Exclusive, part two: Greg Burridge on action films, Jason Statham and the Attitude Era

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Ben Smith continues his interview with Greg Burridge, following the upcoming release of his directorial debut ‘London Rampage’. Burridge pulls no punches as he discusses his views on independent wrestling, the British scene, and the influence of the WWF’s Attitude era.

How did you recruit for the film? Wrestlers that you’ve worked with in the past?

It’s all my mates, number one. It’s pretty much 99% wrestlers in this movie. Again, I’m going to prove the point that we’re not just these big oily men that wear spandex and get in a wrestling ring – we’re multitalented.

 So who can we expect to see from the British independent scene?

Some of the top wrestlers of the current British wrestling scene, and some of the top professional wrestlers of the up-and-coming British wrestling scene. In particular, you’re going to see Will Ospreay – who in my opinion, pound-for-pound, is the greatest wrestler on the independent scene now – and Paul Robinson, so two of the greatest.

What they can do in a ring surpasses what Tony Jaa can do, it surpasses what Jean-Claude Van Damme can do, and it surpasses what Scott Atkins can do.

It’s different, but some of the stuff they can do is going to blow your mind. I knew this, I know what they can do. I worked out this choreographed fight for them, and I think it’s really going to deliver not just to wrestling fans, but to martial arts fans, and that’s the important thing.

I wanted to make a movie that wrestling fans will enjoy, but if you’ve never seen wrestling before you’ll still say: ‘That movie was f**king awesome, Will Ospreay is the new Tony Jaa,’ or ‘Paul Robinson is the next Tony Jaa,’ or I’m the next Jason Statham!

It’s just got everything you need to see in an action movie, and that was my aim. I’m sick of seeing s**t action movies that don’t deliver, and I wanted to make a movie that did.

Wrestling is still kind of looked down upon; do you think people will have more respect for it after watching this film?

If British wrestling is going to come back on top, people need to watch wrestling subliminally. You can’t any more go to someone: ‘Here’s wrestling,’ because they’ll say, ‘Oh okay, that fake s**t.’

What we’re doing in a ring now – it’s another world to what some of the people think they know about wrestling. They think it’s Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks – it’s not. And this movie is going to showcase the top wrestlers in Britain. And they’re not just the top wrestlers in Britain; they’re the top wrestlers in the world.

We run the best training school in Europe, so you’re going to get some of the top wrestlers that people have never seen before. This is where they are going to make their name. They’re going to be doing crazy, crazy stuff.

It’s not just going to put British wrestling on the map – hopefully it’s also going to put British wrestling on the map for action movies, and a new form of martial arts.

How big do you think the film can be?

It’s going to make waves. That’s all I’m asking.

You’ve said online that it’s going to set a new path to follow; what do you see that path looking like?

With the London School of Lucha Libre, we are not just a wrestling school; we are now a stunt centre. I’ve already got my next movie lined up in Bollywood, and I’m training a big Bollywood actor, here at the school, for the next project.

Me and Garry [Vanderhorne] work really hard on pushing the school and the stunt technique – and it’s working. We’re doing stuff with Sky at the minute, and we’ve done stuff with BBC and Channel 4.

So this movie is going to hopefully lead to other bigger things – we’ll make it if it’s successful. Of course we’re going to make more movies, we’re going to use the school as a factory for not just wrestling but stunts and stunt movies.

There’s a stunt company in America called 87eleven – they run out of Hollywood – and they work on all the latest action movies coming up, and that’s basically what we are. This is a hub for creative athletes who don’t just want to make it in the wrestling world, they want to use that tool, and make it in a new path which perhaps they didn’t even know was available to them – the stunt and acting world.

We’re setting a new standard now in Britain. We’re not just a wrestling school; we’re an all-round stunt and sports entertainment factory.

How did you get involved with Lucha Britannia and the London School of Lucha Libre?

Garry Vanderhorne – my partner – started up Lucha Britannia. Again – going back to what I said about making people watch wrestling subliminally – it’s not a wrestling show, it’s a cabaret show that happens to have wrestling as part of the show.

So he set Lucha Britannia up. I became part of it after a knee injury that kept me out for a while. Garry wanted to start a school up, and when he asked if I wanted to be head trainer I said yes.

I’ve had wrestling schools all over the world. I’ve had them in Ireland, I helped to discover Sheamus [now in the WWE] and showed him the way to do his gimmick. I’ve done seminars all round Spain.

It was kind of trial and error at a lot of schools, but I thought: ‘OK, I know exactly what a school needs to be and what it doesn’t need to be.’ It doesn’t need the cancer of British wrestling, it doesn’t need the egos, it doesn’t need any of that.

We need to create a family vibe, and that’s what we’ve got here; we’ve got a massive family vibe. People come here just for a night out. We do an hour warm-up to start off with and it is like a Monday night rave, and then we throw each other around for a couple of hours.

So it’s really important. We used to do one day a week, then it went to two, now we do three, so we’re almost training full-time. We’ve got links now with WWE, they come over and use some of our guys and get them try-outs. It’s just going from strength to strength.

As a side product now we’ve got the London School of Lucha Libre shows. We had Cassandro and Diva Salvaje – two massive Mexican superstars – on the student show, not even the main Lucha Britannia show. So, in terms of wrestling, it’s like the NXT to the WWE; the Lucha Britannia show is your WWE, and obviously the London School of Lucha Libre shows is the NXT. They’re two very different things, the LSLL shows are family-based entertainment whereas the Lucha Britannia shows are more adult, cabaret-influenced shows, rather than just wrestling.

Did that influence come from the early nineties WWF gimmicky stuff?

It came from the idea that wrestling is just f**king boring. It’s just boring. Yeah, you’ve got these promotions like PROGRESS and various others that deliver wrestling – it’s pants and boots wrestling – and that’s great, but we don’t want to be a pants and boots company. We want to see Freddie Mercury versus a robot, or a zombie versus a fish, or a knight versus the Son of Neptune – crazy outrageous gimmicks.

Look at where we are. We’re in a railway arch, underneath Cambridge Heath Station. The coolest part of London.

When people walk in here, we want them to be lost in a crazy, make-believe world, and not have to worry about the s**t that goes on in their life – nine to five in their jobs, and their house, their rent – come and have fun for three hours.

Forget about all that s**t. Let us entertain you, and have fun. And then when you leave that door, you go back on those [streets] of Bethnal Green, then you can start worrying about your s**t in the day, but when you walk in here, anything goes. That’s our strength here.

It’s like a crazy microcosm of wrestling madness, underneath a railway arch in east London.

Would you say you’re more proud of your work here than you are a match with Nigel McGuiness or A.J. Styles?

100 per cent. This is my world, right here, in a railway arch in east London.

Yeah, I’ve achieved loads in my wrestling career, more than I would have ever thought, I’ve wrestled some of the best wrestlers in the world and I’ve wrestled for some of the biggest titles in the world, but this is where my heart is now.

For me, seeing the people that I’ve trained along with Garry enter that ring, and maybe have their first match… With some people you think: ‘You’re never going to be a wrestler,’ they think they’re never going to be a wrestler – seeing them actually wrestle their first match, that’s such a rewarding experience.

Just seeing people, who thought they couldn’t – believing that they can. We’ve changed people’s lives without a shadow of a doubt, and they’ve told us we’ve changed their lives. That’s a great thing. That goes beyond wrestling – changing someone’s life.

The third and final portion of this interview will be available soon. Burridge will talk more about the London School of Lucha Libre, Lucha Britannia, and his ambitions in both the wrestling and the movie industries.

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