Comedy of the Week - Ashley Blaker's Hyperfixations

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

"Americans have a long history of taking British things and ballsing them up. They took football and added helmets and cheerleaders; they took ice lollies and called them popsicles; and they took James Corden and then sent him back here."Among Ashley’s more unusual hyperfixations is a life-long love of professional wrestling. This special interest was first developed on Saturday afternoons at his grandparents’ house watching Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks and Kendo Nagasaki. It continued through the 1980s when Britain was invaded by Hulk Hogan and his colleagues from the then WWF (before they lost a court case to the World Wildlife Fund), and Ashley was fortunate enough to be in attendance at the legendary Summerslam show at Wembley Stadium in 1992, which so many British wrestlers have cited as the day that cemented their love of the grunt and grapple business. This undeniably extraordinary spectacle is sometimes called ‘sports entertainment’ - for many people it is neither!When Ashley Blaker was diagnosed with autism and ADHD, one of the most significant aspects of his diagnosis is his propensity for hyperfixation in special interests, which he now realises has entirely shaped his past and which he uses to mine comedy for this new series.It’s no exaggeration to say Ashley’s life has been driven by obsessions. He has variously been a schoolboy with a love of Star Wars and Doctor Who, a wannabe comedian who performed on the London comedy circuit at 16, a trivia nerd who appeared on University Challenge, a history PhD candidate at Cambridge, a BBC producer of hit comedy shows including Little Britain, a fanatical football fan who saw Liverpool play across England and Europe, a strictly Orthodox Jew who went to synagogue three times a day for over ten years, a father of six, and latterly, a heavily tattooed renegade in hiding from his former community.In this series, Ashley takes a comedic look at each of his obsessions in turn, merging personal memoir with a delve into subjects which have yet to be covered in stand-up comedy shows. The result is a series which, while based on the broader topic of neurodiversity, covers it with the lightest of touches and is focused more on Ashley’s individual hyperfixations, lifting the lid on many of the different worlds he’s inhabited.Written and performed by Ashley Blaker co-starring Rosie Holt and Kieran HodgsonScript Editor: Steve Hall Recording engineers: Jerry Peal and Jon Calver Producer: Steve Doherty A Giddy Goat production for BBC Radio 4

BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. So Mr. Blaker, the final part of the autism assessment. Have you ever had any intense hyper fixation? Star Wars and Doctor Who. Okay. Wrestling, Liverpool Football Club, James Bond films, also Dutch feudism. Yes, that's fine.

Tattoos, 70's Hitchhiker English History, rap music, comic books, computers, Dungeons and Dragons, Disney. Okay, stop it. Welcome to Ashley Blakers Hyperfixations, Episode 2, Professional Wrestling! Hello, I'm Ashley Blaker and I love wrestling. Yes, there's little I enjoy more than watching permatanned muscle heads hit each other while an audience made up of men

who mostly still live with their parents chant, this is awesome. And it's genuinely something I've refrained from telling even close friends. I think most people would rather divulge they spend their evenings watching internet pornography. I think I'd be more comfortable admitting I watch GB News. Which I don't.

The story begins when I was five years old. On Saturdays we'd visit my grandparents and my grandpa would take me to synagogue along with my dad and so began a special tradition being passed down from generation to generation. Not Judaism, but wrestling. Because after lunch we'd all sit down to watch World of Sport on ITV. We were done with God for the day and the only all-powerful father we cared about now was Big Daddy. Easy, easy, easy. If you're under the age of 50 you might not remember Big Daddy. A man almost unique among

TV stars of the 80s in that he's never been accused of anything inappropriate. At least not yet. He was unquestionably the biggest name in British wrestling despite having the real name Shirley. Named after his father Shirley Crabtree Sr. who we must assume was an absolute bastard. Obviously being radio I can't show you what Big Daddy looked like but picture a muscular handsome wrestler like The Rock and now imagine the complete opposite. A grossly overweight Yorkshireman wearing a singlet adorned with a Union Jack, which made him look like he was on his way to a Tommy Robinson rally, being held in a Gregg's bakery where he'd probably be turned away for looking a bit too downmarket.

