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Snakepit
The Snake Pit, based in Aspull, Wigan Borough, England, is the gym and organisation regarded as the home of catch wrestling. Founded in 1948 by Billy Riley in the town of Wigan, it was originally known as Riley's Gym. Riley was succeeded by Roy Wood, one of his last living students. It hosts the Aspull Olympic Wrestling Club, which focuses on freestyle wrestling. Wood was recognised on the 2024 New Year Honours and awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) "for services to wrestling and young people" after coaching for almost 50 years. An exhibition about Riley and the gym began at the Leigh Town Hall in April 2024. The gym has had a significant influence on the evolution of catch-as-catch-can (CACC), freestyle, and professional wrestling, as well as mixed martial arts (MMA), especially in Japan. Riley was the head coach for over 20 years, teaching Lancashire style catch wrestling, and the gym became known in Britain and internationally for producing skilled wrestlers. Riley close ...
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The Snake Pit (Wigan)
The Snake Pit, based in Aspull, Wigan Borough, England, is the gym and organisation regarded as the home of catch wrestling. Founded in 1948 by Billy Riley in the town of Wigan, it was originally known as Riley's Gym. Riley was succeeded by Roy Wood, one of his last living students. It hosts the Aspull Olympic Wrestling Club, which focuses on freestyle wrestling. Wood was recognised on the 2024 New Year Honours and awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) "for services to wrestling and young people" after coaching for almost 50 years. An exhibition about Riley and the gym began at the Leigh Town Hall in April 2024. The gym has had a significant influence on the evolution of catch-as-catch-can (CACC), freestyle, and professional wrestling, as well as mixed martial arts (MMA), especially in Japan. Riley was the head coach for over 20 years, teaching Lancashire style catch wrestling, and the gym became known in Britain and internationally for producing skilled wrestlers. Riley cl ...
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Lancashire Wrestling
Lancashire wrestling, commonly called Lancashire catch-as-catch-can or Lancashire style, is a folk wrestling style that originated in the historic county of Lancashire in North West England. It became notable as the least restrictive and most aggressive style in England. It was popular across Britain and abroad, becoming a primary influence on catch wrestling, through which it is an ancestor of freestyle wrestling, American folkstyle wrestling, Brazilian luta livre, Japanese shoot wrestling and Shooto, modern submission grappling, and associated styles like mixed martial arts and theatrical professional wrestling. Description The style was practiced and popularised in the area that now includes Lancashire, Greater Manchester, and West Yorkshire. The objective was to achieve a back fall on the opponent by making both of their shoulders touch the ground simultaneously. There were two approaches to this, "wrossle for a thrut" (wrestling for a throw) and "up and down." In "wros ...
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Billy Riley
William Harold Riley (22 June 1896 – 9 or 15 September 1977), known by the name Billy Riley, was an English professional wrestler, coach, promoter, and referee. A legitimately skilled wrestler, Riley's career began when professional wrestling bouts were still genuine contests. At various times, Riley was billed as the middleweight champion of the world, British Empire, and England. In 1948, he founded " The Snake Pit" gym in Wigan, where he coached for over 20 years, teaching the Lancashire style of catch wrestling to some of the leading post-World War II wrestlers, including Karl Gotch and Billy Robinson, among others. Riley's students were significant influences on professional wrestling, catch wrestling, and mixed martial arts (MMA), especially in Japan. Riley's Snake Pit has continued to operate and train wrestlers over 50 years after his death. Biography William Harold Riley was born to Patrick and Jane Riley on June 22, 1896. He became a professional wrestler at four ...
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Catch Wrestling
Catch wrestling (also known as catch-as-catch-can) is an English wrestling style where wrestlers aim to win by Pin (sport wrestling), pinning or Submission (combat sports), submitting their opponent using any legal holds or techniques. It emphasizes adaptability and seizing opportunities during the match, with fewer restrictions than Styles of wrestling, other wrestling styles - techniques using or targeting the legs are allowed, submissions are allowed, and there are no mandatory grips. It was spread by wrestlers of travelling funfairs who developed their own submission holds, referred to as "hooks" and "stretches", into their wrestling to increase their effectiveness against their opponents, as well as immigrants through Europe and the Anglosphere. Catch-as-catch-can was included in the 1904 Olympic Games and continued through the 1936 Games; it had new rules and weight categories introduced similar to other amateur wrestling styles, and dangerous moves - including all submis ...
