my son and i are fans of pro-wrestling. i have been since the 80’s. at first i thought that it was real. before they admited that it was “sports entertainment”…my question is this: was it ever real since it has been around for quite awhile…and when /why did they start to “choreograph” the matches? thanks guys…
This link offers some insight/ An excerpt from early 20th-century pro wrestling champion Ed Lewis:
**Ed Lewis was a true pioneer of the sport and one of its earliest and most dominant champions. He truly “paved the road” for pro wrestling to be recognized as a legitimate sport in the eyes of the public during the early 20th century, and he was also there to see the fallout of the “sport’s” dark “legitimacy” secret revealed to that trusting public.
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The sport of wrestling was very different during those early formative years than it is now --in many different ways. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, there were still many actual professional wrestling contests or “shoots” (although the concept of a “predetermined winner” was certainly not unheard of) and most matches were decided in 2 out of 3 fall contests. The emphasis of the wrestlers back then was not necessarily to draw and entertain tens of thousands of fans by incorporating wild gimmicks and costumes, but rather, simply to gain the advantage over, and then defeat, your opponent through leverage, fighting skills, and grappling – and still turn a profit. When Lewis first started in the sport, a “work” was considered by many top names of the era to be very much beneath their dignity, although the pre-determined match was beginning to be used by promoters more and more frequently. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, most (but far from all) pro wrestling matches were still, indeed, legitimate matches between 2 wrestlers. Lewis himself was involved in arguably the longest running wrestling match in history, when on July 4, 1916 Lewis wrestled former champion Joe Stecher to a 5 1/2 hour draw. Often referring disdainfully to wrestling that incorporated wild personalities and choreography as “slambang” wrestling, Lewis began his career just prior to the transition in the sport that forever led it down the road of “sports entertainment”.**