ROLLER DERBY!

I was wondering what ever happened to Roller Derby? Do you remember Roller Derby matches on television in the 50s? I used to love watching them. My favorite parts were the body checks that ended in a skater being tossed over the railings - I was a bloody minded little kid, lol!

In the seventies they made a movie called "Rollerball" based on the sport. It starred James Caan (JONATHAN! JOHNATHAN!) and it was a futuristic view of the socio-economics of professional sports, in this case Roller Derby. The ending was great, the Machiavellian minds of the sports promoters and team owners punctuated by the organ playing Toccata and Fugue in D minor by J. S. Bach.

I don't remember seeing a lot of men in Roller Derby when I was a kid in the fifties. Most of the shows I remember seeing featured women. But the staged violence was reminiscent of the wrestling matches that I remember in the sixties and which are still being televised today.

I wonder why the wrestling matches made it through to today and not Roller Derby? To me Roller Derby was the more interesting of the two "sports".