This documentary, which is on Amazon Prime at the moment, and is written and directed by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, was produced at an interesting time in the British Wrestling revolution. It presents a transitional phase in the business, with old hands seemingly bemused at the frantic lucha or hardcore styles that the younger generation prefer.
The documentary features interviews with old hand Wrestlers, Fit Finlay, Robbie Brookside and Dave Taylor, amongst others, whose history goes back to the days of "World of Sport". They talk about the sacrifices that they made, in terms of health, family and personal lives to make it as a professional wrestler - both of whom made it to the heights of the WWE and WCW. There are also interviews with a younger generation, including Marti Scurll, Jimmy Havoc and James 'Rockstar Spud' Curtin all of whom are just a few years into their professional careers.
2014 was an interesting time to make this documentary because although the established powerhouse companies of British Wrestling were operating, none of them would hit the heights they did for another couple of years. Southside Wrestling features in this Doc but it would be a couple of years before enough organisations existed to give the opportunity to turn truly professional to a young British Wrestler. The selection of Scurll, Spud and Havoc before the successes that they would have was a good one, even if the 2020 Times up movement has made a couple of them problematic.
I thought the documentary was pretty solid. It tries to get a variety of viewpoints and shows a couple of the contradictions. For example, Dave Taylor's insistent that the younger generation don't want to learn but instead beat each other for real, is backed up by the Jimmy Havoc light tube battles, but undermined somewhat by both the classes that Brookside is teaching and Spud's voiced desire to travel with the older talent more and learn what he can.
The rapid progress that the UK wrestling scene has made recently has made this feel disproportionately old already but it's entertaining enough for it's relatively short runtime.
