1985, 1995, 2005 PDC & BDO World Championships rewind

[willem0000]

[/quote]
Bristow has been quoted as saying "If you had told me after winning my 5th World Championship title in 1986 that I'd never win the World Championship again, I'd have laughed at you. I'd have laughed and said 'Come back and see me win it again next year'".
[/quote]

Something else Bristow did before Barney

[Rogg]

I'd like to see Burnett and Wayne Warren discussing the BDO.

In a pub?

I'm there
I'm asked to leave for bellowing about the Skol Six

[sennafan24]

I'd like to see Burnett and Wayne Warren discussing the BDO.

In a pub?

I'm there
I'm asked to leave for bellowing about the Skol Six

[sennafan24]

Regarding Oche's alternate timeline, it's worth pointing out that Barry Hearn and his Matchroom Sport company had a financial disaster in late 1991, i.e. the StormSeal controversy. Basically, Hearn for the previous decade had been extremely influential in snooker, having initially just been Steve Davis' manager. StormSeal was a company that sponsored the UK Championship in 1989 and 1990, and were due to do so again in 1991. However, just before the 1991 UK Championship, StormSeal went into administration. That left Hearn, as promoter, to cover the prize money costs, and it saw a big reduction in prize money. The 1991 UK Championship winner, John Parrott, only won £35,000, compared to Stephen Hendry winning £110,000 for the 1990 UK Championship and £100,000 for the 1989 UK Championship.

So bad was the financial situation for Hearn and Matchroom that he had to withdraw from snooker entirely by about June 1992. He was close to bankruptcy. They basically had to just focus on boxing for a time, i.e. Hearn was Chris Eubank's manager. Hearn was around PDC darts as early as the 1995 World Championship, talking about the money potential, but he didn't really get seriously involved with the PDC until much later, around 1999 (he organized the Taylor vs. Barneveld match at Wembley in November 1999), and became PDC Chairman in July 2001.

Hearn was involved with selling PDC rights abroad in the last 90s

I wasn't a snooker fan as a kid.

Therefore my first exposure to Hearn was when he was introduced as the new PDC Chairman on Sky.