mardi 21 mai 2013

The Major Changes In The History Of Professional Wrestling

By Vicki Diaz


Wrestling has a history that can be traced back to about 3000 BC. In fact, the sport started during the Babylonian rule and existed from empire to empire. However, much credit is given t the Greeks who greatly promoted this sports. The history of professional wrestling can be traced to early 20th century.

Wrestling is mainly categorized into two. There is the Greco-Roman type, which is considered the oldest and was the most practiced and the catch style (where some things which were initially prohibited in the rules of the game were allowed). For instance, catch style allowed the wrestler to grapple below the waist, a thing that was not permitted in the Greco-Roman style. Nonetheless, both of the styles were legit games where victory was earned.

It was until the early 1920s that the game had a major change. The word professional wrestling was coined during this period. This was also when promoters of the sport employed scripting and predetermining matches so as to interest the audience more. Though it borrowed much from the catch style, these were never to be legitimate fights but rather stage-managed competitions whose winners, the performers, and the organizers already knew. Tag teams and use of unfair means to win matches were introduced too.

By definition therefore, the sport is a stage-managed fight with known results. The trick is however to make the audience convinced that it is real through trained reactions to the predetermined loss or win. There are cases where professional wrestlers would display feuds just to make their performance against each other more thrilling. Mostly though, the fight would follow a storyline that resembles a real situation and thus maximize the entertainment.

The history of the sport as we know it today started at around 1980s after being boosted through the introduction of television in the early fifties and that of cable in the 80s. People could now watch the games live at home. The main player remained the National wrestling Alliance (NWA) though there were dissenting groups that thought they were being swallowed by this body unfairly.

Even though the NWA was popular and controlled the sport, there were groups that started their splinter organizations. Among such splinter groups were the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWF) and the American Wrestling Association. These were based in New York and Minnesota in that order. However, their popularity was not to go far as they did not excel in building storyline and staging performances. They also lacked a popular national star one like Lou Thesz.

Since the sport was being introduced to the national audience, the promoters needed better scripting and storyline to survive. Both the AWA and the WWF also went down due to investigation into some of their performers who were thought to abuse steroids. All these matters contributed to the failure of the opposing promoters. Eventually, the NWA remained as the lead promoter of the sport on TV.

Whereas there is more to the history of professional wrestling, it must be understood that the game is among the most watched in the world. It is also a top revenue earner for both the promoters and the performers. In addition, its acceptance is international as seen in countries like Australia, United Kingdom among others which have also embraced the game. It is watched by many and there are also a good number of upcoming wrestlers for the sport.




About the Author:



Aucun commentaire:

Enregistrer un commentaire