The Best Is Back

Yet front is not bad. Kris Travis, 6'1", 172#, won all the money at this Preston City Wrestling six-man match on December 3rd's Festive Fury. El Ligero, CJ Banks, Joey Hayes, Martin Kirby, Bubblegum, and Travis, all six men in the ring are favorites of mine. How rare is that? 

British wrestling has never been better. Clearly it takes elements from North American and Japanese pro wrestling, but it's my opinion that by concentrating overall on athleticism and character, instead of body mass and complicated storylines, the UK has US wrestling beat. Obviously, the US (not so much the US, but the WWE) still calls all the shots, and I know many British wrestlers aspire to the WWE, and if pro wrestling is primarily a money game, UK wrestling has far to go. But if "pro" can stand for "proficiency" and "prolific" and "profluent," not just "profits" (yes, I know, I am an embarrassment to rah-rah capitalism), the art and science of catch-as-catch-can wrestling are better expressed in the UK. And in the best tradition of London theater, the performers are versatile in their roles, sometimes heels, sometimes babyfaces ("blue-eyes" in the UK). (In wrestling and in acting, if nowhere else, I am an anglophile.) 

The crystal-clear and tightly edited video I took the captures from can be viewed in its entirety here. The photo of Travis below is by Tony Knox.