World of Sport for Episode 9 | Preview

By
Mark Blake

Get those handkerchiefs at the ready, we’ve only this episode and one more until the end of the season’s run. Here is the World of Sport Wrestling Preview for Episode 9.

The always great Sha Samuels posted this on his twitter account recently. Here’s a heads up, if he’s happy and excited about something you know it’s gonna be good!

World of Sport for Episode 9

WoS Women’s Championship Match

Folks this match, given at least 15 mins – without ad breaks – will be fantastic. I’m telling you that it will and I haven’t done you wrong yet (and if I have you haven’t told me). Both women have been honing and perfecting their craft around the world over the past few years. But it’s at Insane Championship Wrestling where they began their merry dance.

These women have battled each other more times than I can count and found their chemistry at the same time. In 2006 at Fear And Loathing IX both women, along with Carmel Jacob, wrestled for the ICW Women’s title in a fantastic match, a match where I think their in-ring chemistry clicked, and they haven’t looked back since.

Seriously, folks, this match could and should be the bomb!

Entire Male Roster Rumble?

At the end of last week’s show, WoS Wrestling’s Stu Bennett announced that there would be a never seen before the match that the entire male roster would be involved in. The winner of that match would take on WoS Wrestling Champion Rampage.

So what kind of match are we looking at here?

There are 16 members of the male roster involved so you can count out a Battle Royale as that’s already been featured in this season’s run.

Could it be a beat the clock style match? Doubtful with the show only running for 60 minutes.

Have the writers and officials been watching TNA circa 2005 and taken inspiration from the very “successful” King Of The Mountain match? I hope for the viewer’s sanity that they haven’t.

In all honesty, I haven’t a clue as to what this super secret style match could be. I’m very concerned that it could end up as a huge clusterfuck with that many competitors, but I hope I’m wrong, very wrong, for the sake of this series.

We shall see I suppose. I’ll be watching with everything that can be crossed, crossed within an inch of its life.

World of Sport for Episode 9

Blake’s WoS Wrestling Fantasy Booking

I’m going to focus here on what WoS Wrestling have done right and wrong over the course of this series, and how with the help of the live tour early next year, they can work on those things and make a better product for us viewers.

So let’s start with the elephant in the room…..the camera cutaways.

I’m sure you know what I mean. After every move the director would cutaway to at least 4/5 different cameras in the space of 2 seconds, making the viewer feel totally disorientated and out of the match.

The comments about this problem have been so vociferous that they can’t have gone unnoticed, and if I were in charge, this is how I would rectify it – LISTEN TO THE FANS! Ask other sports directors to watch the footage and see what they say. Could you imagine Harry Kane scoring the winner at Wembley in an important international football match and the director instantly cutting to five or six different shots of fans in the crowd rather than the emotion on his face……seriously ITV, have a word!

Use the live tour to “train” the director on how to shoot wrestling, it’s no different to any other televised sporting event.

With that bugbear out the way, let’s concentrate on the art of storytelling. To their credit, most of the stories haven’t been bad at all – Justin Sysum becoming the unofficial peoples champion, The Bromance’s rise, and fall (although the fall happened to quick for my liking) to name just a few. But the one that’s made me pound my head into a wall repeatedly over the last week is the story of Crater.

Crater was built up over the course of 6-7 episodes as being this untouchable monster that would destroy anything and anyone in his path. And then within a ten-minute match, not only is he beaten convincingly, but he’s unmasked too.

WTF?!?!

Crater has now lost all credibility and it’s due to bad storytelling. Yes, we would understand that he lost to three other men a few weeks back when they teamed up against him, but to lose to ONE single guy (and this isn’t a knock on Robbie X as I think he’s been a standout performer this season) AND lose his mask….You’ve just killed all the momentum he had and will probably never get it back again either.

My point is that the stories are either hit or miss, there’s no middle ground. So again ITV, have a word. Get your writing team to actually watch some wrestling from different eras – 80’s, ’90s, 00’s, etc – to get an understanding of how to tell stories in a wrestling environment.

Use the live tour to push these stories and gauge the reaction from the live crowd. Use social media too to your advantage, show the fans what they’re missing at these shows by putting these stories out there. It’s not rocket science.

My last thought is about the number of gimmick matches that have been used in this run. I’ve lost count on how many multi-person matches have taken place. Ladder’s, masks, loser leaves town. So many in a ten-episode run.

Gimmick Matches for Season Two?

I would suggest reigning the gimmick matches in for the second season apart from one…..the intergender tag matches.

Last week’s intergender tag match was outstanding! It garnered mainstream attention and put WoS Wrestling firmly on the map.

That’s advertising that counts. In the second season, just use that concept more. The persons involved don’t have to be in a relationship either. They just think about how the four will mesh in the ring and watch them go at it.

That’s me done for today dudes & dudettes. I shall be back this Sunday with the review of this week’s Episode 9. I hope you’ll all join me back then.

As always, feel free to comment below about this piece or contact me on Twitter @Smart_Mark_B become my twitter bud and we can chat for hours about the merits of wrestling over life!

Until next time folks….

Adieu!!!

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