Incredibly I now realize that when I was watching him aged five he would have been the exact same age I am now and yet he looked at least 83. Big Daddy was beloved by wrestling audiences who seemed to mostly consist of women so old they could all have presented rip-off Britain. In fact, among his biggest fans were Queen Elizabeth, the second, he wasn't that old, and appropriately for Big Daddy, Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher and Big Daddy, two hideous figures who looked much older than their years, and relied on lazy patriotism to become mysteriously popular in the 80s. Although at least Big Daddy never introduced a poll tax.

A former Coldstream guard, Crabtree had previously wrestled under the moniker, the Battling Guardsman, but only found success when he adopted the name Big Daddy, which these days sounds very kinky. It wasn't, trust me. In fact, bizarrely, the name was taken from a character in the Tennessee Williams play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, because there's nothing you associate with wrestling more than critically acclaimed theatres that deals with unrequited love and dread of mortality. We need to come up with some stage names. I'm 6 foot 11 and weigh 30 stone so I'm thinking something like Giant A-Stacks.

I like it. I'm gonna go with Klondeke Kate with the nickname Helen Boots. What about you Shirley? Well... Have you ever seen any Tennessee Williams? I saw an absolutely gorgeous production of a street car named Desire and Jessica Tandy's Blanche Dubois was simply definitive. But then I remembered seeing Leo McCurn's wonderful turn as Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

He really captured the aggression, the vulgarity, the mendacity that I want to convey in the ring. So I think that's the name for me. Yes, I've decided from now on, I'm going to be known as Leo McCurn. He may have been immensely popular, but personally I couldn't stand Big Daddy because even at five years old,

I could see this man was as much an elite athlete as Jabba the Hutt. But I was immediately hooked by World of Sport Wrestling, because there were so many other colorful stars. There was Johnny Quango, named after the province in the Congo, not because he was running a non-governmental department. There was masked Japanese warrior Kendo Nagasaki who was really a bloke from Stoke called Pete Thornley who would now probably be cancelled for samurai face. And then there was my favourite Welshman Adrian Street whose gimmick was pretending to be gay. A Welshman being the only gay in the village. That will never catch on.

I also loved the suave presenter, Dickie Davis, responsible for one of the greatest TV gaffes of all time, when he attempted to introduce the Cup Soccer. So that brings us to the end of our program now let's have a look at the Cup Soccer that Cups on. My parents stopped me watching soon after that. In truth my initial interest in wrestling came to an end well before I hit my teens. Sadly, my grandfather passed away and without his company I had far less interest in watching

blubbery men bounce off each other's oversized bellies. Then in 1988, head of London Weekend Television, Greg Dyke, cancelled wrestling from TV altogether. Dyke felt it was too lower class and he clearly had a point. The Queen was a fan and she lived on an estate, never did a day's work and relied on handouts from the government. And with wrestling gone from our screens, that could have been that for this brief hyperfixation. But something new and more exciting was about to arrive. Wrestling from America.

Today we're accustomed to it, but it's impossible to overstate how different this was to Big Daddy and pals grunting and groaning in Wolverhampton Civic Hall. In this new era, the only way to watch pasty, out-of-shape Brits fight each other was to go on a summer holiday to Spain. I was instantly hooked, and all thanks to a very unlikely tag team. Not the Bushwhackers or the Road Warriors, but Lord Sugar and my rabbi.

So one Saturday morning in 1989, the man then known simply as Alan Sugar visited our synagogue for a B'mitzvah. And our rabbi could not have been more starstruck had we been visited by one of the most revered Jews of all time. Abraham, Moses, Barry Manilow. Lord Sugar used to open episodes of The Apprentice claiming I don't like schmozers, I don't like arse lickers. But he clearly quite likes them.

Because within a week our rabbi had received an Amstrad phone, an Amstrad computer, and most importantly an Amstrad satellite dish, thus becoming the very first person in our community to have Sky. It's not true that Jews control the media, but we do occasionally give each other free access to it. Meanwhile I didn't have Sky at home because you might not realise this about me, but I had a very deprived upbringing. much like Rishi Sunak. People mocked Rishi Sunak last year when he moaned

about growing up without Sky, but I can really relate. He went to Winchester and Oxford, I went to haberdasher's and Oxford, but neither of us had satellite TV because Rishi and I are both underprivileged men of the people. Are you aware that right now there are teenagers like Rishi and Ashley who are a full five years behind the current episodes of The Simpsons?

