Mid 20th Century
123-724: The WXW Ultimate Heavyweight Championship is a professional wrestling championship in the American independent professional wrestling promotion World Xtreme Wrestling . Lance Anoa'i is the current champion in his second reign, he beat Bo Nekoda on July 12, 2015 at a WXW house show for the championship. There have been 18 WXW Ultimate Heavyweight Championship reigns and 13 total champions with one vacancy. As of December 1, 2024. As of December 1, 2024. Professional wrestling 1970s and 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s and 2020s Professional wrestling (often referred to as pro wrestling , or simply, wrestling )
246-435: A bona fide athletic contest or competition. Professional wrestling is not a combative sport. Wrestling constituting bona fide athletic contests and competitions, which may be professional or amateur combative sport, shall not be deemed professional wrestling under this Part. Professional wrestling as used in this Part shall not depend on whether the individual wrestlers are paid or have been paid for their performance in
369-842: A cliffhanger and consequently, All Star underwent a box office boom as hardcore fans turned up to live shows to see what happened next, and kept coming for several years due to careful use of show-to-show storylines. Headline matches frequently pitted Nagasaki in violent heel vs heel battles against the likes of Rocco, Dave 'Fit' Finlay , Skull Murphy (Peter Northey) and even Giant Haystacks , or at smaller venues teaming with regular partner "Blondie" Bob Barrett to usually defeat blue-eye opposition. Many British wrestlers also continued to appear on television, alongside French, German and other talent, via France's TV show New Catch which originally debuted on French terrestrial channel TF1 in 1988 before being transplanted to satellite channel Eurosport upon its early 1989 launch, where it would continue into
492-415: A performing art evolved from the common practice of match-fixing among American wrestlers in the 19th century, who later sought to make matches shorter, more entertaining, and less physically taxing. As the public gradually realized and accepted that matches were predetermined, wrestlers responded by increasingly adding melodrama, gimmickry, and outlandish stunt work to their performances to further enhance
615-415: A professional wrestling exhibition. All engagements of professional wrestling shall be referred to as exhibitions, and not as matches. In the industry's slang, a fixed match is referred to as a worked match, derived from the slang word for manipulation, as in "working the crowd". A shoot match is a genuine contest where both wrestlers fight to win and are therefore "straight shooters", which comes from
738-413: A background in authentic wrestling no longer mattered. After this time, matches became more outlandish and gimmicky and any semblance professional wrestling had to catch wrestling faded. The personas of the wrestlers likewise grew more outlandish. Gorgeous George , who performed throughout the 1940s and 1950s, was the first wrestler whose entrance into the arena was accompanied by a theme song played over
861-520: A carny term for a shooting gallery gun whose sights were not deliberately misaligned. Wrestling in the United States blossomed in popularity after the Civil War , with catch wrestling eventually becoming the most popular style. At first, professional wrestlers were genuine competitive fighters, but they struggled to draw audiences because Americans did not find real wrestling to be very entertaining, so
984-513: A central authority. Nor could any of them stomach the idea of leaving the NWA themselves to compete directly with McMahon, for that would mean their territories would become fair game for the other NWA members. McMahon also had a creative flair for TV that his rivals lacked. For instance, the AWA's TV productions during the 1980s were amateurish, low-budget, and out-of-touch with contemporary culture, which lead to
1107-574: A champion that Curley put forth: Dick Shikat . The National Wrestling Association shut down in 1980. In 1948, a number of promoters from across the country came together to form the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). The NWA recognized one "world champion", voted on by its members, but allowed member promoters to crown their own local champions in their territories. If a member poached wrestlers from another member, or held matches in another member's territory, they risked being ejected from
1230-471: A consortium of independent promoters under the British Wrestling Federation (BWF) whose name was used for a rival championship, built around Heavyweight champion Bert Assirati who split away from Joint Promotions in 1958 while still champion. Although Joint Promotions considered the title vacant and held a tournament for a new champion (won by Billy Joyce), Assirati continued to claim it within
1353-587: A credible claim to the world title, cemented in 1905 with a win over American Heavyweight Champion Tom Jenkins in the United States . Hackenschmidt took a series of bookings in Manchester for a then impressive £150 a week. Noting Hackenschmidt's legitimately dominant style of wrestling threatened to kill crowd interest, Cochran persuaded Hackenschmidt to learn showmanship from Cannon and wrestle many of his matches for entertainment rather than sport; this displayed
