We were on our way back from our little adventure in
Southsea and Stu’s outburst went something like this “It’s 1999 and look how
far we’ve all come over the past two decades: Abba in the charts and Star Wars
on the fucking cinema!” It was a fair point. Nostalgia was a drug we all smoked
socially, but the turn of century was showing serious signs of
innovation-stifling addiction. It wasn’t just coming from the past either.
Despite a new generation of British wrestlers arriving on the scene, many were
using slogans and gestures stolen wholesale from their
US heroes. I
cringed every time we worked on a show and some dickhead worker started
x-chopping. This wasn’t the New
British Wrestling scene we wanted to promote.
We weren’t denying our inspiration, but we certainly weren’t shackled to it
either. Looking back I am sure Stu and I had certain fundamental differences in
the way we wanted to the wrestling scene to go, but I think a key thing we did
agree on was the desire to forge something unique.
