I'm not 2 sure on this one, we've always been taught to stick to the left side so its easyer to reverse things, and your opponent knows what your going to do.
If your opponent has a known injury, or is working an injury, i guess it would be acceptable to work on the right, but as long as you stuck to it, and told the story correctly (i'm sounding scarily like Jack :? ). I once worked on the wrong are for just a few seconds in a match, but as soon as i got back through the curtain, I got a STIFF chop as punishment from one of my trainers, Psycho.
As for working on the weaker arm maybe its because its more vunerable, it would be easyer for them to counter if its there stonger arm, and your trying to put them away quickly.
I know if your about 2 get hit with a clothesline, its better to know when and where there going to hit you, so you can bump properly. If you just had to guess which arm they were goin to use, it could look very messy.
I've read a lot of wrestling history, but this hasnt been touched on much. Its one of those 'just because' things.
I think the only people who could answer this 100% correctly are Chic & maybe Majik.

.....your opponent says duck the clothesline! ...you think as your running off the ropes, "which arm is he going to clothesline me with"?...anybody get it???? :?

I was shown to clothesline with the left arm but it makes no odds to me being pretty much ambidextrus (sp?)

However when I was first shown to put a headlock on with my left arm, but later shown by Jeff Kaye to put it on right handed so you are on the left hand side of the body, which is what I generally stick to now as that was how it was drummed into me, and that I personally think it looks cleaner that way to roll round into a back hammer. Could Chic shed some light on this? The only flaw with that is I was always shown to do a headlock takeover using the left arm so your opponant can break out the back into a grounded back hammer. Hmm my head hurts now. Any insight would be great Chic.

Best wishes

Tomo

...no problem mate the answer's simple. Jeff spent most of his career in Germany where they do things the opposite way round, but at least they ALL do it this way. Others like Finlay, Regal, Taylor etc. etc. would all have to adapt whilst in Germany only the "BURLY" BARRY DOUGLAS wouldn't change on his return to the UK....It takes a good well schooled and expereienced wrestler to be able to switch so easily! Hope this helps, all the best CC

The way I was tought is to work with the left. All holds hammerlocks etc are done with the left arm. All my striking moves are done with the right. I was told before a match to ask my opponent what arm he clotheslines with. It was Stg. Slaughter (Midlands Wrestler) who told me this.

... about right or left arm mostly.
As far as I am aware there is only one country in the world that doesnt teach people to work on the left and that is Mexico. They do a great deal on the right.
And several European countries - France, Spain etc. George Kidd in his 1977 TVTimes interview, skating on rather thin kayfabe ice, said that he went to France to learn the right-handed _style_ so as to confuse opponents ...
:? ...it's posts like this that convince me that 99% of the people who write about wrestling don't have a clue what they're talking about....stick to being fans for gods sake!

But Chic, have you ever actually seen the George Kidd interview I'm referring to? (TVTimes Jan 1977 in 2 parts)
If so then you'd understand what I was on about.
If not, I'll try and explain.

Kidd sticks within the confines of kayfabe in the interview, but he does discuss how "British wrestlers lead from the left" and that while in France he learned the right-handed _style_ "so I could work either way round and confuse my opponents." *

Now then, within the context of kayfabe, there would be no particular reason for wrestlers to use either side, so it was a strange thing for George to say in a kayfabe interview.

Unless anyone's suggesting that wrestlers would stick to keeping to the left/right/whatever even during a shooting situation (such as a gym workout.) Which would strike me as a bizarre thing to do.

*(Quotes as best I can recall. I'm at my parents' house in London and my cuttings are up in Coventry.)