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#17330845910251476-422: A crowd of around 80,000. Following the demise of Joint Promotions and the slowdown at All Star, several of British wrestling's old mainstay attractions chose to retire, while many younger stars such as Steve Regal and Dave Taylor as well as veterans like Finlay and Haystacks emigrated to the United States to continue their careers. Nevertheless, several Independent promoters attempted to capture what remained of
1599-581: A degree. Vince Russo, the boss of WCW in 2000, completely disregarded kayfabe by routinely discussing business matters and office politics in public, which alienated fans. I watch championship wrestling from Florida with wrestling commentator Gordon Solie . Is this all "fake"? If so, they deserve an Oscar . Professional wrestling in the United Kingdom Mid 20th Century 1970s and 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s and 2020s The history of professional wrestling in
1722-577: A direct revival of the old slot on the World Of Sport programme) was filmed at the Fairfield Halls , Croydon in 2013, however it was not picked up by ITV. Another attempt was given an airing by ITV on New Year's Eve 2016. A follow-up series of 10 episodes was due to be filmed at Preston Guild Hall in May 2017 but this was postponed until a year later. Around this time, WWE also took an active interest in
1845-495: A disqualification, "knockouts" (countouts) and disqualifications counting as automatic two falls in best of three falls matches (which were predominant), and no follow-up moves allowed on a grounded opponent. Similar rule systems were adopted by most major promotions in mainland Western Europe (although French wrestling abandoned rounds early on.) The existence of the committee was readily acknowledged by promoters who used its existence to counter any accusations of wrongdoings within
1968-404: A distinct vernacular . It has achieved mainstream success and influence within popular culture , with many terms, tropes , and concepts being referenced in everyday language as well as in film , music , television , and video games . Likewise, numerous professional wrestlers have become national or international icons with recognition by the broader public. In the United States, wrestling
2091-410: A fee, a visitor could challenge the wrestler to a quick match. If the challenger defeated the champion in a short time frame, usually 15 minutes, he won a prize. To encourage challenges, the carnival operators staged rigged matches in which an accomplice posing as a visitor challenged the champion and won, giving the audience the impression that the champion was easy to beat. This practice taught wrestlers
2214-551: A larger-than-life fan favourite of children and pensioners alike. That he was no longer a bodybuilder youth, rather an overweight man in his forties, did not seem to be an obstacle as every major heel in the country was defeated by Daddy. This was usually in short order with Daddy gaining quick wins in his few singles matches and cleaning up quickly when tagged into his more frequent tag matches. Disgruntled contemporaries such as Adrian Street have attributed this to Shirley's lack of conditioning, although Max in response insisted that this
2337-405: A legitimate sport. Firstly, wrestling was more entertaining when it was faked, whereas fakery did not make boxing any more entertaining. Secondly, in a rigged boxing match, the designated loser must take a real beating for his "defeat" to be convincing, but wrestling holds can be faked convincingly without inflicting injury. This meant that boxers were less willing to "take dives"; they wanted to have
2460-754: A match against Gus Sonnenberg in January 1929. Bowser then broke away from the trust to form his own cartel, the American Wrestling Association (AWA), in September 1930, and he declared Sonnenberg to be the AWA champion. This AWA should not be confused with Wally Kadbo's AWA founded in 1960. Curley reacted to this move by convincing the National Boxing Association to form the National Wrestling Association , which in turn crowned
2583-424: A more literal meaning in those places. A notable example is India's Pro Wrestling League . In numerous American states, professional wrestling is legally defined as a non-sport. For instance, New York defines professional wrestling as: Professional wrestling means an activity in which participants struggle hand-in-hand primarily for the purpose of providing entertainment to spectators and which does not comprise
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#17330845910252706-440: A new city, attendance was high because there was a waiting fanbase cultivated in advance by the cable TV shows. The NWA's traditional anti-competitive tricks were no match for this. The NWA attempted to centralize and create their own national cable television shows to counter McMahon's rogue promotion, but it failed in part because the members of the NWA, ever protective of their territories, could not stomach submitting themselves to
