The Wigan Hold (1989, filmed 1988), about wrestling at Riley's Gym, featuring former professional wrestlers and Riley's Gym alumni Tommy Moore and Ernie Riley (son of Billy Riley)
Tommy (Jack Dempsey) and Ernie were regulars on ITV Saturday afternoon in their day. Jack Dempsey cleared up just about every title there was at Welterweight - British and European (like both Dynamite Kid and Danny Collins later) the only EVER Empire/Commonwealth Welterweight champion and the World (European Version) Welterweight Champion. Ernie Riley was British Light Heavyweight champion - he and Billy Joyce dominated the title for about a quarter century 1952-1976, Ernie went to Spain and won the European Light Heavyweight title in '68, held it for a year.
@@White_Z33 Professional wrestling has always been fixed. Both Ernie Riley and Tommy Moore ("Jack Dempsey") from this docu took part in LOTS of worked bouts in their time. So did Roy Wood the AOWC coach. One day Granada TV will open up their film archive and we will see footage of them both in action. They certainly had no moral objections to fixed bouts. Like Tommy said, he used to enjoy watching two professionals in the ring putting on a good show. His problem was with more outlandish content in bouts that was less to do with wrestling skill, Big Daddy being a prime example.
@@White_Z33 Most of Hackeschmidt's fights were fixed. Gotch Vs Hackenschmidt in 1908 when Frank Gotch won the title was real because they could not regotiate a deal. The 1911 rematch was a double cross like Montreal. Hackenschmidt suffered a knee injury (thought to have been the work of an infiltrator in his camp) and his and Gotch's camp came to an agreement that Gotch would win 2-1 and make Hack look good. Instead Gotch trashed Hack to make it a quick 2-0 win for himself. Stories about this leaked to the press at the time and did the wrestling business much damage. Fixed matches go back to the 1830s at least probably centuries longer and there is plenty of documentation of this from the time. In George Hackenschmidt's day, wrestling made its money from gambling scams, in the 1920s it moved to making its money from ticket sales generated by entertaining the punters.
1:45 The Daddy match that Tommy and Ernie put the boot into can be seen in full here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fDMe9WacgK0.html Even Kent Walton is clearly unimpressed - "Not too much to do with wrestling, maybe ..."
It still exists in some form but like everything nowadays not as it was or will be again. Main difference now is the there are no miners left , too much health and safety etc. Catch as Catch can was a hard sport ruled by very hard men the real likes we will never see again.
Cheaper coal from Europe after 1918, oil in the 1960s, strikes in the 1970s and Privitisation endec coal not health and safety. Good upload, hard men refusing to do hard work the hard way brought Britian to a standstill because of the unions, that ended coal the political strikes.
See THESNAKEPITWIGAN (youtube handle) for recent matches etc. Gym still coached by Roy Wood, Riley’s student. Tommy Moore’s (featured here) son Michael, who also trained under Riley, still pops in often during sessions.
