World of Sport thread

beakerjoe

So world of sport debuted tonight in ITV, anyone give it a view?

It was taylored to the casual viewer obviously but to someone like myself I didnt like it. Alwx Shane didnt bother me and JR was a positive on commentary. They have some talent, no doubt but I hated Grado going over especially after making Harry Smith look like a real star obly to be elimanted so easily.

El Ligero was fab though, pity he didnt have a better opponent

LeeJM

It was a typical 5pm Saturday evening ITV family show, Very much all about the audience reactions and boo yay type of stuff. It was fine for what it was. The only thing to really bother me was the awful ladders they had. Could ITV or the wrestling guys behind the scenes not source 2 decent double sided ladders? But other than that it was a fun family "Butlins" style of show.

beakerjoe

Yes it had the gladiators/ ninja warrior production feel to it, which for a seasoned wrestling fan like myself is very hammy. The ladders were awful too, agreed Lee

PTH2009

Its not something I'd watch every week like WWE

CastorTroy

I went upstairs just as the ladder match was starting and it was over by the time I came down. Must've been really short.

Don't know what the plan would be if they went weekly. I guess would be only an hour

LeeJM

Oh it was extremely hammy but for the "Saturday evening" audience it was perfect. If it does get pick up for a series then Id imagine we would get 30-60 second personality pieces on the wrestlers to flesh out their characters. As somebody said on Twitter "I cant wait for Big Daddy to debut. He looks like a killer". Just replace the legends bits with actual roster members and its a pretty good tv show. In 2 hours of programming they fit in 4 singles matches, a tag match, a battle royale and a ladder match and none of it felt rushed.

A Brad Maddox Guy

I didn't mind it but I also wouldn't be the main demographic for it either, definitely geared towards family viewing. I watched it with my 8 year old nephew and he seemed to enjoy it but I got the feeling he was getting bored by the time the battle royal came on. If ITV pick it up it might work better as a 60/90 minute show instead of a full 2 hours. The editing was fairly poor though, felt like it missed lots of spots and we must have seen the same few faces in the crowd about 10 times.

Blue_Dabadee

I give it a pass grade since it was a pilot episode.

Agent Coulson

Who is Rachael?

AllGunsBlazing

I watched a fair bit of British wrestling back in the 80's and I'm sorry I missed this. Any ideas if it's to be repeated?

Also, who would've guessed Britain would become such a hotbed for wrestling again?!

Imnotthehulk

Gotta say I thought this was shockingly good. Didn't expect it at all.

The style of the show was spot on. I remember watching World Of Sport back in the day (with my Granny!) and I felt they did a great job getting the tone right. It was a very family friendly show, but there's no harm in that and helps differentiate it from WWE. The crowd was fantastic, almost always alive booing, cheering, and chanting. I'm sure they had been well primed beforehand, but I felt the audience complimented the in ring action very well. A good crowd does wonders in elevating matches.

The only wrestler I could really say I was familiar with was Davey Boy Jr. Grado I wouldn't have known from Adam, and at the beginning of the show I almost rolled my eyes at his entrance. He's got what I would've considered the traditional physique of a classic WOS wrestler. But he did a fantastic job getting me behind him and I'd hope to seem more of him in the future. Amongst all there was no confusion as to who were the bad guys and who were the good guys.

Having to tell a full story arc in one episode was probably it's most limiting factor, set up an underdog, a title chase, an injury angle, and a victory. Being able to add more stories to each episode and stretch these arcs over several weeks would make the shows much more interesting and dynamic.

If this were to get a proper series on UTV I could easily see it holding it's own against a WWE Network UK show.

CastorTroy

Missed Grado's entrance. What music did he have? He seems in better shape than when he first started in TNA.

I noticed it in this and it was mentioned on Boot Camp 2, but is there a reason for the ropes not being as tight? Would Japan be loose or tight?

Snakeweasel

Just watched the title match, bischoff said that one of the first things he did in WCW was to sort out commentary so that they could make people believe in who was in the match, gotta say that I thought JR did a great job of Grado and Mastiff seeming like a big deal

Mr.Nice Guy

This did 1.25 million viewers which leaves its fate up in the air. The number isn't terrible but it isn't that great either. I was listening to Meltzer talk about it and he said the Liverpool vs Man City game didn't help things as the ratings for that were very big. It does go down as the biggest UK rating in decades though.

I haven't seen this yet but I'm going to try and give it a look before Raw.

Losty Dublin

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

This did 1.25 million viewers which leaves its fate up in the air. The number isn't terrible but it isn't that great either. I was listening to Meltzer talk about it and he said the Liverpool vs Man City game didn't help things as the ratings for that were very big. It does go down as the biggest UK rating in decades though.

I haven't seen this yet but I'm going to try and give it a look before Raw.

From the late 80's, some US wrestling, mainly NWA/WCW ran on some of the ITV channels late at night and did quite well. After a few years it was moved to Saturday afternoons during the early 90's. In spite of the fact that it didn't air on all of the ITV channels and that it showed up at various random times of the day or sometimes not at all, it got a few million viewers and was able to back a few UK tours for WCW. At the time Sky1 had been taken off Cablelink in Ireland so the WCW shows on UTV and HTV instantly had a strong audience to work off here.

Anyway, the point of my tangent here is that the audience is quite low and that wresting on the ITV network has done a lot better, albeit 20 years ago.