Royal Wedding

Don't fight me on this

Millions of people every year take pleasure and enjoyment out of seeing sporting events live or on television. The drama of a late goal in the Premier League, a perfectly executed overtaking in Formula One and a brilliant hook shot in cricket that goes for a six.

But what you won’t hear on a regular basis is somebody saying “Did you see the match last night, when he jumped off from the top rope, it was amazing!” You’re now probably wondering what on earth I’m talking about.
For those who did understand that, well done. But if you didn’t I will let you know now, that I was making a reference to professional wrestling.

Many people’s knowledge about wrestling is limited. Knowing Hulk Hogan and The Rock is far as it goes. During the mid 1990s, wrestling made its way into mainstream television programming. With edgy characters and close to fatal matches, it became popular for all ages. But recently it has faded away again.

Before you start thinking about jacked up, tanned meatheads supposedly fighting, having battle royals (a match where the object is to throw your opponent over the top rope), I want you to stop and listen. I am not ignorant to the point that there are many people who believe wrestling, on the face of it, is a complete farce. They don’t actually punch each other and they always know who will win beforehand. That does not take away from the athletic ability that these wrestlers have. It seems as if sometimes wrestlers get a Raw deal.

All wrestlers partake in years of training and preparation in order to perform safely the moves and acts in the squared-circle and sell the manoeuvres they do, in order to create the illusion of pain. The athletes’ safety is the most important thing of all. These men and women take this career very seriously. so saying that the whole thing is “fake” is a huge insult to them. The competitors having a rough idea what will happen is sensible and reduces the risk of serious injury.

There are times when people say “it’s fake”. When I hear this I always show them a clip of one grappler being thrown 20ft to the floor, where there is no padding; it is just concrete he lands on. How on earth can you fake that? The fact is, you can’t. It’s a huge risk the men decide to take in order to create a crowd pop (a positive crowd reaction) and entertain.

That being said, there are far fewer injuries in professional wrestling than boxing, but most see that a far more respectable sport because the fighters actually bludgeon each other relentlessly for the enjoyment of blood-thirsty fans.
Other than watching someone getting a Smackdown put on them to entertain. With impressive feats of strength and bravery, high-flying stunts and stunning technical ability, all wrapped up in a well-planned slick pyrotechnics routine, it’s all there for the fans. Wrestlers create characters that convey hope, or make you hate them. This formula to make wrestling more entertaining was spearheaded by the WWE (formally the WWF), who re-formatted the profession to make it appeal to a wider audience.

One of the company’s most appealing workers is John Cena. His clean cut, never-give up attitude has made him incredibly popular with young fans, despite his occasional lack of basic wrestling ability. John Cena generates a huge amount of revenue for the WWE, through merchandise sales, I myself, own a bright orange John Cena t-shirt. This goes back to a real common theme in all sport now days. It’s a business, main purpose to make as much money as possible.
More recently, the WWE has tried to take a softer approach to physical combat. They have done this by disallowing weapon shots to the head, for instance. As a company, they have made vast improvements to healthcare and conditioning too. Back in the 1970s, if a performer couldn’t wrestle they didn’t get paid.

Until recently performers were expected to carry out ridiculous stunts with no compensation to themselves or their families if they were seriously hurt.

In May 1999, Canadian grappler Owen Hart died after an entrance stunt went wrong. He was being lowered by harness and wire to the ring from the arena rafters, when the clip holding him released early. He fell 78ft and landed on the top rope before being bounced into the centre of the ring. He was taken to a nearby hospital and pronounced dead on arrival from internal bleeding. Many believe he actually died in the ring. Owen Hart was 34.

Nowadays, every wrestler has health insurance as part of their contracts, and clauses that ensure safety. This has made wrestling easier to watch for children and parents who are worried about what their children watch.
It has been made more exciting and accessible for children through more childish gimmicks escape from the seemingly brutal bouts of old. These gimmicks are sometimes tiresome, but that can be forgiven when you think about how good the rest of the show is.

I love professional wrestling and I always will. The fact that you never know what might happen next, whether a superstar will hit their finishing move or tap-out to a painful submission, it really does captivate me. I am always trying to get my friends and family to take more of an active interest.

