Here's a brief, rough extract from current, yet untitled, work-in-progress follow-up to "Turn Left At the Womble". The year I worked at Glastonbury as I couldn't get a ticket. And, as part of that, I was lucky enough to see a wrestling match in the bar I worked. (It's not all Arcade Fire and glamour.) Now read on...
If anyone is old
enough to recall World of Sport (ITV’s Saturday afternoons 1960’s/1970’s equivalent
of Sky Sports) then I expected the wrestling to be a bit like that. World of Sport
had a 45 minute slot of wrestling each week, from 4.00 pm to just as the classified
football results came in. It was recorded in such exotic locations as Barnsley,
Bolton, Croydon, Luton and the like and had to be seen to be believed. I could
go on about it for paragraph after paragraph, but that’s not what this book is
about. Maybe another time. Suffice to say, it is one of those things that, you
can look back on and realise that we all grew up in much simpler and more naïve
times. I think that sometimes repeats of it are shown on cable. It’s well worth
catching up on. I didn’t expect however, that the wrestling would be like the
Las Vegas/WWE American-type glamour fest, all bells and whistles, strobes and pantomime
villanry. As the lights dimmed and the crowd’s (and mine, to be honest) expectations
reached fever pitch, it was nearly time for one of the highlights of the night.
I actually may be building this up a bit too much here; after all, if was
simply a bit of wrestling and messing about in a little bar. On the other hand,
in comparison to the rest of the shift, it was a shoe-in.
There was a bit
of shouting and what may be termed a melee on the edge of the crowd. At first I
thought it was a bit of a fight. Steve nudged me. “It’s all kicking off there,”
he pointed, and then it dawned on us that it was part of the act. I guess that
what wrestling is anyway; not really a sport, more light entertainment. Four wrestling
blokes literally grappled their way through the crowd and into the ring. Just
like a proper fight, a microphone descended from the ceiling. Not quite like
that. I could see someone at the side threading it through one of the ceiling
struts, but it had the same effect. They had however, put on a full show. There
was an MC, complete with bowtie (and wellies, which sort of was appropriate but
odd) and a referee, with one of those black and white striped shirts that American
umpires wear. The wrestlers were introduced, in that over-the-top style that
you’d expect. I can’t recall what they were called, but they were all purportedly
from America save for a Mexican who was wearing a face mask and a spangly
leotard. As soon as the introductions were over it all went off big time with
all four of them in the ring at the same time. They weren’t messing around
either and although it was clearly choreographed, they did throw each other about
in a reckless fashion. The ring juddered under the impacts and there was a lot
of booing and cheering from the crowd. From our vantage point it was hard to
see exactly what was going on but there was clearly one baddie who relished
winding the crowd up and used every excuse to fight dirty. (The words “baddie”,
“fight” and “dirty” must really be considered only in the context of “professional”
wrestling by the way.) The Mexican chappie seemed a dab hand at jumping off the
top rope and launching himself at his opponents. Unfortunately he also seemed
pretty adept at getting himself “whupped” , in the quaint American terminology of
the evil baddie with the mullet. We could really only see what was going on
over the heads of the crowd and most of that was the aforesaid Mexican jumping around.
This spectacle lasted surprisingly for an hour or so. Surprisingly because all
four of the wrestlers didn’t let up for a minute. Neither did we, as the cider
kept flowing and the tills kept bulging. The whole bout ended with the Mexican “unconscious”
in the middle of the ring and the evil villain-who thought he had won- being
defeated by the combined efforts of the other two. Which was odd, as a few
minutes earlier they had been knocking seven bells out of each other. They were all helped out of the ring, battered,
limping and bruised and, like one of those “there’s nothing to see here, move
along, now” events, the crowd rapidly dissipated, all the fun over.
(As aside.when all the jollity was over, I nipped out the back for a quick smoke. Standing in the mud, I heard a few chaps laughing together in very strong Brummie accents. I stuck my head round the corner to see the stars of the show chilling out. Wrestling, like a lot of entertainment, is not what it all seems.)
You can see/get/read "Turn Left At The Womble" here:
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