I got this in an email today too, the formatting was abit messed up, but I think I've managed to get it all here:
Quote:
ANNA IN WONDERLAND - NOT WHAT WAS PROMISED by Steve Ashfield
(mageditoruk@yahoo.co.uk)
I thought it was a good angle to do, the difference between the persona and the person, so I agreed to do it - Sweet Saraya
Sometimes what you want is not what you get, and in terms of Anna Nolans documentary on female wrestling, what you get is nowhere near what you were promised. Anna may have found her fame in Big Brother but her documentary is no more than a Big Lie!
Anna was a busy girl last summer. The former nun spent 11 days with British Womens Wrestling Champion, Sweet Saraya, appeared with Alex Shane at No Surprises 3 and filmed a video for Ladies in Combat. But by the end of the summer Anna had decided that all female wrestling was seedy and she wanted nothing to do with it. Not that she had the guts to tell Alex Shane or Sweet Saraya her controversial opinions. Nor did she reveal the fact she’d been involved with apartment wrestling, something that has more to do with prostitution than professional wrestling.
Having received a preview tape of the documentary I decided to find out exactly what Joe Smith (Boss of Ladies in Combat) and Sweet Saraya thought of the programme. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the BBC had failed to show them Annas programme. And imagine their shock when they discovered the facts that Anna Nolan and the BBC had kept hidden from them for nearly a year!
It wasn’t just Joe and Saraya that were deceived. The FWA have been promoting the show on their website and newsletter. Little did they now that the documentary failed to mention them once and Alex Shane was nowhere to be seen. Other planned interviews with female wrestlers were also absent.
Last Tuesday (July 16) I met Sweet Saraya just hours before she was due to wrestle for the TWA at Southampton Guildhall, and just three days before the programme was to be shown on BBC Choice. I had spoken to Saraya two days before and she was shocked and angry when I told her the true contents of the documentary. Now Saraya had the chance to see the programme for herself, something the BBC had denied her.
As I showed Saraya the documentary I could see that she felt embarrassed to be part of it. Later that afternoon I had the chance to find out her exact views on the programme, Anna Nolan and the catalogue of lies that have been told by those involved with the show.
The BBC had approached Saraya last year. A gentleman called John asked me would I be prepared to have Anna come and stay with me for a week with a TV crew to show the difference between Sweet Saraya the wrestler and Julie the mum?
Having taken part in documentaries in the past Saraya agreed: I know the sort of things that they wanted, so to me that was just publicity. Sadly Saraya was to have no idea of what Anna and her crew really wanted.
For 11 days Anna filmed Saraya and her family. They went with me everywhere. They went with me to take the kids to school, they went with me to my training, they went everywhere with me to the point where anyone who agrees to do a documentary on that basis knows that sometimes after a while, I need some space.
But the film crew never gave Saraya and her family that space. My kids were having to do things over and over again and they’re only 11 and 9.Yet the fact is that after all that intrusion of their privacy, the children are on screen for less than 30 seconds! The only time we see them is when Anna makes an unwanted visit to the family home at a time when the house was being repaired. Why film so much and then completely ignore it? The promised angle was fast disappearing.
Saraya took time off her training school to train Anna, yet none of this shown in the documentary. All the time Saraya believed Anna was interested in her life in and out of the ring. But that wasn’t the case.
Sweet Saraya was due to meet the American wrestler Venom in a hardcore match at Weston-Super-Mare, Anna came along for the ride and was given permission by Saraya and Scott Conway to be her manager for the night. Saraya had to protect Anna from a hostile group of fans from Bristol who don’t exactly love her! They couldn’t get at me but they could get at her. Indeed Anna was spat at so Saraya had a tough night. I was concentrating on not getting my ass kicked by Venom with hardcore tools and I was trying to protect Anna as well.
Anna absolutely loved the night or so she says. She was absolutely buzzing, saying what amazing work it was and she can’t come down and that its absolutely brilliant and she’d love to do it. I left it feeling very happy and content that the video was going according to plan and it was all going to be ok.
