PRESS RELEASE

Julian Radbourne returns with two new books!


Following the release of The WAW Years last March, Julian Radbourne has put together The WAW Years Volume 2. This volume contains all of Julian's live show reviews, from the World Association of Wrestling's Fightmare show in April 2001, right through to his last live show as WAW's chief reporter, October Outrage in October 2005. There's over a hundred pages of WAW show reviews, chronicling the careers of "Rowdy" Ricky Knight, the Zebra Kid, Sweet Saraya, the U.K. Pitbulls and many, many more.

But that's not all. There's also review from some of Britain's other great wrestling promotions as well, including DAM Promotions, All-Star Wrestling and the Frontier Wrestling Alliance.

This book is available to buy at £12.99 in print form, or to download in PDF form for £6.50.

But there's more. As well as The WAW Years Volume 2, there's also THE NEW COLLECTED WRITINGS! In an attempt to prove that he's more than a professional wrestling writer, Julian Radbourne has delved deep into his archive and put together a book with articles ranging from Big Brother to alien life to mental illness to the September 11th attacks. You'll find no wrestling there!

This book is available to buy at £9.95 in print form, or to download in PDF form for £4.95.

Both of these books, as well as The WAW Years and Radio WAW: The Interviews are available to buy online at www.lulu.com/twosheds316.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR - Julian Radbourne was born in 1971, and has lived in the Norfolk coastal town of Cromer all of his life.

Julian began writing at an early age, initially writing science fiction and fantasy stories, before specializing in professional wrestling. His first article, about the death of Owen Hart, was published in the Stunner fanzine. In 2000, Julian’s column, The Two Sheds Review, made it’s online debut, and has since gone on to appear on numerous websites and newsletters. Two years later, having watched the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s UK debut, he started to write about mixed martial arts as well.

Today The Two Sheds Review is currently syndicated to over twenty websites and newsletters, and can also be seen on his own website, www.twoshedsreview.com. His blog can be found at www.myspace.com/twosheds316.

Outside of writing, Julian has also worked in the professional wrestling business, for the Norwich-based World Association of Wrestling. He has also enjoyed a successful career in the retail industry.

To recieve a review copy in PDF form, or to arrange an interview or further press coverage, Julian can be contacted at julian@twoshedsreview.com.

My first review of 2009 sees us taking another trip to the world of K-1, as I take a look at British Eurosport’s end of year coverage of the K-1 Grand Prix final from Yokohama, Japan, with a new generation of fighters coming through to battle the old guard, and a very controversial end to the final. Will Vanders is, as always, there to provide commentary, and sadly, I’m having to start this review with some more criticism of Eurosport’s K-1 coverage.

You see, the actual programme began with Mr. Vanders giving away some of the quarter-final results. Well, thanks a lot, Eurosport, for your shoddy editing, and for spoiling the show for those of use who were really looking forward to it.

Then came the coverage of the quarter-finals themselves. So much time was spent on pre-fight interviews and fighter profiles that only the final rounds of the fights were shown, and we don’t actually get to see a full fight until over an hour into the show. So there’s no point in my reviewing them for you, because there’s not much to review. So, once again, thanks a lot Eurosport for spoiling the show for us. A three hour time slot and you still couldn’t give us all the fights!

So my review will begin with the first full fight shown, the first reserve fight which pitted “Sugarfoot” Ray Sefo against the Korean monster, Hong Man Choi. This was a hell of a fight. Despite giving away over a foot in height and seventy pounds in weight, the New Zealander took the fight to his opponent from the opening bell. Sefo had all the tools to befuddle Choi throughout, targeting his massive legs with kicks and his ample mid-section with punches. Everything that Sefo did just seemed to take Choi totally out of his game, and when the Korean did go on the offensive, it didn’t seem to bother Sefo one bit, as he used his superior speed to get out of the way, and as the fight went on it was obvious that Choi had no intention of changing his tactics, even though they were clearly failing him. In the end it came as no surprise when Sefo got the unanimous decision. A tremendous performance from Sugarfoot here. As for Choi, well, he has improved quite a bit over the past year or so, and I’m sure he’s got a big future ahead of him.

