Wrestling Heritage

The decline of Joint Promotions was not a simple case of following a line from a peak to a trough. A downward trend which began in the mid sixties was temporarily reversed in the early 1970s before entering a terminal decline in the 1980s. 

Using modern day criteria for business success it is not hard to see why things went so badly wrong, though hindsight certainly makes it easier to form opinions!

Loss of Vision Results in No Passion

Watch Your Image

The appointment of a man with a wrestling background to manage the business for most of Joint Promotions resulted in a temporary reversal of wrestling’s decline. For many fans, though, the image of wrestling that emerged during the 1970s was one with which they felt uncomfortable. It cannot be said that the promoters were anything but creative in finding ways to tarnish the image of wrestling. The credible and respected officials were replaced with colourful characters who wanted to be part of the show. The ending of the traditional announcement of the subsequent programme gave, at best, the impression that bills were put together at the last minute. Posters no longer lured fans with lurid descriptions of what they were about to see. Veteran wrestlers who were due for retirement had their places taken by those with more of a penchant for acrobatics than wrestling. Maybe the temporary increase in audiences misled promoters into thinking this was what the fans wanted. In the short term maybe it was, but any indication of a long term recovery was an illusion. The image of wrestling had again changed, but this time it was not for the better.

For one man the change of image was more than a disappointment. For Greg Dyke, the head of ITV sport, it provided the opportunity to remove wrestling from the television screens. Without the oxygen of weekly television exposure professional wrestling was destined to wither.

Watch Out for The Competition

Joint Promotions were no strangers to competition. Oakeley, Lincoln, and Pallo had each been overwhelmed one way or another. The new predator, Brian Dixon, combined stealth, cunning and fortune.  Stealth by growing in confidence and competence for fifteen years without appearing a real threat, cunning because he was able to outwit Joint Promotions and steal some of their top wrestlers, like Tony St Clair, and good fortune because he was the plunderer when the plundered were at their weakest.   Joint Promotions in the 1980s seemed either unaware or too weak to respond to the competition of the independents. For the first time in thirty years Joint Promotions lost the power of control and professional wrestlers were able to choose who they worked for. Exclusive cartels were a thing of the past.

Innovate or Die.

Or, innovate and die if the innovation does not meet the requirements of your customer. Innovation in the 1980s meant wrestlers with insufficient skill to wrestle, athletes too overweight to be athletic, and gimmicks that replaced rather than complemented expertise. Whilst fans had always been uncertain about the authenticity of the sport, they had been pretty sure that the wrestlers did have genuine skill. When that skill became less apparent all that remained were sequined gowns, an abundance of tattoos, eccentric behaviour and wrestlers lacking the skill of the men they replaced.

Respect No One but the Bank Manager

Whilst the critics of wrestling showed an eagerness to insult the intelligence of wrestling followers, the promoters had always done just the opposite. Each criticism and claim of irregularities was robustly repelled and fans were reassured that they were the ones with the astuteness to understand the truth. Wrestling was always presented with the same professional values as any other sport. Champions were seemingly authentic champions, rules were largely enforced, and good matchmaking meant results were largely unpredictable. All this changed at a time that audiences again began to fall away, which was surely no coincidence. Un-athletic wrestlers abounded. Big Daddy’s dominance stretched credibility to the limit, some bouts were endlessly repeated around the country, and poor matchmaking created one-sided catch weight contests with predictable results. In other words, there was little respect for the intelligence of the customers, or that of the diminishing number of good wrestlers who had survived.    

Good reputation.

As fans became disgruntled the reputation of Joint Promotions began to suffer. Publicity from Masambula suing the promoters following serious injury, the tragic death of Mal Kirk, Big Daddy’s short lived foray into children’s television and the revelations of Jackie Pallo did nothing to help.

Ignore Your Market At Your Peril

The success of Joint Promotions had been built upon an awareness of the professional wrestling target market and progressively extending that market to encompass a wider social spectrum. In the late 1970s and 1980s Joint Promotions began to ignore that market and concentrated on children and youths who were attracted by the Big Daddy character. To everyone except the promoters themselves such a strategy was fatally flawed. The youngsters were financially dependent on an older (dissatisfied) generation, had no income of their own and would inevitably grow out of the target audience. The mass market appeal to all ages, both genders and all classes was slowly but surely eroded.

Whilst it is difficult to have much sympathy for the Joint Promotions management of the seventies and eighties the final nail in the coffin admittedly was out of their control. The unkind, though, might well say that wrestling management created the conditions for Greg Dyke to do the deed and remove wrestling from the television screens. Television had been the lifeblood of wrestling for over thirty years and its removal from the television schedules dealt the near fatal blow. Joint Promotions struggled on for a few years, but all was to no avail. The vision, the passion, and the image had gone. Inevitably, the business itself was to follow.