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Professional wrestling in Australia

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Professional wrestling in Australia makes up a small but growing part of Australian culture. Unlike the North American or Japanese products which have large, globally renowned organisations such as World Wrestling Entertainment or New Japan Pro Wrestling with several hundred smaller promotions, Australia has fourteen smaller independent circuit promotions which exist in all but two of the states, those being the Northern Territory and Tasmania. Tours from the North American product are regularly sold out in capital cities such as Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

History

Promotions

Professional wrestling in Australia first gained distinction in the early 1900s, however there was very few shows promoted. Nonetheless, stars such as Clarence Weber, Jack Carkeek, Clarence Whistler and Georg Hackenschmidt were made. As time went on, the sport's popularity began to grow, particularly in the 1930s as people sought to find relief from The Great Depression.

Throughout the 1940s professional wrestling suffered due to World War II but in the 1950s reached new highs as many stars from overseas were imported and created larger crowds and, in turn, a larger market. Established names such as Lou Thesz, Dr. Jerry Graham and Gorgeous George toured the country during the decade.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Australia established its first major promotion in WCW Australia. WCW had a television deal with the Nine Network, the first in Australia to do so and attracted crowds between 2,000 and 9,000 people on a weekly basis. International stars such as Killer Kowalski, Ray Stevens, Dominic Denucci, Mario Milano, Spiros Arion, Karl Gotch, Bruno Sammartino, Gorilla Monsoon and local stars Ron Miller and Larry O’Dea were all involved with the promotion which grew steadily through the 1960s and was a well known product in the 1970s. However, with the introduction of World Series Cricket, WCW was left with no television deal and was forced to close down in 1978. This sent the Australian market into a large decline. With no access to any product anywhere in the world, the Australian market was almost dead until World Wrestling Entertainment became a prominent figure in professional wrestling in the mid-1980s.

Australia depended largely on the North American product from 1985 until the late 1990s. Hosting tours in 1985 and 1986 kept a solid viewing in the sport through programmes such as WWE RAW and WCW Monday Nitro. It wasn't until 1998 when International Wrestling Australia was formed, and then 1999 when both the Australian Wrestling Federation and Professional Championship Wrestling formed that Australia had a local product, despite the presence of sporadic promotions in Sydney and Melbourne. Since then, other promotions have formed around the country. Although these promotions are not attracting quite the crowds that shows in the 1970s were, possibly due to the popularity of the North American market, most promotions still have a strong following.

Wrestlers

Individual wrestlers originating in Australia have struggled for the most part to obtain any international recognition. Perhaps the two biggest names when one mentions Australia are the Fabulous Kangaroos - Roy Heffernan and Al Costello. They are the only Australian wrestlers to make it big in the United States and held the WWWF tag team titles, as well as being inducted into the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame. In more recent times Nathan Jones made two WWE appearances at Wrestlemania XIX and at the Survivor Series later that same year, making him the only Australian wrestler to ever appear on a WWE pay per view event. Jones also appeared on two World Wrestling All Stars pay per views, losing to Jeff Jarrett at WWA The Inception and to Scott Steiner at WWA The Eruption. Only two other Australian wrestlers have appeared on any pay per view event at all - Chuck E. Chaos at WWA The Eruption losing to Jerry Lynn, and Mark Mercedes at WWA The Reckoning losing to Rick Steiner.

Chaos and Mercedes have been major players on the Australian Independent scene, Mercedes being the owner of International Wrestling Australia. Chaos went through a period of massive popularity by Australian standards - being one of the main draws to All Star Wrestling1, a promotion co-owned by the now defunct All Star Cafe at Melbourne's Crown Casino. This promotion's success was partly due to the showing of Monday Night Raw on their television screens after the live show2. Chaos was in a feud with ASW owner Rohan Herbstriet, culminating in a two out of three falls street fight in December 20013. Chaos also participated in a tour in 1999 which included the likes of Marty Jannetty and Too Cold Scorpio.

Other notable wrestlers include TNT - the owner of the Australian Wrestling Federation, Lobo - the founder of the Pro Wrestling Alliance and owner of the Melbourne arm which recently ceased operations, "Jag" Hartley Jackson and Mikey Nicholls who were the first Australians to complete in New Japan Pro Wrestling and Carlo Cannon - who is the first Australian wrestler to train in Canada under Lance Storm.

Notes

  • 1 Crown Casino newletter - November 2001
  • 2 Crown Casino newsletter - regular note monthly
  • 3 wwfdownunder.com - now superseded by wrestling.net.au
  • 4 ASW wrestling show on Channel 31 showed the highlights of this match the following week

Live events

Shows from North American promotions have been held in Australia as early as 1985 when WWE toured through Melbourne, Perth, Newcastle and Adelaide and through Melbourne and Brisbane again in 1986. That was the last Australia saw of a live North American product until WCW did a Nitro and Thunder taping in Melbourne and a Thunder taping in Brisbane in 2000.

