Professional wrestling is unlike any other sport β it combines raw physicality with showmanship and performance arts in a blend designed to entertain, excite, and inspire. It is often criticised for its scripted nature, but those who hold a grudge against it fail to understand that winning and losing is not the main point of the contest. Wrestling is all about colorful characters and high-wire drama, and its fans wouldnβt want it to be any different than it is.
Of course, the sport is evolving with the times in response to changing tastes of the audiences, media availability, and other factors. We will make a little retrospective to show how the spirit of the sport remained mostly intact despite many changes on the surface.
Origins of Professional Wrestling
Wrestling is one of the oldest athletic disciplines that was practiced in antiquity and remained popular in almost every civilisation. Since it is a simple test of strength and endurance that requires no special equipment, it was widely used to prepare soldiers for war and to provide a daily dose of exercise for civilians. Numerous wrestling styles and competition formats developed in different parts of the world, but the main goal was always to subdue the opponent and put him on his back.
In the late 19th and 20th century, a distinction between truly competitive and staged wrestling matches emerged. The second kind was sometimes described by the word βkayfabeβ, which implied a pretense that the confrontation between the wrestlers was real (even when it was not). This form of wrestling gained popularity with the spectators, who generally knew they were watching a scripted performance but showed up to cheer for their favourites anyway.
The First Golden Age β 1950s
In the period after World War II, staged wrestling matches started gaining mainstream recognition, coinciding with wider adoption of television sets in the US. The audiences were thrilled with the display of superhuman strength, rarely questioning the authenticity of what they were seeing. In this period, the first wrestling superstars were born, none bigger than Gorgeous George who was making as much as $100,000 per year in 1950 β a huge sum for any athlete at that time. The popularity of the sport wasnβt limited to the United States β Mexican fans were even crazier about it as it directly connected to their cherished luchador tradition. The biggest star in Mexico was El Santo, who transcended the sport and became a national hero as well as a movie actor.
The Second Golden Age β 1980s
For a couple of decades, professional wrestling faded into the background as team sports like football and basketball took center stage, but it made a furious comeback in the 80s. Again, the rise in popularity was driven by media innovations β this time it was cable television and VCRs. Fans could record the matches and re-watch them with friends as many times as they wanted, which greatly helped to expand the fan base. It also helped that wrestling organisers of this era consciously worked to create memorable characters and put them in as many feuds as possible. Some of the biggest names of this period were Andre the Giant, Hulk Hogan, and Ric Flair β all had larger than life personalities that fit into the zeitgeist of the times perfectly and appealed to fans of different backgrounds.
The Third Golden Age β New Millennium
Since the classic days of Hogan and company, professional wrestling maintains a steady core of fans that remains committed to the sport and follows as many events as possible. However, the arrival of fast internet at the turn of the century made it much easier to share videos of old fights and clips of fresh-faced wrestlers still looking for recognition. This reignited the interest of the fans for pro wrestling, which started to lose some of its shine in the previous decade. Rivalry between competing promotions such as WWF, WCW, and ECW contributed to the hype, and also led to increased production budgets and higher level of athletic performance on stage. The events became more grandiose and featured more competitors, so while the impact of individual stars may have been reduced the sport as a whole reached more eyeballs than ever before.
How Is Professional Wrestling Adapting to Modern Times
Today, professional wrestling occupies a well-defined place somewhere between mainstream and underground. It doesnβt really aspire to the status of a βrealβ sport, but it has its own legacy stretching back for nearly a century to guide its present and future development. There is a huge amount of content available from a mobile phone, so viewers are close to the point of saturation. Perhaps the best illustration of the current state of the sport is that major sportsbooks like PowerPlay allow bettors to predict the outcomes of wrestling events. Nobody really cares if the events are scripted β the winners are still difficult to guess in advance and itβs a lot of fun watching the entire storyline unfold in high definition. Pro wrestling is here to stay, even if it has to reinvent itself from time to time in order to stay in tune with the current demand.
