Want more wrestling news, rumors, and results? Be sure to visit PWInsider.com and PWInsiderXtra.com.
Five World of Sport tapings for ITV, a major broadcast network in Great Britain, have been announced for Epic Studios Norwich (the venue used regularly by The Knight family's WAW and Bellatrix promotions) for Thursday 5/10 at 6:30 PM, Friday 5/11 at 2 PM and 6:30 PM and Saturday 5/12 at 2 PM and 6:30 PM. Free tickets can be requested at this link.
World of Sport was a sports anthology series that ran for 20 years on ITV and regularly featured pro wrestling personalities and matches from Europe. When the decision was made in 1985 to cancel the series, it crippled homegrown pro wrestling in that region for many years, setting the stage for the then-WWF's already growing popularity in the region to flourish just a few years later.
The interesting back story here is that WWE had, over several years, opened communications with ITV with the idea of purchasing their pro wrestling-related material from the original ITV World of Sport library for their own use, without success. In 2013, John Chapman licensed and filmed a World of Sport TV pilot that ITV opted not to pick up. The online attention to that pilot led to WWE reaching out to ITV in 2014 to open communications about purchasing the library. The acquisition never went down, but those two events may have started the process of ITV opting to launch their own pilot taping earlier this year.
ITV Commissioned a pilot, which aired on New Year's Eve 2016, featuring Grado, Viper, Dave Mastiff, Mark and Joe Coffey, Kenny Williams, El Ligero, and Zack Gibson among others. WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross was brought in as lead announcer and worked as a producer for the pilot. The pilot airing did well, leading to a March 2017 announcement that ITV was bringing back World of Sport for a ten episode first season. with Tom McLennan and Simon Marsh announced as Executive Producers.
Impact Wrestling got involved with the project as this point with Jeff Jarrett, then the Chief Creative Officer of the company, effectively replacing Jim Ross. Tapings were announced for May 2017 at Preston Guild Hall and went on sale. The plan was for the series to debut in July 2017 on ITV with Impact parent company Anthem attempting to syndicate the series in other countries, but it was not to be.
The tapings were canceled just a few weeks before they were set to take place with the idea that the project was being postponed, although the feeling among talents who were contracted for the series was that the project was dead. Impact sources at the time claimed there were logistical issues with the tapings, although stories that were floated by wrestlers who were contracted instead placed the blame at least partially on Jarrett pushing for the network to drop the idea of a 10 episode series, instead running a traditional, ongoing series.
The announcement of plans for the original tapings led to World Wrestling Entertainment rushing forward with plans for their own UK brand, currently known as the WWE UK Championship, placing a number of talents under contract. After holding several events to crown their first champion, WWE has utilized the NXT brand to showcase the UK talents while seeking a potential TV deal with a number of UK broadcasters under the "King of the Ring" title, including, as PWInsider.com has previously reported, ITV. WWE has announced two WWE UK Championship live broadcasts for this June on the WWE Network.
Until this morning, there had been no inkling of ITV moving forward with the project but this past January, British actor Noelle Clark pushed for the revival of the series, writing on social media, "I'm putting this in the ether. Ive been a consistent wrestling fan.for 30+ years. With many more fans out there. 2 films on the way n a world of talent. There has never been a better time. I want to bring back UK @WOSWrestlingITV, NOT a one off special. An ongoing weekly show." Whether Clark is involved in this latest attempt of a revival is currently unknown.
Currently, there is no confirmation about what talents will be involved in the tapings.
A special thank you to Jonathan Heales for his assistance.
If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!
Bang On Casino
