wrestling magazine was closing it's doors.

To say that this was a surprise to many would be an understatement. In just under two years, Total Wrestling magazine had gained one hell of a reputation on the wrestling scene.

Based in Britain and first published in 2002, Total Wrestling was the replacement for the defunct World of Wrestling and Power of Wrestling magazines. With the legendary Bill Apter as senior editor, and boasting such writing talent as Vince Russo, Mile Altamura and Jon Farrer, Total Wrestling was greeted with great fanfare at a time when more and more wrestling fans relied on the Internet as a valid news source.