Then it’s on to the second reserve fight, with Melvin Manhoef taking on Paul Slowinski. This fight didn’t get past the end of the first round. Although things looked pretty even in the beginning, Manhoef upped the aggression levels, and scored with a knock down with a right hook. With Slowinski still looking groggy after the eight count, Manhoef continued where he’d left off, and it was long before Slowinski was slumping in the corner with the referee waving the fight off. Manhoef had pulled off a great win here, with Slowinski paying the price for calling the Dutchman fat and ugly in the pre-fight build-up.

Then it’s on to the first semi-final of the tournament, with Errol Zimmerman taking on Badr Hari, who defeated the great Peter Aerts in the quarters. When the fight began Mr. Vanders was making it that this would be like a walk in the park for Hari. Well, things weren’t that easy for the self-styled bad boy. With an even first round, Zimmerman caught Hari with a left/right combination in the second that sent Hari down to the mat. Hari came back strongly though, and at the end of the round, it was Zimmerman who went down after a short right. The third round, and Hari continued the onslaught, soon ending the fight with a hard right. Zimmerman went down, and made the referee’s eight count, but the man in the middle had seen enough, and stopped the fight. With Hari through to the final after a tremendous comeback, I began to think that this was his year.

The second semi-final saw Remy Bonjasky, who took a quarter-final win over Jerome Le Banner after a doctor’s stoppage, against Gokhan Saki. While the first round was very tentative, almost as if they were feeling each other out, it exploded to life in the second. Bonjasky came out like a house afire, and soon connected with a right kick to the Saki’s ribs that was so painful he was unable to continue. The pain in his face was pretty self evident as the two-time former champion booked his place in the final with a good performance.

Then it was on to the final, Bonjasky against Hari. To say that this fight was controversial would be a massive understatement. The fight began very tentatively, and it was a while before Hari began to exert his pressure. However, it was Hari who went down to the mat first. After Bonjasky connected with a left that stunned him, the flying Dutchman then went for a flying knee, which Hari avoided by going down to the mat, earning himself an eight count.

Hari began the second round by taking the fight to Bonjasky, really going for the knock out. But Bonjasky soon gave as good as he got, the green eyed monster got the better of Hari. First, he grabbed Bonjasky’s leg and threw him down to the mat. With the Dutchman down on the mat, Hari then went down and punched him twice. It didn’t end there, because when the referee tried to separate them, Hari stomped on Bonjasky’s head. The referee was incensed, and as the doctors were making sure Bonjasky was okay, the referee gave him a yellow card, professional wrestling’s equivalent of a public warning. But when the doctors revealed that Bonjasky couldn’t continued because he was suffering from double vision, Hari was red carded and disqualified, giving the tournament final and 2008 Grand Prix victory to Bonjasky. I’m not even going to pretend to know what was going through Hari’s mind as he punched and stomped on Bonjasky while he was on the mat. What I will say is that Hari’s behaviour was disgusting, especially as he showed absolutely no remorse for his actions afterwards, and no apology either.

In conclusion - while I’ve already let my views on the coverage of the quarter final fights known, my mood got better with the fights that were shown. It was good to see Rey Sefo getting back on track, and three of the four tournament fights that were shown were great to watch. It’s just a shame that Badr Hari acted like a thug in the final. Knowing the kind of fighter that Remy Bonjasky is, he wouldn’t have wanted to win the tournament in that way, and it’s a massive shame that a fighter of Hari’s pedigree, one of the tournament favourites, had to damage his reputation that way, because the final was shaping up to be a tremendous fight.