2829-547: A new generation of professional wrestlers such as Will Ospreay , Zack Sabre Jr. and Pete Dunne to rise to prominence internationally. For many centuries, there have been wrestling tournaments (for example in Cornish wrestling or Scottish Backhold ) throughout the British Isles where individual prizes have been comparable to yearly salaries and where monarchs and lords have been in the audiences or indeed participated. At
2952-487: A promotional business did not return to Britain until the beginning of the 1930s when the success of the more worked aspects of professional wrestling in America, like gimmickry and showmanship, were introduced to British wrestling. It was with this revival that the more submission -based Catch As Catch Can wrestling style, which had already replaced Greco Roman wrestling as the dominant style of professional wrestling in
3075-499: A public company whose staff had little experience of the unique business. Finally, promotions were left in the hands of Max Crabtree , the brother of Shirley , who was headhunted by Joint as the most experienced booker still in the business. Crabtree produced the next boom in British wrestling by creating the legend of Big Daddy , the alter ego of Shirley, who had been unemployed for the best part of 6 years before joining Joint in 1972 as
3198-529: A strong foothold in British Wrestling, dominated by Orig Williams from the mid/late 1960s onward up to the 21st century. Williams' British Wrestling Federation produced Welsh-language television wrestling programmes for the bilingual S4C channel in the 1980s and 1990s under the title Reslo . One compilation from the early 1990s was released on VHS (in English) as Wrestling Madness . As with old ITV footage on
3321-497: A typical American household only received four national channels by antenna, and ten to twelve local channels via UHF broadcasting . But cable television could carry a much larger selection of channels and therefore had room for niche interests. The WWF started with a show called All-American Wrestling airing on the USA Network in September 1983. McMahon's TV shows made his wrestlers national celebrities, so when he held matches in
3444-575: A victory for all the pain to which they subjected themselves. In the 1910s, promotional cartels for professional wrestling emerged in the East Coast (outside its traditional heartland in the Midwest ). These promoters sought to make long-term plans with their wrestlers, and to ensure their more charismatic and crowd-pleasing wrestlers received championships, further entrenching the desire for worked matches. The primary rationale for shoot matches at this point
3567-436: Is a form of athletic theater that combines mock combat with drama , with the premise that the performers are competitive wrestlers. Professional wrestling is distinguished by its scripted outcomes and emphasis on entertainment and showmanship . The staged nature of matches is an open secret , with both wrestlers and spectators nonetheless maintaining the pretense that performances are bona fide competitions, which
3690-410: Is a true sport. Wrestlers would at all times flatly deny allegations that they fixed their matches, and they often remained in-character in public even when not performing. When in public, wrestlers would sometimes say the word kayfabe to each other as a coded signal that there were fans present and they needed to be in character. Professional wrestlers in the past strongly believed that if they admitted
3813-427: Is generally practiced in an amateur context. No professional league for competitive wrestling exists due to a lack of popularity. For example, Real Pro Wrestling , an American professional freestyle wrestling league, dissolved in 2007 after just two seasons. In other countries, such as Iran and India , wrestling enjoys widespread popularity as a genuine sport, and the phrase "professional wrestling" therefore has
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3936-470: Is likened to the suspension of disbelief employed when engaging with fiction . Professional wrestlers perform as characters and usually maintain a " gimmick " consisting of a specific persona , stage name , entrance theme , and other distinguishing traits. Matches are the primary vehicle for advancing storylines, which typically center on interpersonal conflicts, or feuds , between heroic " faces " and villainous " heels ". A wrestling ring , akin to
4059-609: The New Jersey State Athletic Control Board that professional wrestling is not a real sport because its matches have predetermined outcomes. Shortly thereafter, New Jersey deregulated professional wrestling. The WWF then rebranded itself as a " sports entertainment " company. In the early years of the 20th century, the style of wrestling used in professional wrestling matches was catch wrestling . Promoters wanted their matches to look realistic and so preferred to recruit wrestlers with real grappling skills. In
4182-583: The United Kingdom spans over one hundred years. After a brief spell of popularity for Greco Roman professional wrestling during the Edwardian era , the first catch-as-catch-can based scene began in the 1930s, when it was popularised under the concept of " All-in Wrestling ", which emphasised an "anything goes" style and presentation. Following World War II, the style and presentation of professional wrestling in
