nostalgia
thewrestlingpress.com
Why the 1980s was a
Words: Phil Austin
A
s someone born in 1970, my formative years took place in the 1980s. the decade of thatcherism, some great pop and rock music, the birth of the
home computer and videogaming, and a decade that has some of the most memorable television programmes of any, the 1980s really were one of the most exciting for a youngster craving entertainment. and it was the 1980s that brought me to professional wrestling, first in watching itV’s world of sport wrestling on saturday afternoons, and then discovering the replacement, the wwF.
In fact, the 1980s was one of the most exciting of any decade for professional wrestling. It certainly shaped the industry like none other. Territories died out, Jim Crockett Promotions really pushed forward into one of the best wrestling organisations in the US, and the WWF took over worldwide. Meanwhile in the UK the British wrestling scene started to sputter, and eventually left
television, while Japanese
wrestling continued to provide some of the most outstanding competition anywhere.
The members of the
Deathvalleydriver.com website are currently celebrating this wide and varied decade of wrestling. The ‘80s Project’ has a team of volunteers scouring the entire library of all 80s wrestling currently available, selecting the very best 100-200 matches from each promotion or territory, and then offering the DVD sets of each promotion to any member of the board who wants to get a copy and then vote for
12 worldwide wrestling magazine twP
their favourite bouts, with the aim of then compiling a ‘definitive’ chart of the best matches from that promotion. Already released are sets on the WWF, ‘Other Japan’, Memphis, Mid South and New Japan, with a Texas set being released in June.
So what better reference point to take when discussing just what made 80s wrestling so tremendous? Most of us will only really know of 80s wrestling in terms of the WWF or the NWA, with maybe a smattering of New Japan or All Japan thrown in. But 80s wrestling had so much more to offer. With this occasional series (which will be added to as I get through each additional DVD set), I aim
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