Professional wrestling in Australia

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Professional wrestling in Australia makes up a small but growing part of Australian culture. Unlike the North American or Japanese products which have large, globally renowned organisations such as World Wrestling Entertainment or New Japan Pro Wrestling with several hundred smaller promotions, Australia has fourteen smaller independent circuit promotions which exist in all but two of the states, those being the Northern Territory and Tasmania. Tours from the North American product are regularly sold out in capital cities such as Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

Contents

[edit] History

Professional wrestling in Australia first became popular in the 1970s when WCW Australia was broadcasted nationally. The home-grown promotion kept audiences entertained before World Wrestling Entertainment became a global wrestling empire.

Throughout the 1990s, both WCW Monday Nitro and WWE RAW were broadcasted on free-to-air networks but were put in poor timeslots and were subsequently cancelled because of poor ratings. WWE's major pay-per-views (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, King of the Ring, SummerSlam and Survivor Series) were all shown up until 2001, when every pay-per-view began being shown.

WWE programming returned in 2000 with WWE RAW being shown on Fox Sports on Tuesday nights. SmackDown! followed and was broadcasted on FOX8 Friday nights but was moved to Saturday nights in 2001.

In September 2002 negotiations between FOX8 and WWE fell through and SmackDown! was cancelled. A special NWA-TNA package replaced it in early 2003 but only lasted a year. NWA-TNA pay-per-views were shown once a month throughout 2003 during a time when they were being presented weekly in the United States. WWE pay-per-views were also lost to Main Event in the same deal that cost Australian fans SmackDown. Village Cinemas showed them for a few months until August 2003 when SmackDown! returned on Saturday nights as well as the pay-per-views, starting with SummerSlam. RAW was moved from Fox Sports to FOX8 and was shown on Friday nights. In order to prevent spoiler hunting on the internet, FOX8 moved WWE programming to timeslots closer to their United States air date.

In February 2005, WWE HEAT, WWE Velocity and The WWE Experience were added to FOX8 and set up a large wrestling program on Saturdays and Sundays which now exists today. Despite Heat, Velocity and Experience all being cancelled in the United States the shows are still shown in Australia to fulfill contractual obligations. When SmackDown! was moved to Friday nights in the United States, in Australia it remained on Friday afternoons.

After just over 3 years, Australian wrestling fans are once again being treated to TNA. Beginning with TNA Sacrifice 2006 on May 27 on tape delay TNA monthly pay-per-view events are being broadcasted in Australia. Despite much discussion there is currently no plans to screen TNA iMPACT! in Australia.

WWE announced that on the international market, ECW would replace Velocity, but Foxtel announced that there are no plans to show the ECW show in Australia. After receiving email upon email requesting ECW television in Australia, Foxtel finally laid concerns to rest and confirmed that ECW on Sci Fi would begin broadcasting in Australia starting from September 2, 2006. The WWE Fanatic Series began airing in October 2006.

[edit] Live events

Shows from North American promotions have been held in Australia as early as 1985 when WWE toured through Melbourne, Perth, Newcastle and Adelaide and through Melbourne and Brisbane again in 1986. That was the last Australia saw of a live North American product until WCW did a Nitro and Thunder taping in Melbourne and a Thunder taping in Brisbane in 2000.

The next time WWE came to Australia was for the WWE Global Warning Tour in 2002. A crowd of 56,000 packed into Colonial Stadium as well a pay-per-view audience throughout Asia witnessed the first WWE show on Australian soil in 16 years.

WWE has visited Australia regularly since Global Warning by touring at least once a year since 2003. An independent circuit show was organised in October 2005 called International Assault to further increase the amount of North American product showcased live in Australia.

  • Photos of the August SummerSlam Tour are available to view here.

[edit] Television Programming

Note: All times are in Eastern Daylight Time. Qld subtract 1 hour, SA subtract 30 minutes, WA subtract 2 hours

[edit] Weekly programming

FOX8 is currently the only network to air all televised shows in Australia. Times for programmes are as follows:

Note: all programs are aired 2 hours later on FOX8+2.

[edit] Pay-per-view

Pay-per-views in Australia are shown on Main Event, the only provider in Australia. Main Event has been broadcasting pay-per-views for both WWE starting in 1999 until the present time and WCW pay-per-views from 1997 until they were bought out in March 2001. Main Event also began broadcasting TNA pay-per-views due to the high demand from wrestling fans. They have been broadcasted since May 2006, starting with Sacrifice.

[edit] WWE Fanatic Series

The December documentary featured on WWE Fanatic Series will be "Hstory of the WWE Championship". It will be screening every two hours from 8am to 8pm (AEST) and is available to order now on Main Event, check listings magazine for dates. The cost will be AU$9.95 for an all day ticket.

[edit] WWE Films

All WWE Films to date had production at Warner Bros. Movie World, on the Gold Coast, Queensland. The mst recent film being produced there was "The Condemned" starring Stone Cold Steve Austin. "The Condemned" also filmed around the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast the Moreton Bay Islands.

It has also been announced that the Australian release date for John Cena's movie "The Marine". It will be released as "Marine" in Australia on February 22, 2007.

See No Evil starring Kane will be released straight to DVD but a release date has not been announced.

[edit] Other media

  • A fortnightly wrestling program is available online at Sport927 Radio at 12am midnight Thursday night/Friday morning. It covers Australia's interests in WWE, TNA, UFC and the local independent circuit.
  • WWE's mobile service is available in Australia. Content including ringtones, voicetones and wallpapers are available to purchase. The service is available on Optus, Telstra and Vodafone and is charged directly to the phone bill. The mobile alert feature is currently not available.
  • Starting on Sunday December 17 Red Rooster will be selling WWE High Rollers, little monster trucks that you pull back and let go, with their kids meals. John Cena, Shelton Benjamin, Triple H, Big Show and Kane will be available with each character is depicted from the chest up. Each car comes with stickers so you can decorate them yourself.

[edit] Promotions

Defunct

Notes
1 Previously Capital Pro Wrestling - now part of PWA.
2 Previously Joint Promotions Wrestling - now part of PWA.
3 Not merged with any company as suspected. Became defunct.
4 No relation with United States promotion of same name. Closed five years before Georgia Championship Wrestling aquired the name.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links/References

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