4305-664: The WWE Championship and in 2022, McIntyre headlined WWE Clash at the Castle , which took place in front of 62,296 paid attendees in Cardiff, Wales. The next year saw All Elite Wrestling hold AEW All In 2023 in Wembley Stadium , London, England before 72,265 paid attendees. Excluding SummerSlam 1992, these were the largest professional wrestling events to ever be held in the UK. Wales had
4428-432: The independent circuit , to internationally broadcast events at major arenas. The largest and most influential promotions are in the United States , Mexico , Japan , and northwest Europe (the United Kingdom , Germany/Austria and France ), which have each developed distinct styles, traditions, and subgenres within professional wrestling. Professional wrestling has developed its own culture and community , including
4551-431: The spectacle . By at least the early 20th century, professional wrestling had diverged from the competitive sport to become an artform and genre of sports entertainment . Professional wrestling is performed around the world through various " promotions ", which are roughly analogous to production companies or sports leagues . Promotions vary considerably in size, scope, and creative approach, ranging from local shows on
4674-652: The "southern Area" titles actually being fought for. The Empire/Commonwealth titles were a "long stop" title, being used by promotions outside of the Joint monopoly, for the most part. But while titles had some success, it was television that took British wrestling to the next level. The first show aired on ABC and ATV (the weekend franchise holders on ITV ) on 9 November 1955, featuring Francis St Clair Gregory (9 times Cornish wrestling heavyweight title holder and father of Tony St Clair ) versus Mike Marino and Cliff Beaumont versus Bert Royal live from West Ham baths. The show
4797-577: The 1920s, a group of wrestlers and promoters known as the Gold Dust Trio introduced moves which have since become staples of the mock combat of professional wrestling, such as body slams, suplexes , punches, finishing moves, and out-of-ring count-outs. By the early 1930s, most wrestlers had adopted personas to generate public interest. These personas could broadly be characterized as either faces (likeable) or heels (villainous). Native Americans, cowboys, and English aristocrats were staple characters in
4920-400: The 1930s and 1940s. Before the age of television, some wrestlers played different personas depending on the region they were performing in. This eventually came to an end in the age of national television wrestling shows, which forced wrestlers to stick to one persona. Wrestlers also often used some sort of gimmick, such as a finishing move, eccentric mannerisms, or out-of-control behavior (in
5043-552: The 1960s, World Lightweight champion George Kidd was a successful television broadcaster, hosting his own chat show in Scotland's ITV regions. The dominant promoter in Northern Ireland in the 1960s/1970s was former Irish national Olympic coach David "Fit" Finlay Senior who promoted wrestling on both sides of the border and trained such stars as his son Dave Finlay , Eddie Hammill and Sean "Rasputin" Doyle. Due to The Troubles , in
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5166-519: The 1970s and 1980s these wrestlers and others would migrate to mainland Britain and find success there (in Hamill's case, under a mask, billed as Kung Fu.) The younger Finlay would become a multiple champion and later succeed in America. Although RTÉ never had a wrestling show of its own, in the mid-1980s, a major championship match between Mighty John Quinn and Haystacks in Claremorris was publicised with
5289-506: The 1990s, WCW became a credible rival to the WWF, but by end it suffered from a series of creative missteps that led to its failure and purchase by the WWF. One of its mistakes was that it diminished the glamor of its World Heavyweight Championship . Between January 2000 and March 2001, the title changed hands eighteen times, which sapped fan enthusiasm, particularly for the climactic pay-per-view matches. In professional wrestling, two factors decide
5412-496: The American variant. Features such as timed rounds and multiple falls were dropped in favour of American "one fall to a finish" matches. Conditions in the British scene would remain at a low ebb (with some smaller promoters resorting to "WWF tribute " shows ) until the early-2000s, when a new generation of domestic stars would emerge, amongst them Doug Williams and Nigel McGuinness , who would split their time between performing in
5535-641: The Atlantic Athletic Corporation (AAC). The AAC shut down in 1960. In 1958, Omaha promoter and NWA member Joe Dusek recognized Verne Gagne as the world champion without the approval of the NWA. Gagne asked for a match against the recognized NWA champion Pat O'Connor. The NWA refused to honor the request, so Gagne and Minneapolis promoter Wally Karbo established the American Wrestling Association in 1960. This AWA should not be confused with Paul Bowser's AWA, which ceased operations just two months prior. Gagne's AWA operated out of Minnesota . Unlike