The next time WWE came to Australia was for the WWE Global Warning Tour in 2002. A crowd of 56,000 packed into Colonial Stadium as well a pay-per-view audience throughout Asia witnessed the first WWE show on Australian soil in 16 years.

WWE has visited Australia regularly since Global Warning by touring at least once a year since 2003. An independent circuit show was organised in October 2005 called International Assault to further increase the amount of North American product showcased live in Australia.

Television Programming

History

Throughout the 1990s, both WCW Monday Nitro and WWE RAW were broadcasted on free-to-air networks but were put in poor timeslots and were subsequently cancelled because of poor ratings. WWE's major pay-per-views (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, King of the Ring, SummerSlam and Survivor Series) were all shown up until 2001, when every pay-per-view began being shown.

WWE programming returned in 2000 with WWE RAW being shown on Fox Sports on Tuesday nights. SmackDown! followed and was broadcasted on FOX8 Friday nights but was moved to Saturday nights in 2001.

In September 2002 negotiations between FOX8 and WWE fell through and SmackDown! was cancelled. A special NWA-TNA package replaced it in early 2003 but only lasted a year. NWA-TNA pay-per-views were shown once a month throughout 2003 during a time when they were being presented weekly in the United States. WWE pay-per-views were also lost to Main Event in the same deal that cost Australian fans SmackDown. Village Cinemas showed them for a few months until August 2003 when SmackDown! returned on Saturday nights as well as the pay-per-views, starting with SummerSlam. RAW was moved from Fox Sports to FOX8 and was shown on Friday nights. In order to prevent spoiler hunting on the internet, FOX8 moved WWE programming to timeslots closer to their United States air date.

In February 2005, WWE HEAT, WWE Velocity and The WWE Experience were added to FOX8 and set up a large wrestling program on Saturdays and Sundays which now exists today. Despite Heat, Velocity and Experience all being cancelled in the United States the shows are still shown in Australia to fulfill contractual obligations. When SmackDown! was moved to Friday nights in the United States, in Australia it remained on Friday afternoons.

After just over 3 years, Australian wrestling fans are once again being treated to TNA. Beginning with TNA Sacrifice 2006 on May 27 on tape delay TNA monthly pay-per-view events are being broadcasted in Australia. Despite much discussion there is currently no plans to screen TNA iMPACT! in Australia.

WWE announced that on the international market, ECW would replace Velocity, but Foxtel announced that there are no plans to show the ECW show in Australia. After receiving email upon email requesting ECW television in Australia, Foxtel finally laid concerns to rest and confirmed that ECW on Sci Fi would begin broadcasting in Australia starting from September 2, 2006. The WWE Fanatic Series began airing in October 2006.

After a lengthy absence, Australian wrestling will return to television with International Wrestling Australia signing a deal with Aurora Community Television beginning in June. The show will air on Foxtel, Optus Television and Austar. Thirteen episodes of IWA "Main Event" Wrestling are scheduled with a new episode airing each week and a replay that same week.

Pay-per-view

Pay-per-views in Australia are shown on Main Event, the only provider in Australia. Main Event has been broadcasting pay-per-views for both WWE starting in 1999 until the present time and WCW pay-per-views from 1997 until they were bought out in March 2001. Main Event also began broadcasting TNA pay-per-views due to the high demand from wrestling fans. They have been broadcasted since May 2006, starting with Sacrifice.

Other media

  • A fortnightly wrestling program is available online at Sport927 Radio at 12am midnight Thursday night/Friday morning. It covers Australia's interests in WWE, TNA, UFC and the local independent circuit.
  • WWE's mobile service is available in Australia. Content including ringtones, voicetones and wallpapers are available to purchase. The service is available on Optus, Telstra and Vodafone and is charged directly to the phone bill. The mobile alert feature is currently not available.
  • Starting on Sunday December 17 Red Rooster will be selling WWE High Rollers, little monster trucks that you pull back and let go, with their kids meals. John Cena, Shelton Benjamin, Triple H, Big Show and Kane will be available with each character is depicted from the chest up. Each car comes with stickers so you can decorate them yourself.

Promotions

Defunct

Notes
1 Previously Capital Pro Wrestling - now part of PWA.
2 Previously Joint Promotions Wrestling - now part of PWA.
3 Not merged with any company as suspected. Became defunct.
4 No relation with United States promotion of same name. Closed five years before Georgia Championship Wrestling aquired the name.

See also

References

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