British wrestling fans flocked to the Southampton Guildhall last Friday for the return of WOS Wrestling.

The wrestling show attracted upwards of 20 million fans when it was shown weekly on ITV in the 70s and 80s. It soon became the pinnacle of British wrestling until its cancellation in 1985.

The sports entertainment show returned last summer, after almost 30 years, and ran weekly episodes until late September before announcing a tour for early 2019, starting at the Southampton Guildhall.

The show featured a range of the UK talent such as Will Ospreay, who is regarded as one of the finest wrestlers on the planet, and former Southampton student Justin Sysum. Sysum, who’s the current WOS World Champion, spoke of his excitement “[to] be part of building a new era of WOS”.

The live crowd saw seven matches. The biggest bout of the night was for the WOS Women’s Championship. Viper emerged victorious when she defeated defending champion Kay Lee Ray and fellow challenger Bea Priestley.

Elsewhere, Rampage Brown defeated Will Ospreay and Robbie X & Sysum beat Alpha Bad.

The tour continues across the UK in the coming weeks, the next stops are Newport and Bournemouth before culminating at the London York Hall early February.

Basingstoke Bison Coach Doug Sheppard says he was impressed with his side’s 6-1 thrashing of fierce rivals Bracknell Bees in the National Cup.

Just 5 minutes in the Bees were penalised as James Galazzi crashed into Bison keeper Dean Skinns, sending the Basingstoke man into his own net.

Roman Malinik then scored the opener for the Herd, with Daniel Scott stunning the Bees’ keeper Alex Mettam soon after with a powerful long range shot from a powerplay.

Tomas Karpov continued the scoring in the second period on a delayed penalty call, whilst Daniel Scott scored another long range shot shortly after when the puck broke to him at the top of the hash marks.

Hallam Wilson then fired in the fifth of the game, and was soon after knocked to the ice as the Bees’ frustration grew.

However in the third period, Wilson kept his cool and, showing little to no signs of damage from the hit, took the Bison to 6 goals after skilfully breezing past the Bees’ number 4 Luke Jackson, and slotting the puck cleanly past the keeper.

The opposition pulled one back through Joshua Thomas Martin with just 6 minutes to go, ending hopes of a clean sheet for Bison keeper Alex Mettam, but it was too little too late for the Bees.

“I thought we played really well tonight,” said Bison Coach Doug Sheppard, “We’ve been playing well for three weeks and we wanted to keep things going.”

“Derby nights can get like that,” he said about some of the nasty hits, “especially with the scoreline being what it was. They’re obviously frustrated, lost a few in a row, but I thought our guys handled it with some great play, and played hard throughout”.

Basingstoke Bison’s next game in the cup is away to Swindon Wildcats on Boxing Day, with the return leg the following day.

The Bison continued to charge through the Autumn Cup on Saturday.

The Herd picked up another victory, playing at home against the Peterborough Phantoms, who are currently top of the league.

On paper the game appeared a tough one, especially when Basingstoke had key players out of the game. These featured Joe Baird in defence, as well as Roman Malinik, Ivan Antonov and Josh Smith all missing from the attack.

However, after a tight first period, the hosts picked up momentum picking up two goals.

But, the weaknesses started to show within the Herd as Peterborough quickly grabbed the two goals back.

Yet, before the period was over, there was enough time for the Bison to grab their third goal to take a one goal lead into the final period.

And it seemed to be that with that third goal they had really grabbed momentum adding another three goals to their tally.

The win sees the Herd continue their stampede in the league as they look to take the top spot, as they sit one point behind Peterborough.

After the game, Bison’s Man of the Match Ryan Sutton told Winol that: “the defence made the game easy for us tonight” and that “everyone chipped in” and the team “showed good character” in the second period, to end it at 3-2.