IT was wrestling, but not as I knew it. Watching TV with my nephews a few years ago, I was transfixed, and slightly irked, by the WWE Superstars.

“Er, he’s hitting him with a chair. Surely that can’t be allowed!” I cried. “It is allowed. It’s TLC - Tables, Ladders and Chairs,” they informed me.

This jumble of blinged-up beefy blokes with elaborate tattoos yelling in each other’s faces, armed with chairs, wasn’t how I remembered wrestling on the telly. I lost patience when someone randomly ran out of the audience, climbed a set of stepladders and jumped into the ring.

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“Big Daddy wouldn’t have tolerated that,” I tutted. “Who’s Big Daddy?” asked the boys. They lost interest when I explained he was a fat bloke from Halifax who wore a leotard that looked a bit homemade and ‘belly-butted’ his opponents...

But back in the day Big Daddy, with his “record-breaking 64-inch chest”, was kind of cool. My brother and I loved watching him on World Of Sport flattening his opponents, and we’d pore over the ‘Big Daddy Vs Giant Haystacks’ rundowns of their mammoth food consumption as they squared up for a match. For breakfast they’d scoff “half a dozen eggs, 10 rashers of bacon and five pints of milk” and for tea it was invariably “a whole chicken and a sack of spuds”.

We were impressed that our dad actually knew Big Daddy, having grown up in the same Halifax neighbourhood in the days when he was Shirley Crabtree. Dad recalled him glugging whole pints of milk even as a boy. I once stood next to the man himself, at WH Smith in Bradford. He was wearing a massive tracksuit and leafing through a magazine. I was too starstruck to say anything.

There was great showmanship in wrestling when Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks ruled the ring, but the slick WWE guys take it to another level.

Next month wrestling is returning to Bradford, at soon-to-open St George’s Hall. On March 29 something called Broken Ring Wrestling, which I guess is pretty self-explanatory, will hit the venue. I do hope there will be old ladies - traditionally the most vocal fans of a wrestling crowd - in the front row.

A quick online search of Broken Ring Wrestling brought up images of angry blokes, and women, flattening and throwing each other around the ring. One is swirling a lasso, another wielding a complicated-looking chain contraption and two beardy guys are spread-eagled on what looks like a table split in two under their considerable weight.

The aim seems to be to get the ring to buckle, leading to the coveted ‘broken ring moment’. Apparently the first WWE ring collapse was in 2003 when Brock Lesnar (surely born to be a wrestler with that name) ‘superplexed’ Big Show. The fans went crazy, and the rest is WWE history.

Wrestling dates back to the ancient Egyptians, and Bradford has a rich wrestling heritage, with stars such as Dennis Mitchell, Jim Breaks, Les Kellett and the Rawling Brothers.

Now the sport has evolved, and women are big name stars of the ring too. New film Fighting with My Family is about British professional wrestler Saraya “Paige” Bevis, from growing up in a house of wrestlers to winning the WWE Divas Championship in 2014. The cast includes Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, one of several pro-wrestlers carving out starry careers in entertainment.

It's a glossy world, far from the capers of Big Daddy and co, but the return of wrestling to Bradford could open a new chapter in the city's sport heritage.

* PUBLIC transport etiquette is being eroded to the point where older people feel invisible and isolated.

Research for Anchor Housing's Standing Up 4 Sitting Down campaign reveals that passengers are more likely to look down at their phone (47per cent) than look up to see if someone needs a seat. Nearly 30per cent of older people were unable to find a seat, and had to stand in pain and discomfort.

On a bus recently I noticed a young man and his rucksack taking up two priority seats at the front. Not once did he look up from his phone - even if he had I doubt he'd have stood up for the older people shuffling past.

In an age of mass communication, we're failing to interact with those around us.

* I TOYED with getting a fitness tracker, as I reckoned it would bully me into daily exercise, but I think I'd find it intrusive.

My friend has one that monitors her sleep patterns. I'm already aware that I wake up several times a night, I don't need a wristband to tell me. Now there's a wellbeing tracker, Bellabeat's Leaf Chakra, which traces not just steps and sleep, but stress levels too. I don't think 'charging' a crystal with positive energy in the light of the moon is going to work miracles on my consistent low level anxiety. But at least it's prettier than those bulky fitness watches.