5658-516: The BWF. The group later built itself around a new champion in Shirley Crabtree , a young bodybuilder who won the title after it was vacated by Assirati while injured in 1960. The BWF faded away in the late 1960s after a campaign by a disgruntled Assirati (vastly superior as a shooter to Crabtree) in the form of unsolicited appearances and challenges to his successor at BWF shows, eventually resulting in
5781-594: The Crabtrees received another blow when World of Sport was taken off the air. Wrestling instead got its own show, but the time slot changed from week to week, slowly driving away the regular audience. Far worse for Joint Promotions, however, was that with their contract up for renewal at the start of 1987, they were forced to share the TV rights as part of a rotation system with All Star Wrestling and America's World Wrestling Federation (WWF). The introduction of American wrestling to
5904-556: The FWA commonly featured a mixture of British and American performers, beginning a trend that would continue for the decades to come. By the early 2010s, wrestling stars such as PAC , Britani Knight , and Martin Stone continued to gravitate towards immigrating to the United States, however not before having spent several years performing in the UK first. Digital TV channel The Wrestling Channel , later rebranded The Fight Network, ran for five years in
6027-681: The Joint Promotions and soon looked elsewhere for exposure mainly outside the UK as a whole. As a result, there was a rise in New Japan Pro-Wrestling and Stampede Wrestling 's junior-heavyweight divisions, both of which had their roots in British wrestling of the time. One English promoter that benefited from the backlash against the Crabtrees was Merseyside promoter Brian Dixon, operator of All Star Wrestling which began capitalizing on this disaffection by taking many of Joint Promotions' top stars and running shows head to head with them on
6150-408: The NWA, at which point his territory became fair game for everyone. The NWA would blacklist wrestlers who worked for independent promoters or who publicly criticized an NWA promoter or who did not throw a match on command. If an independent promoter tried to establish himself in a certain area, the NWA would send their star performers to perform for the local NWA promoter to draw the customers away from
6273-477: The NWA, which only allowed faces to be champions, Gagne occasionally allowed heels to win the AWA championship so that they could serve as foils for him. In August 1983, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), a promotion in the north-east , withdrew from the NWA. Vince K. McMahon then took over as its boss. No longer bound by the territorial pact of the NWA, McMahon began expanding his promotion into
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#17330845910256396-401: The UK and Japan, helping to develop their prominence in both countries. As the American professional wrestling market became more competitive following the creation of All Elite Wrestling in 2019, this resulted in American companies taking a renewed interest in directly securing the British market. In 2020, at WrestleMania 36 , Scotland's Drew McIntyre became the first British wrestler to win
6519-480: The UK and the eventual axing in 1988 by Greg Dyke of Wrestling shows on terrestrial TV saw the eclipse of Joint Promotions from its dominant position in the British wrestling scene. The promotion, renamed Ring Wrestling Stars (RWS) in 1991, continued to tour the old venues with Big Daddy in the headline slot until his retirement in December 1993 after suffering a stroke. Even then, Max Crabtree continued to tour, using
6642-593: The UK brought legitimate Greco-Roman grappler Georg Hackenschmidt who was born in the Russian Empire to the country, where he would quickly associate himself with promoter and entrepreneur Charles B. Cochran . Cochran took Hackenschmidt under his wing and booked him into a match in which Hackenschmidt defeated another top British wrestler, Tom Cannon , for the European Greco-Roman Heavyweight Championship . This win gave Hackenschmidt
6765-507: The UK underwent a dramatic shift, as the Admiral-Lord Mountevans rules were introduced to make British professional wrestling appear much closer to a legitimate sport. Professional wrestling entered the mainstream British culture when the newly-formed independent television network ITV began broadcasting it in 1955, firstly on Saturday afternoons and then also in a late-night midweek slot. Domestically produced professional wrestling
6888-451: The US, likewise, this period saw the increasing use of American stars on British shows. There was also an increasing degree of crossover between the traditional "Old School" and Americanised "New School" promotions after one of the latter, Frontier Wrestling Alliance featured an invasion storyline featuring traditional veterans from the former faction. New promotions such as One Pro Wrestling and
7011-584: The United Kingdom and appearing for American promotions such as Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). For example, TNA's "2004 X Cup" featured All Star Wrestling wrestlers James Mason, Dean Allmark , Robbie Dynamite and Frankie Sloan as Team Britain while McGuinness would become highly prominent in Ring of Honor (ROH), first as their ROH Pure Champion in 2005 before becoming their ROH World Champion in 2007. In addition to British stars increasingly performing in