So, I want to ask the people who think that wrestling isn’t a sport, what on earth is it then?
The answer I would suggest is, that it’s “sports entertainment”.

And the winner is...

Congratulations Sepp Blatter and the rest of the FIFA executives for once again showing that you really don’t have a clue. You claim to have the best interests of international football at the heart of your organisation, or should I say idiotic circus.

I say this, of course, because England failed to get the 2018 World Cup. Instead Russia succeeded in their seemly half-baked bid.

Football is an international phenomenon. Excitement, finesse, money and the big stars, it has it all. So that is why I was bitterly disappointed when it was announced that football was not coming home.

In order for a country to get voted to host a tournament, they have usually got to get 13 votes from the 25 delegates of FIFA. This year was different, thanks to the Sunday Times newspaper uncovering certain officials clearly offering to sell their votes for the right bribe, the number was cut to 22. Meaning 12 votes were needed.

Those in charge of the voting, look as if they haven’t had any physical exercise in the last 15 years, let alone kicked a football. So why on earth do they get to make the most important decision in Football? It should be left to people who really love the game. Not businessmen with ever-expanding waistbands and receding hairlines. They get to make the decisions of the games future, when most of them won’t be here to see it, in particular Mr Blatter.

I have criticised him in the past, and this time is no different. Why are people so surprised by him? This is a man who is so scared of the future that he continues to reject the use of goal-line technology. But that is a subject for another time.
He infuriated many, including myself by patronising England. “England is the motherland of Football” is what the confused pensioner said when describing the host candidates. Another thing that has angered the masses is the fact that the vast majority of the FIFA delegates admitted openly, that England had an excellent bid.

There are those who are blaming BBC’s Panorama for tarnishing and damaging England’s chances of having the 2018 World Cup. The programme made huge accusations against the Vice President of FIFA. Did this effect the decision? Who knows?

What has annoyed a lot of people is that there are many reports circulating that Russia knew they had won the bid 24 hours before the announcement was made. Was this because certain Russians gave the big wigs of FIFA a vast amount of Rubles to bulk up their already bulging pockets?

One of Sepp’s main goals is to take Football around the world. That is why in 2002 South Korea and Japan had the honour. And in 2006 FIFA apparently unified Germany. Then this year, South Africa hosted the biggest event in world Football. To this point I am not surprised that the oldies at Zurich choose Qatar to host the 2022 event. I think Sepp Blatter really does want a Nobel Prize for bringing Football to the entire world, but I thought Football was already everywhere.

Two things about Qatar I find interesting. 1) Possibly the only word in the English language which has a Q that isn’t followed by a U. 2) It’s a country with a population of on 2 million people.

So how on earth are they going to be able to deal with the extra people and build 11 new stadiums up to regulations, with a history of bad work conditions?

I know that I have asked a lot of questions, but hey, someone has to ask the blatantly obvious questions. As it seems those in charge totally missed them.

What I did. What I learnt. What I could of done better.

Since September 2010, I have learnt a wide range of new skill and how to use different tools in order to crate content for all multimedia formats.

These include: Television, Radio, Print and online.

In television we had Sean Walsh taking the lectures. We were taught about the importance of pronouncing names and locations correctly, how to plan and carry out a location shoot how to carry out a vox pop interview and how to use Adobe Premier Pro. We also had some time in the live television studio practicing our broadcasting.

In TV classes I feel I was very confident using the editing software and presence in front of a camera. Though I was not particularly strong on gain vox pop footage.

Radio classes were taken with Martin Fletcher; in his sessions we had time in the radio studio and learnt how to write a story for radio from a press release.

I enjoyed the studio time, but I do need work on slowing down my speech and pronunciation of words.

Steve Miller took the print lectures. We were taught how to write for print copy and how to use in design for page layouts.

I enjoyed using InDesign; having previous experience on Quarke express I picked it up quickly. Places for improvements are to be able to cut down on how long it take me to make a point, by making my articles more streamlined.

The fourth part of the multimedia unit was online, taught by Simon Clarke. He asked up to set up a blog on blogger.com and set up a twitter account. We learnt how to re-format images for use on the Internet. Using uploading websites like sound cloud was also a part of this unit.

The online section was interesting and I enjoyed learning how to use different software. However, I still need to learn how to use photo shop and regularly update my blog.