Celebrity Wrestling
Celebrity Wrestling is a British television programme, broadcast on ITV in 2005. It involved two teams of celebrities, competing against each other in wrestling style events. The series was presented by Kate Thornton and Rowdy Roddy Piper. British mixed martial arts fighter Ian Freeman was the show's referee.
Celebrity Wrestling | |
---|---|
Presented by | Kate Thornton Rowdy Roddy Piper |
Starring | Ian Freeman |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
No. of series | 1 |
No. of episodes | 8 |
Production | |
Running time | 60mins (inc. comms) |
Release | |
Original network | ITV |
Original release | 23 April – 12 June 2005 |
The aftershow programme on ITV2, called Celebrity Wrestling: Bring It On was presented by Jack Osbourne and Holly Willoughby. The winning team was The Warriors and the winning wrestlers were Annabel Croft (Solitaire) and Iwan Thomas (The Dragon).
After five weeks the show was moved from its primetime Saturday evening slot to a graveyard Sunday morning slot due to its extremely poor ratings and being comprehensively beaten in audience share by Doctor Who on BBC One.[1]
It was received with a feeling of derision by professional wrestling fans, due to the lack of actual wrestling content. The show featured heavily upon games which involved grappling and the real life interactions of team members in training (and usually not the training process itself).
Teams
Bold indicates that the celebrity won their gender championship
CrusadersThis team was trained by wrestler D'Lo Brown
|
WarriorsThis team was trained by wrestler Joe Legend
|
Masked Celebrity
Each week there was a "mystery celebrity" who joined in the wrestling. The celebrities included:
Other participants
- Model Emma B took part in one episode as a replacement for Victoria Silvstedt using the character name Queen Bee.
- Radio DJ Toby Anstis was set to appear in the series, but had to pull out when he broke two of his fingers.
- The UK Pitbulls tag team appeared on the follow-up show with Jack Osbourne, but serious wrestlers declined to appear.
References
- Kilkelly, Daniel (14 May 2005). "ITV confirms new 'Celebrity Wrestling' slot". Digital Spy. Retrieved 19 April 2007.