Please consider donating just £10 and allow them to watch Who Shot Mr Burns before it gets spoiled. Don't feel too sorry for me because luckily I was good friends with the Rabbi's son and was often round at their house, which is how I got my very first glimpse of Jake the Snake. To be clear, that was a wrestler, not... LAUGHTER Not the rabbi's nickname for his penis. LAUGHTER

He called that Andre the Giant. LAUGHTER I'm joking, rabbi! But I was completely transfixed by this new American wrestling, so the Rabbi and his son let me come round every week to watch. See Rishi, all you needed was to get your Hindu Swami to record Sky for you and you'd have had a happy childhood after all. There was something about American wrestling that appealed to my neurodiverse brain and

made it perfect to become a new hyperfixation. There were colourful costumes which were stimulating without being overwhelming, a comforting repetition of catchphrases and clear storylines involving goodies fighting baddies with almost no nuance whatsoever. All of which made this perfect for autistic males in the audience or as they're more commonly known as wrestling, the audience. In this uncomplicated world all grievances could seemingly be sorted by agreeing to wrestle each other on live TV. Among the simple storylines during

this period were You had sex with my wife behind my back, so let's have a match! You claim you're my son's real father, so let's have a match! You killed my beloved dog and then not only cooked him but had me unwittingly eat him, so let's have a match! That was a genuine storyline. I've not made that up. And at first those scenarios sound far too serious to be dealt with by merely wrestling each other, but let's be honest us Brits will do anything to avoid

confrontation, so even in those situations most of us would probably say nothing. The neighbors murdered our dog and then threw him on the barbecue. Oh, let's not make a fuss, dear, it'll be very awkward. We just won't send them a Christmas card this year. By far the biggest star, the American answer to Big Daddy, was a man called Hulk Hogan, who was immediately superior in that his real name wasn't Shirley. He was a hero then, but looking back now, he's mostly admirable to me for having clearly been a middle-aged man simply refusing to accept he's going bald.

He just grew out the back and put a bandana over the top and hoped no one would notice. Now that is my kind of role model. Hogan was the inspiration for what was known as Hulkamania and headlined events such as WrestleMania, which all sounds horrendously American, but which you might not realize had its roots in 19th century England as it was Annabella Milbank, the future Lady Byron, who in 1812 coined the term Byron-mania.

Although unlike Hogan, Lord Byron never thought to cash in by launching his own brand of vitamins or breakfast cereal. "'Tis time this heart should be unmoved, since others it hath ceased to move. Yet though I cannot be beloved, and Keats and Wordsworth, whatcha gonna do when barren mania runs wild on you? American wrestling was criticized at the time for being overly cartoonish,

but I think this only increased its appeal to autistic teenagers like me. For example, to better define their personas, a remarkable number of wrestlers had supposed day jobs. So T. L. Hopper came to the ring holding a plunger because he was apparently a wrestling plumber. Which made little sense, because he'd have made far more money just lying to people

that they need a new boiler like every other plumber. There was also a wrestling bin man, who presumably would get very angry if you put out the recycling wheel you've been on the wrong day, a wrestling magician, who appropriately disappeared very quickly when everyone realized this idea was utter crap, and a wrestling pimp who came to the ring followed by a line of scantily clad young women. Not the kind of thing that would have appealed to the Queen,

but probably a big hit with Prince Andrew. There were also endless facts to learn, which was catnip to my neurodivergent brain, but which made me the world's least interesting person. For example, I was proud to know that Bruno Sammartino held the record for the longest WWF Championship reign at 2,803 days, which by a remarkable coincidence was the same number of days I would now remain a virgin. Hi, I'm actually... good party, innit? I suppose.

Erm... Yes? I wonder, did you realise that SummerSlam in 1989 was the first ever WWF pay-per-view event that didn't feature commentary from Gorilla Monsoon? I'll catch you later. Oh, okay. Hi there, I'm Ashley. Did you know that the 1993 Survivor series featured the only WWF match of Bruce Hart's career? No, I've never actually seen WWF wrestling because unfortunately my family doesn't have Sky. By the way, my name's Rishi.

