‘It’s better than Corrie’

9:29am Friday 18th April 2008

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Tonight, the WWE - formerly the WWF - rolls into the North-East, with a sell-out show in Newcastle. But is it still popular? Who goes to watch?

And what's it like being a professional wrestler? Owen Amos meets the former World Tag Team Champions to find out

THE ten-year-old boy waits for the arena doors to open, so excited he can't stand still. His dad's hand in one mit, he carries a luminous piece of A3 card in the other.

On it, he's scrawled "YOU SUCK!"

In the queue behind, a fat 30-something man has a plastic championship belt on his shoulder. It's designed for children, but he makes it look smaller, like a giant with a pint glass. His T-shirt reads "LAYETH THE SMACKETH DOWN!"

That day, 500 fans stormed the city centre Woolworths to see the big star sign autographs. Tickets were issued, but some were that desperate they barged in without.

Why are these people - including Ricky Hatton and 20 mates - here? And why are they so excited?

Football? No. Boxing? No. More than 8,000 people, from ten-yearold boys to middle-aged women, are here to see wrestling. Yep: wrestling. It's still that popular.

Last week, it was Liverpool. This week, the WWE - formerly WWF - rolls into Newcastle's Metro Arena. Tickets have sold out. And so, presumably, has luminous A3 card in North-East newsagents.

To many, wrestling's heyday was the early 1990s, when stars like Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage drop-kicked their way into mainstream culture. But now, a new generation of stars like John Cena, Triple H and Batista are breaking records worldwide.

The figures are bigger than a choke slam from the top rope. There are three, two-hour televised shows per week, plus more than 200 non-televised shows a year - including 75 outside the US. Shows are broadcast in 130 countries. Since 1988, WWE has sold £1bnworth of pay-per-views. Last year, it sold £450mworth of action figures and video games.

Not bad considering it's fake.

PROFESSIONAL wrestling has always been scripted, with finishes pre-determined. Fans realised that during the 1990s; now, it's an open secret. The WWE website talks euphemistically of "sports entertainment" - a mix of "muscle, colour, pulsating music and pyrotechnics".

The 2.1 million fans who turn up each year want entertainment, not sport. "I know it's fake, but I treat it like a soap opera - and it's better than Coronation Street," says a Scouser in a T-shirt with The Rock's catchphrase - IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOUR NAME IS! - emblazoned. I ask his name, but regret it immediately. "It doesn't matter what my name is!" he says. I sigh.

But while the competition is fake, the physicality is not. How - as the wrestlers ask - do you fake being body-slammed by a 20-stone champion?

I meet Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch, threetime tag-team champions, an hour before the show, in a side room packed with Marks & Spencer crisps and cakes. We're not allowed in the locker room, a WWE official says, because "the guys are running round in pants". We look quizzical. "Well, I know their job is running round in pants," she says.

"But"

Cade is packed with muscle and painted bronze, with thighs the size of hay bales. Murdoch is smaller and paler. But - put it this way - I wouldn't want to be body-slammed by either. I ask, nervously, how "fake" their sport is. "We were doing a tour between December 26 and New Year's Eve," says Cade.

"Three nights in, I did a move I have done 10,000 times before. I felt a pain in my shoulder and the bone is sticking out."

But there are no sponges, stretchers, or substitutes here.

The play doesn't stop; no one kicks the ball out of play. Unlike the preening Premiership, the show goes on. Ronaldo wouldn't last five minutes.

"I couldn't move it," Cade continues.

"I tried to pull it back, but it wouldn't go. I finished the match, got to the back and went to the hospital. Ten days later I was back in the gym; six weeks later I was back in the ring."

Murdoch adds: "If you don't wrestle, you don't get paid. It's like any other job." I want to correct him - in England, if you don't work, you get paid more - but don't fancy a debate on the leniency of social security.

IN this ten-day tour, the WWE stars have wrestled at Liverpool, Belfast, Valencia, Geneva, Torrevieja, Cardiff and Nottingham. "We travel the world, but don't see it," says Cade.

They look shattered, Cade, especially, looks ready for sleep, not slams. They don't even touch the Marks & Sparks chocolate flake cakes. They must be knackered. "You work so hard to get here (the WWE)," says Murdoch.

"But when you do, you realise that wasn't as hard as staying here."

Both took different routes to the top. Murdoch worked as security for his brother's independent wrestling promotion. After getting his "ass kicked by the wrestlers" every night, he decided to train as one. Cade trained with wrestling legend Shawn Michaels immediately after leaving school. What did they think the first time they were body-slammed?

"I was thinking Can I call my father and ask if he could come back down and pick me up?'" says Cade.

"You certainly question whether you made the right decision," adds Murdoch.

Both spent years on the independent scene, often sleeping in cars, spending more on petrol than they earned in the ring. This is the big-time; the wrestlers' equivalent of a contract with Arsenal. "I didn't get into professional wrestling to earn 20 bucks at an independent show," says Cade. "I got into it to work for this company."

And then they stand-up, ready to body-slam and back-drop for 10,000 screaming Scousers. "If the audience is able to feel the emotion, it feels like they're getting their money's worth," says Murdoch. "If you get them to boo when you want and cheer when you want, then they will go home happy."

Before they leave, a young female reporter - no more than nine stone dripping wet - asks Cade to pick her up for a picture.

Sorry, they reply, we can't. If we drop you, you might sue. The former World Tag Team Champions, thwarted by health and safety. WWE: welcome to England.