Is wrestling on TV a bad thing? Young copy cats are a danger in the playground but should we ban it from our screens? A team or reporters from Children's Express investigates.
It started off as a play fight - but it did not stay that way. Within moments one of the boys was hit in the mouth. "He was bleeding on the concrete so I stopped it," says Lewis, 13, who'd been acting as the referee.
"Sometimes I stop people from joining in if they're playing too rough, but sometimes I just join in myself and start fighting them."
Lewis has been a fan of American wrestling for six years. His favourite wrestler is Triple H, and he often plays at wrestling. He has never been hurt, but knows other boys who have.
He added: "My friend has because they've done wrestling moves and he damaged his neck when he was picked up and slammed down on the floor."
The move is called a choke slam. His classmate Kyle, whose favourite wrestlers are The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin, says he almost broke his brother's neck trying the same move. "Every time I see people I want to do wrestling with them," he says.
They know the wrestling on TV is staged, but that doesn't take away the excitement of wondering who is going to win.
Scott, age 13, says "When you're watching it you forget about it being fake. You get into the game and just enjoy it."
Scott and his friends seem to live for wrestling. Their knowledge is encyclopaedic.
But the fighting is starting to worry people. Last year, a 16-year-old boy in America was treated for serious skin burns after he tried to copy a stunt he had seen on a wrestling show on TV.
In March of this year, a report produced for the UK's main broadcasting watchdogs suggested TV wrestling could encourage children to copy the moves. The researchers discovered some children had even used household objects such as grill pans as weapons in their play.
The copycat fighting concerns teachers too. Derek Strawbridge, deputy head of High Street Primary School in Plymouth told us he didn't know much about wrestling until he had a chat with one of his pupils who is a fan of the rough and tumble of the ring.
He says: "I wasn't aware of the amount of violence that's involved." Wrestling is not allowed in the school playground.
Play fights?
"It starts off as play fighting," he says, "and then somebody loses their timing or their aim and someone gets hurt."
That is the last thing the wrestlers say they want. Avalanche, a former WCW and ECW wrestler who now appears in a UK touring show, says children should stick to watching, not copying. "We are professionals and we take a lot of time to learn moves," he says.
"It's really not a good thing to be doing those things in a school playground because you don't have the knowledge to be doing them in the first place."
Positive influence
The wrestler, whose real name is Paul Neu, believes wrestling can have a positive, rather than a negative influence on young people. "I just hope that the kids can take a look at what we are doing in the ring and realise that anything is possible if you try hard enough," he says.
He admits wrestling contains a little bit of violence, but he told us: "So long as the kids know that this is not real - that everything out there is for show - it's no worse than watching cartoons."
Amber, age 13, doesn't agree. "Some of the kids in our class get really rough after watching it," she says. "It makes the boys more violent with the girls and the other boys. I'm scared that they might try the moves on me."
Even wrestling's biggest fans admit it may not be setting them the best example.
Matthew, age 13, says: "It has a bad influence on us because it makes us look like maniacs."
Kyle agrees: "Yeah, because we hurt other people and I always try the moves on other people."
So perhaps it should be banned?
"Never!" says Lewis forcefully. "There's nothing else on the TV that's good and it's the only programme that I like. There is nothing else - never will be."
Matthew agrees: "In fact I think it should be put on more channels. There'd be more variety, so you wouldn't have to watch just Neighbours, but something that you are interested in."
"It will never be banned," says Kyle, confidently. "After WWF, everything else in comparison is boring."
About the team
This article was produced by Ben Wildman, 11, Dominic Stringer-May, Steven Guy and Thomas Patrick, 10. Additional reporting by Susan Parnell and Sam Wildman, 10, Chaya Lenkiewicz, 9 and Jonny Williams, 8. It was published in The Newspaper.
