BRM Reviews the ITV World Of Sport Pilot

[Big Red Machine]

Jim Ross & Alex Shane are on commentary.

MATCH TO CROWN THE FIRST EVER WORLD OF SPORT CHAMPION: Grado vs. Dave Mastiff (w/Sha Samuels & Johnny Moss)- 4/10
The bookers decided that the best way to start off would be by killing the credibility of the promotion by including f*cking GRADO in a title match. Figuring that no further harm could possibly be done, Alex Shane decided to kill off the kayfabe credibility of the promotion by telling us that Grado was one of the two men chosen by a panel of supposed experts. He and Ross actually did the best job possible of justifying Grado’s presence in this match, but the problem is that he is… well… Grado. When I see Grado I don’t think Dusty Rhodes or Big Daddy (the two men Ross compared him to). When I see Grado I think “this is what would happen if you took Colt Cabana at his absolute most annoying, gave him a pill that made him a million times more annoying than that, injected some R-Truth DNA into him, then you gave the same pill to Hornswoggle, and then Colt and Hornswoggle had a baby… and then that baby had spent his entire childhood at a school that specialized in teaching people how to be really annoying.”

Grado tried to talk, but Dave Mastiff and two other big, hairy, mean-looking dudes showed up on the stage and Mastiff immediately became my favorite wrestler in this promotion by telling Grado, “you just stop right there. You shut your filthy gob.”
Alex Shane also told us that Sha and Moss were out here with Mastiff because they were both pissed that the undeserving Grado got this spot instead of them, so now they want to make sure he loses. This was a lot of info being dumped on us extremely quickly, but that’s kind of what you have to do with a wrestling pilot if you want to make it exciting in a way that is more than just “here’s a bunch of cool matches,” and Shane did a very good job of presenting it in a way that was easy to internalize.

The match itself was short and unimpressive. Yes, they told their story well (although it would have been better with a babyface who isn’t so annoying I enjoy seeing him get punched in the face), but the match wasn’t exciting and barely went five minutes. It was a five-minute house-show match from the 90’s. This is not something that is going to make me eager to watch more.

RACHEL INTERVIEWS WORLD OF SPORT GENERAL MANAGER MR. BEASLEY- very bad.
Rachel is standing there with this big smile on her face and talks about “what an amazing opening match that was,” seemingly completely oblivious to this huge, controversial heel finish that JR and Alex Shane have spent the past minute and a half getting all bent out of shape about. Mr. Beasley was also all smiles and didn’t seem to have any problem with the finish, either. This created such a huge disconnect with me. It was as if they were watching an entirely different match.
Finally Grado showed up all upset (as he should be) to yell about the finish. Then the three heels showed up and Mastiff rubbed the belt in Grado’s face so Grado shoved him and Mr. Beasley whistled for security to come break this up.
After a commercial break, Jim Ross sends us back to Rachel and Mr. Beasley. Rachel asks Mr. Beasley if he has “had a chance to review the footage.” Umm… what’s there to review? It was pretty clear what happened to me, to the commentators, and to the fans at the arena, all on the first watch. The only way this makes any sense is if THE PROMOTER DIDN’T EVEN BOTHER TO WATCH THE FIRST MATCH, WHERE HE CROWNED HIS NEW CHAMPION.
Mr. Beasley declares that “foul play will not be tolerated” in World Of Sport because it would send a bad message to the children, so Dave Mastiff will have to wrestle again tonight and defend his title, and he will face... no, not Grado, because that would actually make sense. Instead, he will face the winner of a battle royale.

WORLD OF SPORT HISTORY VIDEO PACKAGE- this focused entirely on people from the old run, which is fine and all, but you really need to be doing something to make us care about the wrestlers we’re going to see tonight. This was at least the third time in the less than twenty minutes of run time so far when they’ve gone out of their way to list a bunch of retired wrestlers, while I still have no idea who will be on this show aside from the four men we’ve already seen.

LADDER MATCH FOR A SPOT IN THE #1 CONTENDESHIP BATTLE ROYALE: Kenny Williams vs. Sam Bailey vs. CJ Banks vs. Delicious Danny- 6.5/10
WHAT?! A ladder match for a spot in a Battle Royale? At this point I’m certain that this show is being booked by Vince Russo’s British cousin.
Everything they did was good, but the match only went about eight minutes, and I was not given any reason to care about any of the wrestlers involved.
Also, in case you were wondering, in Europe they still do call it a “European Uppercut.”

ANOTHER VIDEO PACKAGE ABOUT OLD WRESTLERS- extraneous

VIPER vs. ALEXIS ROSE- 3.75/10
Viper is a large woman (she was 150% her opponent’s size) who carries a live snake to the ring with her. This was a slightly more athletic version of the big-person vs. small-person match we saw in the opener, except that- as Alex Shane for some reason felt the need to point out- this is the only match on the show where absolutely nothing is on the line, so I really didn’t care about much of anything they did.