7134-747: The United Kingdom combining worldwide wrestling programming with coverage of selected current British promotions as well as extensive rescreenings of vintage 1970s/1980s ITV footage (branded as World of Sport after the segment's parent show), exposing the history of British wrestling to a new younger audience. After the channel's 2008 closure, the repeats continued on other stations such as Men and Movies . Much of this footage, as well as original ITV broadcasts of matches, has since been uploaded to YouTube, further expanding classic British wrestling's outreach to international wrestling fandom The mid 2010s saw an increasing drive to return British Wrestling to ITV. A pilot for World of Sport Wrestling (branding itself as
7257-510: The United States back in the 1890s, became the new dominant style in Britain. With Lancashire catch-as-catch-can already a major amateur sport particularly in Northern England, there existed a ready-made source of potential recruits to professional wrestling. Amateur wrestler, Sir Atholl Oakeley got together with fellow grappler Henry Irslinger to launch one of the first promotions to employ
7380-525: The World and British titles had some credibility (particularly as they were often placed on the more legitimate wrestlers), the addition of European, Empire/Commonwealth, Scottish, Welsh, and area championships got out of hand, and at one point there were conceivably 70 different titleholders to keep track of within Joint Promotions alone. In practice, the British, European and World titles were given most prominence. The "regional" titles were mainly honorific, with only
7503-616: The Wrestling Channel and elsewhere, copious old Reslo footage has also been repeated on S4C Digidol and uploaded to Youtube. Since Williams' death in November 2009, he was succeeded by Alan Ravenhill, who operates Welsh Wrestling. Other promotions in Wales include Attack! Pro Wrestling , Britannia Pro Wrestling (BWP), FUSION Pro Wrestling, Slammasters Wrestling, Basix, Pro Wrestling Karnage, Exist, Exposure Wrestling, and Creation Pro. Scotland
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#17330845910257626-418: The abrupt retirement of Crabtree in 1966. Lincoln's own promotion was bought out and amalgamated into Joint Promotions at the end of the 1960s. By 1975, the stranglehold of Joint Promotions had almost crumbled, with many of its founding members retiring and the company being bought out several times, leading to the wrestling industry being run as a private subsidiary of state-run bookmakers William Hill PLC ,
7749-401: The arena's loudspeakers, his being Pomp and Circumstance . He also wore a costume: a robe and hairnet, which he removed after getting in the ring. He also had a pre-match ritual where his "butler" would spray the ring with perfume. In the 1980s, Vince McMahon made entrance songs, costumes, and rituals standard for his star wrestlers. For instance, McMahon's top star Hulk Hogan would delight
7872-418: The art of staging rigged matches and fostered a mentality that spectators were marks to be duped. The term kayfabe comes from carny slang. By the turn of the 20th century, most professional wrestling matches were "worked" and some journalists exposed the practice: American wrestlers are notorious for the amount of faking they do. It is because of this fact that suspicion attaches to so many bouts that
7995-550: The audience by tearing his shirt off before each match. The first major promoter cartel emerged on the East Coast, although up to that point, wrestling's heartland had been in the Midwest. Notable members of this cartel included Jack Curley , Lou Daro, Paul Bowser and Tom and Tony Packs. The promoters colluded to solve a number of problems that hurt their profits. Firstly, they could force their wrestlers to perform for less money. As
8118-424: The business. It was the promoters themselves, however, who revolutionized the business. During this time, under the guise of an alliance of promoters attempting to regulate the sport and uphold the committee's ideas, the promoters created a cartel based on America's National Wrestling Alliance territory system that was designed to carve up control of the business among a handful of promoters—which it did in 1952 under
8241-424: The cartel grew, there were fewer independent promoters where independent wrestlers could find work, and many were forced to sign a contract with the cartel to receive steady work. The contracts forbade them from performing at independent venues. A wrestler who refused to play by the cartel's rules was barred from performing at its venues. A second goal of the wrestling cartels was to establish an authority to decide who
8364-418: The case of heels). The matches could also be gimmicky sometimes, with wrestlers fighting in mud and piles of tomatoes and so forth. The most successful and enduring gimmick to emerge from the 1930s were tag-team matches. Promoters noticed that matches slowed down as the wrestlers in the ring tired, so they gave them partners to relieve them. It also gave heels another way to misbehave by double-teaming. Towards
