‘Rumble’ aired on Britain’s biggest network station, BBC 1, in an early evening slot on Saturday evenings. However, Rumble was not a wrestling show, but a comedy drama.
As a comedy it was as poor as expected from a mainstream show in the era: virtually all the humour came in the form of weak puns, ‘hilarious’ misunderstandings and fat men falling over. But as a drama it was, in hindsight, perhaps far more insightful than ever intended.
The show’s main star was Brian Glover, a well-known British character actor who’d also wrestled as Leon Arras. Other real-life grapplers Jackie Pallo, Joe Cornelius and Johnny Kidd all make cameos in the series, while boxer Glenn McRory has a minor role.
Glover plays Johnny ‘Pecs’ Britain (presumably a takeoff on real wrestler Johnny ‘Muscles’ England), a former 1970s star now working for the Global Wrestling Federation whose promoter Alan Enstone wrestles as Lord Byron. Despite the fact that the first show we see draws a crowd of 500 and the company is based in Digbeth (an unglamorous suburb of Birmingham), we are assured Byron is the country’s biggest star.
The back story soon becomes clear: Johnny was part of the inter-racial ‘Domino Brothers’ tag team with Jango Jay (the forename likely taken from real life black wrestler Johnny Kwango) who died in a ring accident. Disgruntled with the way he is treated by Enstone, Johnny decided to start his own promotion with half-sister ‘Ma Pecs’ and Jango’s daughter Georgie, who jointly run a fitness centre.
Having decided to call their breakaway group Real American Wrestling (a clearly fraudulent billing of a style common among several genuine British promoters at this time), our heroes quickly come across problems when their posters are torn down and a venue double-booked. They eventually decide to run from a cattle shed and ask a retired grappler to build them a ring; in yet another unfortunately believable moment, he demands that he be allowed to perform on the show as a condition of ring hire.
After Enstone gets the building condemned, thus cancelling the show, he offers to provide a venue, ring and wrestlers in return for 50% of the gate (a practice that’s common in reality, though usually for a flat fee). Our heroes draw a crowd of 300, but Ma loses their entire share of the takings by foolishly gambling on the results with teenage spectators. Georgie accepts Enstone’s offer to hand over his half of the takings in return for one kiss, but as the episode ends we discover it’s a set-up to make Johnny think she has betrayed him.
The next episode begins with Enstone at home in a huge mansion (it appears he’s made his fortune through the computer industry rather than off the back of $5,000 gates), while Johnny is drinking heavily. We then see a somewhat tortuous set of scenes featuring one of the RAW roster who performs as VAT (a takeoff on IRS, the initials being for Britain’s sale tax) and the inevitable confusion when a real tax official arrives.
Eventually our heroes see all the equipment in the gym confiscated after it becomes clear they didn’t pay their taxes on time. To make up the remaining tax shortfall, they run a Chippendales style show – an ironic scene given All Star promoter Brian Dixon spent most of his time running such shows around this time.
Enstone offers another partnership show, but it ends with all the RAW wrestlers viciously beaten. However, Johnny defeats Enstone in an arm wrestling match to win his share of the takings.
Show three begins with Ma Pecs creating a music video featuring the RAW performers, which actually manages to outdo the AWA WrestleRock Rap for jawdropping lameness. However, video producers refuse to market it unless if features Enston; with Ma over a barrel, he persuaders her to sell him Johnny and Jango’s ‘Lord Mountevans’ tag belt (apparently they had to share one strap).
Enstone then agrees to give Johnny a chance to win the belt back by picking a tag team to face him and a partner (the same ‘Dumpster’ who built the RAW ring). While Johnny advises his team, the Beefy Boys, on how to win, Ma calls in an old flame, the wrestling Hypnotist. Clearly based on Kendo Nagasaki (he’s a masked man with rumours of royal connections), he hypnotises Dumpster into attacking his partner in the blue corner. Unfortunately a mix-up means he actually goes after his opponents who quickly taste defeat. (Though supposedly in a larger venue, the show clearly takes place in the same studio set and even repeats some crowd shots from episode one, a familiar feeling to anyone who’s seen Sky Television’s editing on early morning WWE slots.)
At this point, it seems fairly predictable that Johnny will be tempted out of retirement and will defeat Enstone in the final episode to regain the belt. It‘s predictable because it makes perfect sense in a family-based hero and villain show. And it is to prove a wildly incorrect prediction. Read my column next Wednesday to find out why all is not what it seems in the world of Rumble…
Instead, episode four begins with the Beefy Boys getting a TV commercial, but Ma and Johnny scamming the money and ‘investing’ it for them by booking the 10,000 seat NEC Arena in Birmingham. Meanwhile we discover that Enstone is the son of Rasputin (a name used by a real wrestler who appears to be the same man shown in a photograph of Enstone’s father), a man who teamed with Dumpster in the 70s and lost the tag titles to Jango and Jay.
Having been shown as a loyal son, our lead villain then persuades Georgie to go on a date, at which point we discover he grew up in an orphanage and now secretly funds it and visits underprivileged children.
Meanwhile Johnny persuades the Beefy Boys to break into Enstone’s house with weapons and steal the belt back. This winds up with the intervention of police who reveal the seemingly lovable pair are actually on probation. The episode ends with the shock arrival of Crystal, Georgie’s long-lost mother.
Episode five continues the collapse of the hero-villain dynamic as we discover that not only did Jango have an affair with Ma, but any viewer paying attention can figure out that when Georgie was born he was 26 and Crystal just 16, making it a close-run thing whether their relationship was even legal, let alone morally sound.
Crystal then reveals she’s now the partner of former American wrestling great TJ who’s now found religion and become a preacher (though it appears his healing powers may be a scam). The plot gets utterly confusing at this point, with Georgie seemingly on the verge of abandoning Johnny and Ma (who brought her up after Crystal dumped her), Crystal giving the belt back to Johnny, Enstone and Ma working together to expose Crystal and/or bribe her to leave the country, and Georgie almost kissing her mother’s partner before getting drunk and running to Enstone’s house to spend the night.
In the final episode we learn she was too drunk to do anything and our attention quickly turns to a match at the NEC where TJ (wrestling as The Prophet) is to face Enstone (as Lord Byron) in a last man standing match. By this stage it’s absolutely impossible for TV viewers to have any idea who they are supposed to be rooting for, and things get even more confusing when Johnny trains Pecs at the same time as trying to expose his healing powers as fake.
The match, which is again in the same venue and clearly not in front of 10,000 people, ends with TJ winning after using the Mountevans belt. (There’s no explanation for who now has the belt or how it ended up in the ring.) Meanwhile Crystal has converted the Beefy Boys to religion and used them to help her steal the takings and flee the country.
The series ends with Crystal and the money gone, TJ’s healing powers either exposed or proven (depending on your interpretation of events) before he leaves the country and Georgie apparently flying off to America at his side — though we never actually see her on the plane. Meanwhile Ma and Johnny, who’ve yet to promote a show under their own steam, declare a continued promotional war on Enstone in what comes across as a blatant (and unsuccessful) bid for a second series.
Comedic failings aside, Rumble starts out as a surprisingly coherent and engaging story. In it’s later episodes it descends into a convoluted mess where virtually every character comes across as difficult to trust and out largely for personal gain. As entertainment it’s a disaster; as a portrayal of mid-90s British wrestling, some will consider it uncanny.