RACHEL TRIES TO INTERVIEW DAVE MASTIFF- he tells her that her questions are stupid (I wouldn’t quite call them stupid, but they were close), then says that he is going to complain to Mr. Beasley about having to wrestle again. JR condemns him for being “a rude man” about three times in a row after this ended.

ANOTHER VIDEO PACKAGE ABOUT THE OLD WORLD OF SPORT- this one focused on the fans and about the old wrestlers’ gear. It, too, was pointless.

WINNING TEAM ADVANCES TO THE #1 CONTENDERSHIP BATTLE ROYALE: The Coffey Brothers vs. Ashton Smith & Rampage Brown- 6.5/10
A good, solid babyface-in-peril tag team match.

RACHEL TRIES TO FIND OUT WHAT IS HAPPENING IN MR. BEASLEY’S OFFICE- bad.
Samuels and Moss block her way… but then just let her through. Mastiff is threatening Mr. Beasley but he doesn’t give in. He says that he has a special guest official for the battle royale. Also, he says that Samuels and Moss will be in the match, so Mastiff might wind up defending his title against one of them. They’re the ones who cheated! Why are they now being rewarded with an opportunity that is meant to be a punishment for the man who their cheating aided?

It is finally confirmed to us that Grado will be in the #1 contendership battle royale. He should have been the first name announced.

WINNER ADVANCES TO THE #1 CONTENDERSHIP BATTLE ROYALE: El Ligero vs. Zack Gibson- 6.75/10
Ligero got the early advantage with his babyface Lucha stuff. Gibson cut him off by catching him on an attempted diving hurricanrana off the apron and powerbombing him onto the announcers’ table, but they missed the shot because they decided to cut to some children in the crowd instead. Gibson worked over the arm but Ligero came back to get the win. This was the best match so far, in terms of both action and storytelling.

JR seems confused about what the deal is with the mystery person in the battle royale. It sounded to me like Mr. Beasley said it would be someone to be a special guest referee or enforcer, but JR kept saying it was a mystery wrestler.

RACHEL INTRODUCES US TO THE WRESTLERS IN THE BATTLE ROYALE (aside from El Ligero because he hasn’t gotten backstage yet)- bad.
Rachel’s wording here- that these guys were “six of the seven” wrestlers in the battle royale (plus El Ligero as the seventh) implies that JR is wrong. No one was on the headset to correct Jim? That’s kind of an embarrassing screw-up to have in your pilot.
Wait… now she is saying there is a “mystery eighth man.” This is SOOO confusing.
As for the wrestlers we were supposedly being introduced to, barely any of them got to talk and we learned nothing new about any of them. One of the bad guys told Rachel to “stop stirring the pot.” That’s as close as this got to having any purpose whatsoever.

#1 CONTENDERSHIP BATTLE ROYALE- 1.25/10
Well… the match is starting and there are only seven wrestlers in the ring. Now I’m even more confused. Or maybe less confused, because maybe this means that seven is the correct number? I’m so confused I don’t even know anymore.
Moss and Samuels worked together to eliminate everyone else but Grado, and when it was down to the two big, mean, scary heels against Grado, Davey Boy Smith Jr. made his entrance. That seems pretty unfair for him to be able to wait until half of the field is eliminated before even entering the match. He beat up both heels by himself, getting big pops for all of his dad’s old spots. This went on for a few minutes before they were finally able to work on him together and eliminated him… but not before he got a completely unnecessary “pinfall” on one of them, which looked really stupid.
So we reset everything, with the heels once again bearing down on Grado. He got shined for a moment, they cut him off, they got their heat, then he came back and eliminated both of them. Snore. It was a battle royale. The only moments where it was exciting were when Davey Boy Smith Jr. showed up, but even then it still wasn’t particularly exciting because all that did was temporarily shift the mantle of the all-but-certain winner away from Grado until DBSJ was eliminated.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Samuels took out Grado’s knee. He and Moss bore down on Grado again but again Davey Boy Smith Jr. came out and beat them both up by himself. Medical people came out to check on Grado’s knee, teasing that he wouldn’t be able to compete. When we got back from commercial Grado was not in the ring and the announcers continued to tease that Grado wouldn’t be able to compete.

WORLD OF SPORT TITLE MATCH: Dave Mastiff(c) vs. Grado- 1/10
Mastiff entered first to build up the suspense about whether or not Grado would be able to wrestle. Moss and Samuels came out to ringside with Mastiff, but they were immediately ejected from ringside. Good. Allowing them to stay out there after what happened in the opener (which was the basis for the story of this entire show) would have been idiotic. Personally, I would have had it announced that they were barred from ringside before they ever came out. This was the referee at least looks smart, but not having them barred from ringside in the first place makes Mr. Beasley look stupid, and he really hasn’t been impressing us in the common sense department as is.
To continue to waste time, Mastiff cut a promo burying Grado. This finally brought out Grado, with a bunch of paramedics trying to stop him. Mastiff ran up the ramp and took Grado’s knee out again. He also bodyslammed him on the ramp. The referee said that the match will only start if the competitors are in the ring, so Mastiff drags Grado to the ring and we’re finally underway.
Mastiff spent a few minutes destroying Grado’s knee even more. While this was happening J.R. once again compared Grado to Dusty Rhodes. I don’t know what kind of grudge JR had against Dusty, but that was WAY out of line. Not cool, Jim.
Mastiff eventually went for a spear in the corner (they claimed it was his cannonball finisher, but he would have had to really screw that move up to miss it in such a way that he ran his shoulder into the ringpost. Then Grado hit a cutter and won the title. Yeah. Apparently Dave Mastiff, the big scary top heel monster, can be put down by just two moves. The match proper barely went three minutes.

