Friday 11 October 2013

Puroresu in Brigg

So I was flicking around Facebook the other day, when something caught my eye. It was a message from the Grimsby Wrestling Academy page. I had greatly enjoyed their show at Central Hall I wrote about last time I blogged and then I saw the words that just about blew my Japanese pro wrestling loving  mind. GWA's associate promotion, Real Deal Wrestling (a truly appropriate name by the way) are going on tour. Their headline attraction for this tour will be Último Dragón. Yes that Último Dragón, the most decorated pro wrestler of all time. The man who held ten titles at once. The man who developed Jap-Lucha into an art form, the guy who left Japan at 22 years old because he didn't feel he was getting anywhere and went to live in Mexico because he though he might do better. Turns out he did, but emigrating at 22 years old to another country where they don't even use the same alphabet and wrestle the opposite way round to everyone else? There is a man with guts. Here is the kicker, on the 26th of October he is coming to Brigg. Yes Brigg. My home town, the place they made me Mayor of. It just made me squeal in a way I am not sure I am comfortable with, but hey. So the next stop is calling my Dad. He said "Último Dragón? Really? That Último Dragón? The guy who wrestled Jushin Thunder Liger in front of 64,000 people in the Egg Dome Último Dragón?" Good head for stats my Dad, and great wrestling.

Back in the day Brigg wasn't really a hot bed for wrestling. I attended a few shows in Brigg at the old Corn Exchange before it was pulled down. Bi monthly Wednesday night shows where headlined by some very good wrestlers who where sadly in the place between the tail end of the first TV era and the second coming of British wrestling into the mainstream that we are getting to now. Or as they are known the wilderness years. The highlight for me was a visit by "Bomber" Pat Roach, then still well known as an actor rather than a wrestler from his time in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Indiana Jones. The shows where good, any live wrestling show is good, and I will watch any wrestling anywhere, but they did what they said on the tin. Well rounded family entertainment and it was part of a traditional loop that included Doncaster, Lincoln, Scunthorpe and Cleethorpes from the old Joint Promotion days. They shows where well supported and I was glad when they kept going at the Leisure Centre. I was especially glad when some of the countries top talents came down in the early 2000's like Jodie Fleisch and Alex Shane who where really making a splash with the FWA at the time. This one will be my first in a while in Brigg. Because hell or high water wouldn't stop me getting to this show. 

So while The Ancholme Lesuire Centre isn't Korakuen Hall in Tokyo or Arena Mexico in Mexico City we can go and celebrate one of the most varied, talented and just plain gob smackingly good wrestlers that has ever lived. A man who started Dragon Gate wrestling in Japan (so you can thank him for Evan Bourne and Adrian Neville being in the WWE) and Toryumon Wrestling in Mexico. Who is highly respected as a grappler and as a teacher, running dojos in Japan and Mexico. I strongly recommend you catching Dragon on this tour, you may never get another chance to watch someone this good. I also recommend the under card because it features some of the finest young talents Grimsby Wrestling Academy has produced. They are exceptional, as we say at our 'ouse; New Japan good. 


I will also be bringing down the boys and girls of TNA Fan Forum for whom I write the original Sheriff Lonestar's PPV of the Week. There has been discussion about coming up North or moving over a town a two for a night out and it seems this is the one. So I will be glad to be their host, because this show will deliver. 

More information is available here;
https://www.facebook.com/realdealwrestling

Tickets here;
http://www.event-tickets.org.uk/events/real-deal-wrestling-2013-brigg/

And just so you can see what its like to be world class;



Anyone got any streamers?




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