British Monsoon
Member
There's too big of a gap between British wrestling and American wrestling to properly compare - you had guys like Big Daddie and Kendo Nagasaki who were more 'characters', but that was perceived as American influence on the British sport of catch-as-catch-can wrestling. For the most part, it was entirely presented as a sport - there was very little in the way of promos and any character displayed was almost entirely through their in-ring work. The crafty veteran who resorts to cheap tactics even when he doesn't need to, the plucky up and comer looking for that one big break, the honourable sportsman who's just out there in the spirit of competition, etc. Plus, often you'd find a wrestler's background providing a good deal of his character - the posh, private schooled southerner, versus the northerner who grew up to a poor coal mining family, for instance.
Also, you say not everyone can be a tough guy, but that was the ideal - wrestlers were MEANT to be tough guys. Characters were mostly reserved for comedy wrestling (Catweazle, for example). Perhaps that's part of why British wrestling struggled to make it out of the 80's, while WWF and WCW only grew in popularity over here.
Dragonzord said:
Finlay's gimmick was that of an Irish traveller (gypsy). There wasn't much to it; he was Irish. The English fans disliked the Irish and they especially disliked travellers, so it worked for some easy heat.
Dragonzord said:
I'm not actually much of an O'Reilly fan - he's technically sound, but can't sell for shit. My issue was more with people who don't watch or no longer watch indie wrestling shitting on indie wrestling - it's a trend around here and it often seems like there's far more detractors than those who actually watch any of the numerous products available.