My dad also took me to see wrestling in person, including SummerSlam 92 at Wembley, which was attended by 80,000 people and which set a stadium record for the shortest ever queue for the ladies toilet. The WWF was so popular in the UK at this point, they even got to number four in the charts with a novelty single called Slam Jam, featuring several of their biggest stars and produced by an up and coming music exec called Simon Cowell. At this point I was going to play the song but we'd have had to pay quite a lot and I can't have giving money to Simon Cowell on my conscience. So just imagine if you will the worst tune of all time, and now imagine it being sung by a load of roided up male strippers.

Suitably, the lyrics by Mike Stock and Pete Waterman were worthy of, well, Byron. Everybody to a man, slam. It's a slam jam ha oh whoa Everybody to a man slam It's a slam jam ha oh whoa

The song also gave us the unlikely pairing of The Undertaker and Simon Cowell, an evil, scary figure responsible for burying many people who've dared to stand up to him, and a man who is famously litigious and of whom I'd never say a bad word. LAUGHTER In truth, SummerSlam 92 was the beginning of the end for this hyperfixation,

and within a year I had fully moved on. I was nearly 18 and already felt I might be too old to watch a wrestling soldier fight a wrestling Native American as if there had been a massive falling out among the village people. I could no longer suspend my disbelief that when one wrestler would literally try to murder another it would only ever lead to another match rather than someone calling the police. Mr. Undertaker, you're under arrest

on suspicion of killing your former manager by burying him alive in cement. You don't need to say anything, but please be aware you made the mistake of committing the crime on live TV. By 17, I was also sufficiently mature to appreciate just how many of the characters relied on racial stereotypes such as the Ugandan savage Kamala. He was really Mississippi-born James Harris but was billed as being from deepest darkest

Africa and was portrayed as a cannibal who not only wanted to beat Hulk Hogan but was shown chopping up carrots with which to cook him. Combining wrestling and racism, the WWF were clearly going all out to appeal to the royal family. So that was me done with this hyperfixation, a childish phase about which I can now laugh and cringe in equal measure. So thanks for joining, I'll be back next week when… Hang on, don't lie, you still watch it.

Shhhhhhh. Yeah, you were talking backstage about trying to get tickets for SummerSlam 2025. Alright, don't wrestle shame me. Look, this is the thing you need to understand about hyperfixations. So you know how last week I said some will last only a few weeks while others can occupy you for 15 years? Similarly, while some, like 17th century history, you'll finish with and that will be that,

others get embedded in your bloodstream and have a habit of resurfacing years later. So while I presumed I was done with wrestling, wrestling wasn't done with me. The first time the bug returned was in my mid-20s when the WWF had a huge resurgence in popularity, mainly by transforming itself from cartoon fighting for kids to an adult-orientated trash TV show

aimed at people who enjoyed Jerry Springer. Which on one level made sense, because all the boys who'd love wrestling as children were now 20-something, so why not evolve the product to meet their needs? On the other hand, every other children's TV show has been happy to entertain the next generation of children rather than attempt to retain the same audience forever.

You didn't get Postman Pat suddenly targeting the 25 to 34 year olds, with the promise of a cage fight between Reverend Tims and Ted Glenn, followed by a bikini contest featuring Mrs Goggins from the post office. If they did, there wouldn't be any kids shows left. Peppa Pig! Mummy Pig starts an OnlyFans! Daddy Pig has come home from work to find Mummy Pig filming a scene with Uncle Pig. Mummy Pig, why are you doing that with Uncle Pig? I'm a bit of an expert at that. As for you Uncle Pig, you ****ing ****, I challenge you to a match.

Hell in a cell! Daddy Pig and Uncle Pig give each other so many chair shots to the head, Uncle Pig suffers concussion, while Daddy Pig is left with a brain resembling an 85 year old with Alzheimer's. Hmm, that wasn't quite what I was expecting. Next time, Pepper ties George to a crucifix in a muddy puddle. My absolute favourite performer in this era was a man called Mick Foley, mainly because he appeared to be in even worse shape than me. He wasn't muscular, tanned or handsome, had four front teeth missing,

and incredibly, during a match in Germany against Big Van Vader, managed to lose half an ear. In his autobiography Foley slightly underplays it writing, March 17 1994 wasn't shaping up to be a real great day anyway. Yeah we've all had days like that haven't we? Woken up early by the dustman, traffic on the school run, an unexpected bill in the post. At that point, the day's going so badly, what difference if half your ear gets ripped off? Foley's also quite kind about his opponent that night. Really underneath it all, Vader was a nice, sensitive guy.

