Celebrity Wrestling

This article is about the British reality television programme. For the 2008 American television program, see Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship 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
Original language	English
No. of series	1
No. of episodes	8
Production
Running time	60mins (inc. comms)
Original release
Network	ITV
Release	23 April (2005-04-23) – 12 June 2005 (2005-06-12)

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).

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).

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]

Teams

Bold indicates that the celebrity won their gender championship

Crusaders This team was trained by wrestler D'Lo Brown Celebrity Ring Name Jeff Brazier Pocket Rocket Tiffany Chapman Princess of Power Leilani Dowding The Vixen Mikey Green Wild Boy Michelle Heaton Inferno James Hewitt Gentleman Jim Jenny Powell The Avenger Lee Sharpe Sharpe Shooter Scott Wright Snake Eyes

Warriors This team was trained by wrestler Joe Legend Celebrity Ring Name Marc Bannerman El Diablo Annabel Croft Solitaire Kate Lawler The Brawler Shauna Lowry Tigress Victoria Silvstedt Ice Maiden Oliver Skeete Rebel Rider Iwan Thomas The Dragon Phil Turner The Handy Man Mark Speight The Quickdraw Kid

Masked Celebrity

Each week there was a "mystery celebrity" who joined in the wrestling. The celebrities included:

• Fatima Whitbread
• John Fashanu
• Neil Ruddock
• Antonia Okonma
• Terri Dwyer
• Fran Cosgrave

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 and Holly Willoughby.

See also

• List of professional wrestling television series