The Truepenny Show

Jordynne Grace set a wonderful contextual argument last night on Twitter and as I am up at 6am on a Sunday to  edit the podcast, let’s have a longer crack. Jordynne’s premise and indeed question was “Should wrestling be  considered sport or art?”, while there are obvious cases for both. I personally think that comes down to the  context in which everything is placed and the expectation that is therefore set for the audience. Let me give you  one example that will happen in the next couple of months that gives you a rough idea of where I am coming from.   I am 100% for calling wrestling a “performance art” rather than a “sport”. The insistence upon calling it a sport is really holding wrestling back in my opinion. Discuss with me. — Jordynne Grace (@JordynneGrace) March 17, 2018 In the next couple of months Meiko Satomura comes to Fight Club Pro. Thanks to previous appearances she is  a huge face and has been booked against Pete Dunne and Chri...

Back in 2015, the wrestling landscape was changing on a daily basis, and the Sheriff Of Parts Unknown was there to comment. Samoa Joe had just joined the WWE and not really left the Indie circuit at the same time. It was an interesting time . . . It used to be, up until yesterday as I write this, that wrestlers worked for one company in North America. That was the way it was ever since the Monday Night War opened and exclusivity of star power was seen as important to your brand’s ability to outdo the other guy. Then Samoa Joe signed with WWE and everything changed. How did we get here? Well it's been creeping forward outside of WWE land all year; Lucha Underground has some people on exclusives, some people farmed in from AAA, and some indie workers from all over the States. Joey Ryan works for West Coast Wrestling Connection and Paragon two TV wrestling companies with national deals. Matt Striker wrestles for WCWC and commentates for Lucha Underground, the reality is only...

Back in 2015, I wrote this about the then just-about- gaining- traction-in-the- international- market World Wonder Ring Stardom. Three years later it has been on of the great success  stories  of Joshi, it always seems to survive every misfortune. Here I look back at some upside before another down. If 2014 was the year that Stardom came of age, 2015 is the year that the student loan is due, their boyfriend has announced he is going on a gap year and their parents have come to visit for three months. After the shocking events of what has become known as “ The Yoshiko Incident ” back in February, things went downhill fast. Company President and long time Ace Nanae Takahashi came down with ankle injury that put her on the shelf. Kyoko Kimura also dropped out of action with another injury. Act Yasukawa was still working through her rehabilitation to get fit for a return, she is thankfully back into training now, and Yoshiko herself was indefinitely suspended. Four of the com...

Ricky Steamboat was truly great. He did a tremendous amount in relatively short bursts, but his tag team work stands out. Part of the Forgotten Tag Teams series, here I took a look at a part of his career that was vital to getting and keeping him over. While this series has looked largely at the forgotten teams of times gone past, this edition deals with one of the world’s most underrated tag wrestlers. Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat is better known these days the man who built the Broadway Church with “Sixty Minute Man” “Nature Boy” Ric Flair in their classic series of the late eighties over the NWA title. He is perhaps most widely known as the man who crafted, alongside “Macho Man” Randy Savage the Wrestlemania III Semi Main that will live on as the apex in wrestling quality for the early days of WWF expansion. This article though will look at what got him there, and the things he did after. His rise to prominence in the Mid Atlant...

I always liked writing the big feature pieces, this I think was m y most important. It is pertinent as Satomura San embarks on a Spring UK tour that includes dream matches with Chris Brookes, Kay Lee Ray and Pete Dunne for Fight Club:Pro and Pro Wrestling: EVE. As a writer, you may have noticed,  I find brevity difficult. However one great piece of sports journalism from the seventies stuck with me and perhaps should be a warning for when I get to wordy. The great Motorcycle News journalist Mike Scott was asked to cover the return of Mike Hailwood to the Isle of Man TT in 1978, his piece was to the point; “Mike Hailwood will return to the TT after eleven years away from motorcycle racing. He will win.” Sadly the editor at the time wouldn’t let him run it. That is what I would like to do with this piece, and in my heart of hearts this article would read “Meiko Satomura is the greatest professional wrestler in the world today.” I would then leave you with to go and...

This blog post from the Sheriff of Parts Unknown is dated 25th May 2016, and really shows how far the world of Joshi has impacted the wrestling scene world wide. World Wonder Ring Stardom made this first European trip three years ago. In that time look how the main players of this story have changed the wrestling business. Kairi Hojo is now Kairi Sane and in NXT, Toni Storm is the World of Stardom, Progress and SWA Champion, and is pretty unstoppable. Mayu Iwatani, Io Shirai and my good friend Jazzy Gabert have had their injury troubles but are still astounding wrestlers. Daliah Black has gone and come back, nixon Newell is still awaiting that NXT Debut and will make it this year. This wasn't the first Joshi influenced show in the UK, but this was part of a wave that sees the announcement today of Meiko Satomura vs Pete Dunne, and three years ago that would have been impossible. This was a good day. The alarm went off at 6am. Which was unlucky as I had already been up for half a...

One of the first people I interviewed for Wrestle Talk TV was the then the President of the NWA. As the NWA has changed direction in the last year I thought it was pertinent to post this interview. This file was posted on or around the 8th February 2015, the original post is long gone sadly. Bruce's vision for the NWA does differ greatly from Billy Corgan, but his Presidency started a very different kind of NWA. One of the direct results was Chase Owens joining Bullet Club for which I am very thankful. So without further ado, lets go to The Prez . . . NWA President Bruce Tharpe; Man on a Mission Historically the NWA has always been a place of promotional upheaval and political unrest, especially since it lost WCW and NJPW as its main standard bearers in the early nineties. However today, under a new President and board it is making its way back to the forefront of wrestling presentation. Once again associated with New Japan, and with a strong promotional base in the southern ...