So, i've come across an old highlights video from 2006 of a feud I had in a 'backyard wrestling' (I mean I say that, but I stick it in inverted commas because the guy who arranged it put so much time and money in to it, that it almost seems harsh saying that. He booked a hall, sorted out mats, and we sometimes even used a ring) 'company' (for want a better term).
Where better to ask some opinions on wrestling than here?
I think it's pretty cool, but then again, I would say that.
It's mainly a feud with myself (Dan Selby - a face who'd wrestled for ages and therefore had a decent following in the UKBYW community) and Tyrant (a really talented youngster who was rising quick and putting on some extraordinary matches). Basically, we wanted to feud, and my idea was rather than doing the face on face thing, we'd turn him heel and give him a bit of an edge and a reason for battling This all happened when he interrupted a promo where I was telling everyone that I was considering quitting due to injuries. He then did a swerve and just told me I need to go home (paraphrasing), rest up, and don't bother coming back, because it's the young guy's time to shine.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x10kqbx_dan-selby-naw-journey-including-tyrant-feud-2006_sport
(I'm the guy in the black long sleeved top with white patterns on it btw)
We stuck my 'ex' best pal Matt Burton (a good mouth piece) alongside him to heat the feud up a little bit, too.
This video covers all my matches in at the time in this company, including my 3 1-on-1 matches with Tyrant. I'm really proud of the psychology used.
Basically, he and Burton really tormented me and just broke me down, to the point where I ended up literally crying during a promo where I was becoming a shadow of myself (I end up losing to a relative 'rookie' called Ashley Dunn, after making some uncharacteristic mistakes due to me not being 'all there').
I eventually end up regaining my confidence by the final encounter, which would be my last match for this company (due to nagging injuries and such. Hardly a surprise given the surface..).
Anyway, if you have some free time, check it out. It's only 25 minutes long, and covers about 6 months and a whole feud (shame there wasn't the segments in there, too).
I expect nothing but 'shoot' opinions, of course, hence why I come here to ask. It's just for a bit of fun. Always wanted to hear what the outside world thought!
Cheers,
Dan
Where better to ask some opinions on wrestling than here?
I think it's pretty cool, but then again, I would say that.
It's mainly a feud with myself (Dan Selby - a face who'd wrestled for ages and therefore had a decent following in the UKBYW community) and Tyrant (a really talented youngster who was rising quick and putting on some extraordinary matches). Basically, we wanted to feud, and my idea was rather than doing the face on face thing, we'd turn him heel and give him a bit of an edge and a reason for battling This all happened when he interrupted a promo where I was telling everyone that I was considering quitting due to injuries. He then did a swerve and just told me I need to go home (paraphrasing), rest up, and don't bother coming back, because it's the young guy's time to shine.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x10kqbx_dan-selby-naw-journey-including-tyrant-feud-2006_sport
(I'm the guy in the black long sleeved top with white patterns on it btw)
We stuck my 'ex' best pal Matt Burton (a good mouth piece) alongside him to heat the feud up a little bit, too.
This video covers all my matches in at the time in this company, including my 3 1-on-1 matches with Tyrant. I'm really proud of the psychology used.
Basically, he and Burton really tormented me and just broke me down, to the point where I ended up literally crying during a promo where I was becoming a shadow of myself (I end up losing to a relative 'rookie' called Ashley Dunn, after making some uncharacteristic mistakes due to me not being 'all there').
I eventually end up regaining my confidence by the final encounter, which would be my last match for this company (due to nagging injuries and such. Hardly a surprise given the surface..).
Anyway, if you have some free time, check it out. It's only 25 minutes long, and covers about 6 months and a whole feud (shame there wasn't the segments in there, too).
I expect nothing but 'shoot' opinions, of course, hence why I come here to ask. It's just for a bit of fun. Always wanted to hear what the outside world thought!
Cheers,
Dan
Hahaha
ReplyDeletehaha Totally expecting this reaction, man.
ReplyDeleteEven if I get a few legit responses, i'll consider that a success!
Are you sure this isn't footage of James Hetfield kicking Dave Mustaine out of Metallica in the early 80s?
ReplyDeleteHA, i'll take that as some sort of backward compliment any day of the week.
ReplyDeleteI think you're going to care about this more than any of us do- cause with all due respect sir, this is pretty...low-fi. I mean if you had fun, and enjoyed yourself, more power too you, but unless you have a ring and folks paying to get in...it's pretty silly.
