he attacked Jimmy Snuka with a coconut

Everything was not just going to plan for Vince, it was shattering what he originally had planned and snowballing into some kind of make-it-up-as-you-go-along super-plan.

in 1985, the opening theme was an instrumental version of Easy Lover by Phil Collins, proof that this was as 1980s as 1980s could be.

Wrestling may have been fully pre-determined since the 1920s, but the culture of protecting it behind the scenes and presenting it as real was still in full force.

In short order, The Renegade was just a jobber. He was let go at the end of 1998 and, depressed at how things had turned out, shot himself in the head in February 1999. He was only 33 years old.

the now one-eared Yukon Eric.

I sat on my own, watched an amazing show and got chatting to a couple of Japanese fans next to me. One of them was obsessed with the town of Wigan.

Sorakichi Matsuda moved to the USA in the 1880s, living his life virtually in poverty as he pursued his dream of becoming a professional wrestler.

In 1947, a bunch of tweed-wearing wrestling luminaries drew up a set of rules to govern wrestling. Named after the chair of the panel, they were dubbed the Admiral-Lord Mountevans rules, defining what holds were legal and how falls within matches could be won: by pinfall, submission, knockout, TKO or disqualification.