I even saw him cry in the dressing room after he paralysed a young kid named Joe. What a lovely man, eh? It doesn't matter how many kids you incapacitate, if you can still cry about it, you're one of the good guys. By the way, any listener who still thinks wrestling is fake needs to read this book, because no real sportsman like Roger Federer or Usain Bolt has ever told an anecdote like this. The referee picked up my ear and handed it to ring announcer Gary Michael Capetta. With his face turning white, Gary tiptoed back to the dressing room

where he informed Ric Flair, I have Mick's ear, where should I put it? What's more, Foley continued the match. When the England football team are playing, you only have to nudge the TV for Harry Kane to fall over. Nick Foley lost his ear and finished the match because wrestling is real and I was once more obsessed with it. The next time the wrestling hyperfixation returned

truly brought the story full circle. Worried about alienating their sponsors, the WWF, now named WWE, had dialed down the adult content and returned to seeking younger viewers, which meant my interest waned fairly quickly. But it also meant that 10 years later, I had children who were the perfect audience for wrestling and I was delighted to view it together and pass on my passion for these high-flying men in colourful trunks. Where once it had been me and my grandfather enjoying big daddy take on giant haystacks, now it was me and Oli watching Seth Rollins fight Roman Reigns. Four generations of Blaker linked through the decades by our love of grappling, and

it's a hyper-fixation which hasn't left me since. What? So you're saying you still watch it? You do realise it's all fake, don't you? OK, before we finish, let's address this once and for all. Aha, what a loser! You watch staged fighting! Look, we know it's staged. But but so what people go to see the new Marvel film and no one stands outside the cinema going, hey you idiots don't you realize this isn't real? When Thanos takes on the Avengers it isn't a genuine

contest because it's all written by Kevin Feige and he's decided the Avengers win. Well I don't watch rubbish like Marvel films either. I'm strictly a Radio 4 listener. Fine. So you know all those exciting fast-paced scenes in The Arches? They're not real. When Justin Elliott asked Brad to make a video showing the suitability of the rewilding Ambreeze site for the introduction of beavers. That's just actors reading a script. How dare you? The Archer's is real. When American couple Faith and Chuck visited Ambreeze and Clary and Eddie Grundy cooked

them a turkey for Thanksgiving, that didn't really happen. No, stop it. I love the Grundy's and they're real to me. Oh my God, the archers fan just hit Blaker with a chair. Look, it's okay, it's okay. You enjoy the Grundys and the Aldriches and I'll enjoy Cody Rhodes and Jon Moxley and we don't need to talk about it again.

And you know what? God bless radio for because because shows like The Arches are there for those who've grown up without the ability to watch wrestling. Well, actually, when I was a pupil at Winchester College, I was so deprived we couldn't even afford a wireless. I stand corrected. So that's it for professional wrestling, but please join me next week for

a deep dive into another of my hyper fixations. Until then, good night. Ashley Blaker's Hyper Fixation was written and performed by Ashley Blaker! Oh yeah brother! Also appearing were Kieran Hudson and Rosie Holt! Oh it's true! It's damn true! Ashley Blaker's Hyperfixations was produced by Steve Doherty and it was a Guinea Goat production for BBC Radio 4! And that's the bottom line! Because Ashley Blaker said so! If you smell what the Blaker is cooking.

Hello I'm Brian Cox. I'm Robin Ince and we're back for a new series of the Infinite Monkey Cage. We have our 201st Extravaganza where we're going to talk about how animals emote when around trains and tunnels or something like that. I'm not entirely sure. We're doing one on potatoes. Of course we're doing one on potatoes. You love potatoes. I know but... Yeah, you love chips, you love mash. I'll only enjoy it if it's got curry sauce on it.

We've always got techno fossils, moths versus butterflies and a history of light. That'll do, won't it? Listen first on BBC Sounds.