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Rugby Football
Rugby football is the collective name for the team sports of rugby union or rugby league. Rugby football started at Rugby School in Rugby, Warwickshire, England, where the rules were first codified in 1845. Forms of football in which the ball was carried and tossed date to the Middle Ages (see medieval football). Rugby football spread to other Public school (United Kingdom), English public schools in the 19th century and across the British Empire as former pupils continued to play it. Rugby football split into two codes in 1895, when twenty-one clubs from the North of England left the Rugby Football Union to form the Rugby Football League, Northern Rugby Football Union (renamed the Rugby Football League in 1922) at the George Hotel, Huddersfield, George Hotel, Huddersfield, over payments to players who took time off work to play ("broken-time payments"), thus making rugby league the first Football, code to turn professional sport, professional and pay players. Rugby union turn ...
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First Tuesday (documentary Strand)
''First Tuesday'' is a monthly television documentary strand that was shown in the United Kingdom on the ITV network and produced by Yorkshire Television. The subject matter is mainly social issues, and current affairs stories from around the world. It ran from 5 April 1983 to 2 November 1993, with programmes being shown on the first Tuesday of the month, hence the title. In 1993, '' Network First'' was a part replacement for ''First Tuesday''. Notable programmes * ''The Falklands War - The Untold Story'' (01/04/1987''Too Close to Home''(6 December 1988), about the Armley asbestos disaster * ''The Wigan Hold'' (1989, filmed 1988), about wrestling at Riley's Gym, featuring former professional wrestlers and Riley's Gym alumni Tommy Moore and Ernie Riley (son of Billy Riley) * Four Hours in My Lai (02/05/1989 - shown in the US Frontline series as ''Remember My Lai''* ''Sonia's Baby'' (03/04/1990, narrated by Olivia O'Leary* '' Jazz in Germany, Swing Under the Swastika'' (02/1 ...
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ITV (TV Network)
ITV, legally known as Channel 3, is a British free-to-air public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television network. It is branded as ITV1 in most of the UK except for central and northern Scotland, where it is branded as STV (TV channel), STV. It was launched in 1955 as Independent Television to provide competition to BBC Television (established in 1936). ITV is the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, it has been Legal name, legally known as Channel 3 to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time: BBC1, BBC2 and Channel 4. ITV was, for decades, a network of separate companies that provided regional television services and also shared programmes among themselves to be shown on the entire network. Each franchise was originally owned by a different company. After several mergers, the fifteen regional franchises are now held by two companies: ITV plc, which runs ITV1, the ITV1 cha ...
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The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust Limited. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in its journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. S ...
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2024 New Year Honours
The 2024 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 15 Commonwealth realms to Orders and decorations of the Commonwealth realms, various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebrations at the start of January and those for 2024 were announced on 29 December 2023, on the same day as the 2022 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours (Liz Truss), 2022 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours. The recipients of honours are displayed as they were styled before their new honour and arranged by the country whose ministers advised Charles III on the appointments, then by the honour and by the honour's grade (''i.e.'' Knight/Dame Grand Cross, Knight/Dame Commander, ''etc.''), and then by divisions (''i.e.'' Civil, Diplomatic, and Military), as appropriate. The BBC reported that it had already received press releases from some recipients before the honours list was published, contrary ...
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Tradesperson
A tradesperson or tradesman/tradeswoman is a skilled worker that specialises in a particular Trade (occupation), trade. Tradespeople (tradesmen/women) usually gain their skills through work experience, on-the-job training, an apprenticeship program or formal education. As opposed to a master craftsman or an artisan, a tradesperson (tradesman/tradeswoman) is not necessarily restricted to Manual labour, manual work. History In Victorian England, The terms "skilled worker," "craftsman," "artisan," and "tradesman" were used in senses that overlap. All describe people with specialized training in the skills needed for a particular kind of work. Some of them produced goods that they sold from their own premises (e.g. bootmakers, saddlers, Hatmaking, hatmakers, jewelers, glassblowers); others (e.g. typesetters, Bookbinding, bookbinders, Wheelwwheelwrights) were employed to do one part of the production in a business that required a variety of skilled workers. Still others were factory ...
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Shoot (professional Wrestling)
A shoot in professional wrestling is any unplanned, unscripted, or real-life occurrence within a wrestling event. It is a carny term shortened from "straight shooting", which originally referred to a gun in a carnival target shooting game that did ''not'' have its sights misaligned. Terminology such as this reflects the professional wrestling industry's roots in traveling carnivals. Initially, the term referred to practice or ability in catch wrestling as a legitimate sport. It has since come to mean any legit attack or fight in professional wrestling regardless of the combat system employed, and its meaning has broadened to include unscripted events in general. The opposite of a shoot is a work or kayfabe. 'Shoot' may also refer to legitimate 'shooting' for a takedown, as in interscholastic, amateur, and Olympic wrestling. Occurrences Professional wrestling is staged entertainment rather than a sports competition. As such, virtually everything in it is worked (part of th ...
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