ReplyDeleteOh yeh for sure man, of course i'll care more about it than any of you. No doubt.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted some opinions on some of the matches, really!
I'd at least like to think we didn't do the whole light tubes and flying off of houses thing. We at least tried to have some sort of structure.
I guess I just ask you to use your imagination and pretend it's in a ring..?
Bottom line is, I loved wrestling. Had some training (as did most of the guys), but we didn't want to go pro. We wanted to hang out with our friends and have a good time and put on a fun show, even if it was just for us guys, you know?
I did like the part where the chair bounced back up and hit the guy in the mouth. That was creative.
ReplyDeleteWhy the hell weren't you booking when this was going down?
ReplyDeleteThanks man.
ReplyDeleteI'd never seen that before, but was a bit skeptical to actually try it. I couldn't believe how well it come out.
I think it's one of those things where if I tried doing it again, it'd just look shit.
I thought it was sort of an unwritten rule not to talk about one's backyard wrestling past. We should have a thread were everyone comes clean. Anyone who was 15-20 years on old in the late 90's most likely has some fun stories.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see some, man.
ReplyDeleteI think it's only an unwritten rule if you're either:
A) Going in to pro
or
B) Have a shred of self respect
God, I hope that's a Russo/Cornette gag there... If so, bonus points to you, sir.
ReplyDeleteStill better than Chad Bryant's "the catalyst".
ReplyDeleteNot sure what that is man, but i'll take it.
ReplyDeleteSome of these bumps look sick.
ReplyDeleteThanks! Any highlights?
ReplyDeleteI do look back at some of them and just think, fuck man.
or guys who were even younger and tried out many of the moves until their parents discovered it, were afraid that they would some day break each others necks and explained to them that it takes lots of training to perform this stuff.
ReplyDelete*cough*
I almost killed a poor kid with a botched Razor's Edge. I was strutting around like a BAWS... until I looked up to our sun roof and saw the exaggerated look of horror on the face of our camera guy.
ReplyDeleteSome of the throws into the chairs, the suplexes,etc. I took way too many power bombs as a kid, surprised I didn't break my neck.
ReplyDeletegladly stuff like that never happened with us because first and foremost all of us never wanted to hurt our friends. so if (for example) someone wasn't successful in picking someone up for a vertical suplex, he would let the other guy down and try again instead of forcing it.
ReplyDeletelol... i knew this was coming.
ReplyDeleteSomething Ryan Murphy had nothing to do with.
NOTHING.
ALL FUJ.
I was particularly proud of taking the t-bone in to the chairs (the normal chairs, not folding), as no one was expecting it at all. Funny thing is, that didn't hurt. The bit where he followed it up with a diving forearm hurt much more, as I was lucky not to snap my wrist (he landed on my arm between a chair... not cool).
ReplyDeleteAnd yeh, powerbombs are just scary as fuck.
I remember being high as shit with a few friends on a trampoline, and we used to have 'move-offs', where everyone would be given a move or a flip to perform, and whoever did the shittest one would be eliminated. I powerbombed the guy who I mentioned above ('Voodoo'), well, at least got him up for the bomb, fell backwards off of the trampoline and landed back first in to a load of rocks.
Everyone was just in shock, run over to me, then I just started laughing my arse off after being paralysed for like, 3 seconds. So fucked man, really lucky guy.
havent seen the vid yet, but can he do a snapmare?
ReplyDeleteThe one move that alluded me, Fuj.
ReplyDeleteFunny you mention snapmares. Everyone used to fucking lose their shit whenever anyone hit one. Usually the biggest mark out of any 'event'.
At first I thought you were brawling in the aisle, and I was thinking when are these 2 gonna get into the ring, then I realised that WAS your ring, haha. I think it's good all considered, some sick bumps as someone mentioned! I live in London and would have been all over this if I'd found some likeminded people at that age
ReplyDeleteWell, i'll post some clips of our indy show we did when we actually did buy a ring (big mistake - but you live and learn. No regrets and any of cliché you can think of).
ReplyDeleteThanks for watching, man. Glad you got something out of it.
We're actually doing another show this year, probably the final one. I haven't wrestled since 2008 but screw it, we wanted to get everyone back together again and camp out and pretend we're young again.
Really looking forward to wrestling again, actually!
It'll be in Saffron Walden if you wanna come along for a booze up. There's already about 25-30 of us going. Always a good laugh.
You're unfamiliar with the infamous Katie Vick angle? Oh dude. Do yourself a favour and look it up. I don't recall the exact time frame (2003...ish?) and involved Triple H and Kane.
