After a successful one-off outing during New Years, huge news for British wrestling broke today as Impact Wrestling announced that World of Sport will be returning to ITV for a 10-part series.
But if Impact breaking this story seems strange, then it is because that they are teaming up with ITV to help bring the old UK institution back to British TV.
The statement reads:
“MANCHESTER | NASHVILLE – ITV Studios Entertainment Manchester announced today that it has teamed up with IMPACT Wrestling, a subsidiary of Anthem Sports & Entertainment Corp., to bring WOS Wrestling back to ITV, with an initial commission for a 10-part series.
The commission from ITV’s Helen Warner follows a successful one-off-special, which aired on New Year’s Eve 2016. The Executive Producers for ITV Studios are Tom McLennan and Simon Marsh. Jeff Jarrett, the Chief Creative Officer for IMPACT Wrestling, will be the Executive Producer for IMPACT Wrestling.
Thirty years after the original WOS ended – and legendary stars such as Big Daddy, Mick McManus and Rollerball Rocco left British screens – this new series will feature the very best of today’s wrestlers from the current red-hot U.K. wrestling scene.
They will compete in front of a live audience at the intimate Preston Guild Hall on Thursday 25th May and Friday 26th May (doors 7pm / bell time 7.30pm).”
Tickets for these historic shows will go on sale at 9am on Friday 7th April from Gigsandtours.com/Ticketmaster.co.uk/prestonguildhall.co.uk
This is of course a massive boost for the appeal and potential viewership of British wrestling, and an even bigger boost to the talent, who could be seen by millions of viewers on one of the UK’s biggest channels.
This deal will work well for Impact Wrestling as well, of course, what with Jeff Jarrett acting as Executive Producer, and could open doors to Impact talent (and even the Impact brand) reaching a much wider audience than they currently have on Challenge, a channel that shows primarily classic quiz shows all day.
It will be interesting to see how the WWE responds to Impact securing such a lucrative deal within the UK broadcasting market, and if this encourages them to go ahead with long rumoured plans to have a weekly show based around their own contracted UK talent, and even work with big independent UK promotions such as PROGRESS and ICW, to air their contact on the WWE Network.
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