There was a period of several decades in which, to a greater or lesser extent, roller derby was rigged “Sports Entertainment,” a la professional wrestling. It didn’t start that way, and it’s not like that these days, but that was the case as late as RollerJam’s time on TV around 2000.
With wrestling, it’s easy to see how they have a rough plan for the match, and then throw in lots of improvisation. With roller derby, how did they rig it? Everyone was in motion, so how much could be choreographed? I’m at a loss as to how it was done.
I used to watch it a bit during the 60s or 70s. I was sure it was rigged, but even though I was a nut for sports rules, I cold never figure out how they scored this, so they could have been doing anything as far as I could tell.
But given that they knew how scoring was done, I don’t think it would be too hard to just let the opposing player score. As I recall, what made it so obviously fake, was after being hit, a player would often go a complete lap on one skate flailing his/her arms pretending to be off balance and almost falling. Surely skaters that balanced could manage to let others pass and score.
I remember when I was little some channel or another was playing reruns of old roller derbies, probably those same ones you’re thinking of. Even when I was 9 or 10 I remember thinking that it seemed odd that once in a while someone would barely get nudged and they go flying up to the top and literally flip over the railing.
If you look at this, you can see why people called it fake. It looks like professional wrestling on wheels. It’s not fake now, but I know they still deal with it being called fake. If you watch a roller derby now, they don’t spend the whole match beating each other up, they’re just trying to get past each other. People might get hit and shoved, but they’re not actively trying to ‘hurt’ each other.
There were some pretty ridiculous pileups, too, where skaters “couldn’t” get themselves up and skating again. They kept flailing and falling back into the pile.
Are you saying there wasn’t actually a roller derby like sport that involved a ball rolling around as part of the game, that it only happened in the movies? Cuz I have some pretty vivid memories of watching those games, in reruns, back when I remember watching the same roller derby reruns. At least I assume they were reruns, this would have been in the late '80’s and they looked just like those 70’s style roller derbies. Anyways, the game with the ball had (IIRC) the same sloped tracks (which I don’t think they use now) with the rail at the top for people to get shoved into and ‘flip’ over, same ‘pro wrestling’ type moves etc, but I know I never watched either of the movies.