ReplyDeleteOh no, i'm familiar, mate!
ReplyDeleteI was more referring to the edited comment that was late put in ('LOL, but seriously, I don't have any great ideas. DAMMIT, JIM, I'M A BLOGGER, NOT A BOOKER!').
Russo always says he is a 'writer', not a 'booker'.
Yeah cool mate, Essex isn't too much of a trek so let me know details and I'll try make it down. We used to wrestle on a pile of rucksacks when i was at school (i know, ghetto), but that was 10 years ago now. I remember piledriving someone and completely missing the bags. It looked and sounded sickening but somehow he was totally fine...
ReplyDeleteI think when we're younger we kind of just bounce off of shit. It's amazing.
ReplyDeleteErm, are you on Facebook man? That way I can just add you to the group where you can find all the necessary details and all that jazz.
Pretty sure he was going for a "Star Trek" reference there.
ReplyDeleteDamn. I don't watch any sci-fi.
ReplyDeleteI'll just pretend it's a Russo/Corny reference and give him props for that instead, deserved or undeserved.
I see what THEFUJ did there. Awesome bloosom
ReplyDeleteProps to flair4dacashforgold for mentioning this.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to mock you. You're such a nice guy.
ReplyDeleteBut you're making it very difficult not to.
Not too active on the old FB but yeah add me - Niko Calogiros
ReplyDeletehaha It's alright man! I get it!
ReplyDeleteJust added you, dude.
ReplyDeleteI just never understood the allure of backyard wrestling and I was pretty much a mega-fan during the Attitude Era/Super Awesome Fun Times.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I did do some roleplaying, but I still had a hard time taking that very seriously.
I guess having a background in drama probably helped my case.
ReplyDeleteIt was just one of those things.
A load of us in school did it, then started doing it in our spare time in eachother's gardens, then filmed it, then started editing it, and it just ends up having a life of its own.
I wanted to be a wrestler, but not pro, and this was the best most fun route to take, and i've made some incredibly good friends out of it, still some of my best friends to date.
Besides, it kept me off of the streets, kept me out of trouble, and I got to travel all over the country through it (I mean it really took off early 00's. I was on a Channel 4 documentary for it, too, which was an experience in itself).
This post right here explains why backyard wrestling is so stupid.
ReplyDeletelol, too funny.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed the video a lot - I especially liked the classic wrestling stuff in between the sick spots. I wish there was a local wrestling organization in my area that had guys who knew what they were doing and who gave the same effort.
ReplyDeleteThat's 100% true
ReplyDeleteI gotta say...I'm pretty impressed.
ReplyDeleteBoth of you throw great punches and you sold the ones you received quite well. Everything was pretty damn good, actually. The only problem is that stopping to run to the edge of the mats, turning around and running back looked terrible. I've seen guys wrestle on mats, mattresses, cardboard and trampolines before and instead of pretending there are ropes, they would just back up (like Orton does before a punt) and then run forward.
ReplyDeleteWhatever. My critiques are pretty pointless considering I've probably done the same fucking thing.
Appreciate that, thank you.
ReplyDeleteYeh, the old ropes thing was just whatever, really. We could either not whip anyone, but that'd kinda stifle the flow of a match.
Plus, it just become an accepted backyard thing to do. You really didn't even notice it after a while.
Heh- some friends and I did some backyard wrestling on a trampoline, except we wrestled for real (amateur-style with no punches and stuff). Holding someone down for a 3-count is a BITCH in real life. Doing lifting moves is, as well.
ReplyDeleteWe had great fun with it, ESPECIALLY doing Royal Rumbles, though one kid kept crying every time he got dumped off the edge (yes, we actually threw each other off a trampoline for real- though it was more like "shoved off while he tried to hold on to the side") and hit himself on the metal stands or something, and the parents came out to make us stop. Goddamn crybabies.
For marking out for a snap mare?
ReplyDeleteYou're missing out.
Great advice for backyard wrestlers. If the ropes aren't there, don't pretend they are; just create separation.
ReplyDeletehaha Yeh, Chokeslam was always the 'easy' (seemingly) one to go for for any oaf that wasn't massively in to wrestling.
ReplyDeleteI let big pal of mine chokeslam me 7 times on to the concrete school play ground at the end of break for no fucking reason at all, other than to get a pop out of me. Admittedly, most of the bumps were properly poor as shit, but still, it's a half arsed anecdote for you.