If Anna loved it so much then why is it that in the programme, we see her leave Saraya and the next scene sees her revelation that all womens wrestling is seedy. Did she have that opinion while spending time with Saraya, and why include Saraya in this category?
In the programme Anna is seen filming with Joe Smith, who runs Ladies in Combat. Joe trains female wrestlers at the North Manchester Ladies Wrestling Club. He’d been told that his part in the programme was to train Anna for a fight which would then be released on video by his company. But like everyone associated with this programme he was in for a shock!
Anna did the training, had the fight and was all smiles (well she always is, isn’t she). But at the end of the programme she tells Joe that she doesn’t want to be associated with this seedy business and demands the video is taken off the shelf. That takes up a couple of minutes on screen but Joe told me it took three hours to film! During her time with Joe, Anna met
Godfrey who we discover is into apartment wrestling. Anna sees his collection of magazines with near naked women wrestlers and then follows him as he pays a woman £120 to wrestle with him for an hour. Neither Joe nor Saraya knew about this as Joe explained to me. I knew something was wrong. I didn’t know about the apartment wrestling. It was just pro wrestling, an insight into it and training her up. Remember with Anna, what you’re told is not what you get!
Joe felt as if he and his wrestlers had been kicked in the teeth by Anna. She really pissed me off and made it look as if its seedy but nothing she did was seedy. Anna even complained that her opponent put her groin in her face!
Anna told Joe her feelings about women wrestling but never had the guts to tell Saraya. She never once turned round to me and said to me it was sleazy. She never turned round to me and said it was titillation. She never once turned round and said anything. She said it was very hard and she couldn’t understand how I could do it on a regular basis.
Finding out Annas true feelings deeply upset Saraya. At the end of the day all shes done is everything that she made me believe, shes gone back on. Everything that I’ve said has been twisted. I’ve been put in a light that I'm not happy about. She never mentioned once that she was going to go and see apartment wrestling. She said she was going to interview other people but she never turned round and said she was going to do all the soft porn and sleaze side of female wrestling. Nothing whatsoever! Pro wrestling is a sport that has been going for years. I’m a champion for God sake. Why would I put myself in a position to be cast as sleazy and ruin the reputation that I've got, that I’ve built up over twelve years? And if she told me what she was going to do I wouldn’t have played a part in it!
I go out there as an athlete. I’ve just seen the video and I have been projected as nothing but some sleazy two-bit female wrestler who is in there for the kicks and the money nor for the fact that I absolutely love and adore this business.
Anna has no idea how much she has hurt Saraya, The lies and the deceit have hit her hard. The first half of the video I sat there with my head in my hands and I just couldn’t believe that I was actually going to be part of this sort of video. To be fair with you, when I left you I went backstage and I cried my heart out. I seriously cried my eyes out to think anyone could turn round and say after I’ve just worked so hard to keep my image clean to put me in this sort of video. And at the end of it she has the audacity to turn round to the audience and say that she feels all female wrestling is sleazy. I go out there to wrestle, I’m not there to stick my ass in peoples faces and spread my legs to show people what I’ve got which is basically what apartment wrestlers are doing.
To Saraya, apartment wrestling is no better than being a prostitute. The girl on the video had her backside very close, it was on the guys face. I’ve been offered mud wrestling, oil wrestling and nude shots and I’ve never done it simply because I wanted Sweet Saraya to be known as a damn good wrestler not for the things she wears. All they’ve done is undermine my reputation and Ill be damned if anybody is going to do that not after I've worked half my life for this. To say I’m angry is an understatement. If I can’t stop it, then Ill damn well sue. They’ve made this documentary under false pretences and theres no way I’m going to be a part of that. To be honest I am completely devastated that they’ve put me in the same category as sleaze.
Professional wrestling in this country is trying its hardest to reclaim its former glory days. Annas programme does nothing to help the sport achieve that dream. It has deceived everybody involved with it and tarnished reputations. They found an easy target in Godfrey and ignored the true side of British Professional wrestling and don’t care who it hurts in the process. And that’s not what was promised is it Anna?
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