This show was really miserable to watch for many reasons. The storytelling was a terrible combination of clichéd and ridden with plot-holes, and the wrestling was lightyears away from being good enough to make up for it. Aside from Grado they did a terrible job of making you care about any of the wrestlers, which made the direction they were going in quite obvious. I have always said that something have an obvious direction is not by itself enough reason to say it was bad, but this had nothing else helping it along, either. This was like watching one of those TNA: One Night Only shows where they stick random guys in random, short matches and the winners advance to a battle royale at the end of the night, but instead of not giving a sh*t because there was nothing on the line, this show had something on the line but gave me no reason to care about the characters, and this was only half as long so the matches were even shorter, too.
The other thing about this show that made it hard to watch was that before returning from each commercial break and periodically during the show as well (sometimes in text form, sometimes spoken by a wrestler), we were given the following disclaimer:
“All WOS wrestlers are highly trained professionals. Never try to copy any of the stunts performed on the show.”
Don’t get me wrong: I completely understand why they felt the need to do this. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop it from taking me out of the proceedings, as being reminded that wresting is a work often does. In hindsight, I think the word “stunts” is what bothered me more than anything else, as it implies a cooperation that “moves” does not.

This was intended as a pilot, and if the weekly show is anything like this, I sure as hell won’t be watching. The only bright spot was the announcing, which was quite great. That being said, we still have some…

STUPID ANNOUNER QUOTES:
1. Alex Shane- “the referees have been given special powers to make sure this one stays within the rules.”
Shouldn’t that be in the standard set of powers they are granted? And for all matches?

2. During the main event Shane would repeat his above line, and then followed it up by saying that the referee was being lenient here because the referee didn’t want a match this important “to end on a disqualification.” I always hate that stupid line, but saying it right after claiming that the referees were given extra authority to ensure that everyone would 100% follow the rules is even sillier. The other big issue here is that, when Alex said it, no one had actually done anything that would warrant a DQ yet.

[cero2k]

right off the start, you can't judge UK Grado like you judge US Grado, two completely different things. Grado is the Daniel Bryan of the UK in terms of underdog support

[Big Red Machine]

right off the start, you can't judge UK Grado like you judge US Grado, two completely different things. Grado is the Daniel Bryan of the UK in terms of underdog support

And his promo here wasn't terrible (although I hate that he has to do his stupid strut even while he's selling). It was just that the match wasn't very good (mostly because it wasn't given the time to be).

[Big Red Machine]

Lance had the same problems with the booking that I did. He and Cyrus both had the extremely practical thought that if you are going to be bringing JR in to call the matches, you should let him look over the shows and make booking changes as necessary.

[cero2k]

how is even booking these shows?

[Big Red Machine]

how is even booking these shows?

Unknown, I believe. The closest I've heard to anything was someone (I'm pretty sure it was Meltzer) say something along the lines of "this is TV executives' vision of the wrestling they think people want," which would explain both the huge nostalgia focus as well as the crash-TV style booking/overbooking (in other words, the British 80's + the Attitude Era). Whoever it is, I hope they take Lance and Silas' advice. I don't know how JR would be as a booker (the few semi-recent suggestions of his I have heard seem very stuck in the 80's... well, he is a Bill Watts protege), but if I were him I would be a bit anxious to prove my chops on my own, and depending on the taping format they use (my guess would be something similar to what TNA does), it would be that much work, especially if he just limited himself to "you tell me what direction you want and I will book it for you" (I believe this is often what would happen in Florida, where Eddie Graham would make the big decisions like "we're making Dusty our top babyface" but leave it up to whoever his booker was at the time to actually come up with the angles), as oppose dot a full-on "I decide everything from the angles to the direction to who to bring in" that we normally think of today.

[cero2k]

I don't know if Ross taking over booking is the best solution, because judging by his podcast, it's like we would really get the actual World Of Sport. But i do agree that Ross should be used at least as a consultant with the overall booking and direction of the promotion

[Big Red Machine]

I don't know if Ross taking over booking is the best solution, because judging by his podcast, it's like we would really get the actual World Of Sport. But i do agree that Ross should be used at least as a consultant with the overall booking and direction of the promotion

I'd probably prefer that to this.