As for Eurosport’s continued shoddy treatment of K-1, I really hope that they begin to realise that there are quite a few K-1 fans out there who aren’t happy with the way they’re doing things, and if you are interested in letting them know, I’ve set up a Facebook group for fans who would like to see K-1 on either Sky Sports or Setanta Sports. You can join the group by visiting http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=45832461958&ref=ts . Once you join, be sure to invite all of your Facebook friends. If we’ll get enough members I’ll send on the details to both Sky and Setanta letting them know just how we feel.

On March 15th, 2004, I felt like a kid in a sweet shop, because it was on that day my television viewing habits changed. Well, for a while anyway.

That day saw the launch of The Wrestling Channel, the world’s first ever channel dedicated to the noble art of professional wrestling, and the line-up looked tremendous. From America we had Total Non-Stop Action, Major League Wrestling and Ring of Honor. From Japan we had Pro Wrestling NOAH and New Japan. From Mexico we had CMLL. And from Britain, we had the Frontier Wrestling Alliance (and the less said about that deal the better).

The euphoria only lasted for a few months. As time went on the wrestling programming became interspersed with live phone-in game shows such as Bikini Beach, and an adult entertainment show called Bang Babes (which morphed into a late-night live sex phone-in channel). Eventually, these gave way, but there was a price.

When it seemed that professional wrestling alone couldn’t sustain the channel, mixed martial arts was introduced into the equation, beginning with the British Cage Warriors promotion. Other non-wrestling programming was soon introduced, including an awful show which saw your average Joe Public enter the boxing ring to engage in fights which were frankly quite shocking and which never should have seen the light of day in the first place. Thankfully that particular show only lasted one week.

But by this time the cracks were already beginning to appear. The dream of the all-wrestling television channel seemed to be going down the pan, and when rival channel Bravo brought the rights to TNA’s programming, the writing seemed on the wall.

So after The Wrestling Channel became TWC, then TWC Fight, the Canadian-based Fight Network stepped in.

Professional wrestling was pushed to the back of the schedule, with only LDN, Ring of Honor and the decades old World of Sport shows thriving as mixed martial arts became the mainstay of the new Fight Network. At first things seemed to go quite well. It was good to see some of these promotions, even though the shows were a few years old.

But if truth be known, this particular fight fan was getting a little bored with the channel, especially when the same shows seemed to be broadcast over and over again, and there was hardly any new programming. The last Ring of Honor show I saw on the channel had a main event of Samoa Joe v C.M. Punk. The English Boxing show seemed to show the same old Billy Schwer fight all the time, and the channel’s finest moment seemed to be Amberlady Honey Wars, an Lithuanian show that saw scantily-clad young ladies rolling around in sticky honey, much to the delight of the crowd watching.

Then, this past Monday, it all came to an end. As I was channel surfing that morning, the regular programming had been replaced by a standard test card. A few hours later the channel was gone from the system completely.

At the time of writing, two days later, there still hasn’t been any official announcement from The Fight Network about the channel’s status. We still don’t know if it’s gone for good or if it will be coming back in the future.

Which means that professional wrestling and mixed martial arts fans have been hit hard in Britain. Wrestling fans will now have to make do with watching WWE on Sky, or TNA on Bravo, while the only televised MMA we’ll see in over here will come in the form of UFC on Setanta, or the occasional Cage Gladiators show on ITV4. We’re even going to lose Cage Rage when Nuts TV closes down in a few weeks. All of this will mean that fans will turn to the internet even more, looking for torrent downloads and watching the shows on their computers, which, for this old fashioned writer, just doesn’t seem right somehow. A television show should be watched on television!

A few people have posted on forums wondering what they could have done to save the channel. I think the simple answer to this was that probably nothing could be done. Perhaps if they’d actually bothered to advertise the channel, and had made more of an effort to get more up-to-date programming, then people may have watched. But in the end yours truly, like countless other combat sports fans, just got tired of seeing the same thing over and over again, and that’s what cost the channel dearly in the end.