8487-423: The character in shows must be considered fictional, wholly separate from the life of the performer. This is similar to other entertainers who perform with a persona that shares their own name. Some wrestlers also incorporate elements of their real-life personalities into their characters, even if they and their in-ring persona have different names. Kayfabe is the practice of pretending that professional wrestling
8610-508: The commission. The Commission did on very rare occasions hand out such authorizations, such as for a championship match between Jim Londos and Jim Browning in June 1934. This decree did not apply to amateur wrestling, which the commission had no authority over. Wrestling fans widely suspected that professional wrestling was fake, but they did not care as long as it entertained. In 1933, a wrestling promoter named Jack Pfefer started talking about
8733-555: The committee was to create seven formal weight divisions, calling for champions to be crowned at each weight. These weight divisions included lightweight (154-pound limit), welterweight (165), middleweight (176), heavy middleweight (187), light heavyweight (198), mid heavyweight (209), and heavyweight . Many of these rules diverged heavily from those used in American Wrestling – five-minute rounds (three minutes for title matches), two public warnings for rule breaking before
8856-540: The current fashion of wrestling is the universal discussion as to the honesty of the matches. And certainly the most interesting phrase of this discussion is the unanimous agreement: "Who cares if they're fixed or not—the show is good." Newspapers tended to shun professional wrestling, as journalists saw its theatrical pretense to being a legitimate sport as untruthful. Eventually promoters resorted to publishing their own magazines in order to get press coverage and communicate with fans. The first professional wrestling magazine
8979-476: The domestic market. Some, such as All Star, Steve Barker's Rumble Wrestling (active 1984-2001 and 2019-present) John Freemantle's Premier Promotions (active 1987-present), and Scott Conway's The Wrestling Alliance (TWA, active 1989-2003), continued to preserve the traditional British wrestling style while many newly created promotions rejected the Mountevans rules and technical style of wrestling entirely in favour of
9102-419: The early 1990s. All Star's post-television boom wore off after 1993 when Nagasaki retired for a second time. However, the promotion kept afloat on live shows at certain established venues and particularly on the holiday camp circuit and remains active right up to the present. Meanwhile, the WWF continued on Sky television , while its chief rival back home in America, World Championship Wrestling (WCW) made
9225-405: The end of the 1930s, faced with declining revenues, promoters chose to focus on grooming charismatic wrestlers with no regard for their skill because it was charisma that drew the crowds, and wrestlers who were both skilled at grappling and charismatic were hard to come by. Since most of the public by this time knew and accepted that professional wrestling was fake, realism was no longer paramount and
9348-597: The facade of kayfabe as best as they could. In 1989, Vince McMahon testified before the New Jersey government that professional wrestling was not a true sport and therefore should be exempted from sports-related taxes. Many wrestlers and fans resented McMahon for this, but Lou Thesz accepted it as the smart move as it gave the industry more freedom to do as it pleased, and because by that point professional wrestling no longer attempted to appear real. The demise of WCW in 2001 provided some evidence that kayfabe still mattered to
9471-418: The final episode of NXT UK aired, with WWE folding the entire NXT UK project. The 2010s were also characterised by increasing cooperation between British promotions such as Progress Wrestling and RevPro with Japanese promotions such as New Japan Pro Wrestling . Through these partnerships, professional wrestlers such as Zack Sabre Jr and Will Ospreay were able to split their time between performing in
9594-470: The first place. "Double-crosses", where a wrestler agreed to lose a match but nevertheless fought to win, remained a problem in the early cartel days. At times a promoter would even award a victorious double-crosser the title of champion to preserve the facade of sport. But promoters punished such wrestlers by blacklisting them, making it quite challenging to find work. Double-crossers could also be sued for breach of contract, such as Dick Shikat in 1936. In
9717-420: The future elements of " sports entertainment ". Numerous big-name stars came and went during the early inception of wrestling within the UK, with many, like Hackenschmidt, leaving for the US. The resulting loss of big-name stars sent the business into decline before the outbreak of World War I in 1914 halted it completely. While various styles of amateur wrestling continued as legitimate sports, grappling as
9840-610: The game is not popular here. Nine out of ten bouts, it has been said, are pre-arranged affairs, and it would be no surprise if the ratio of fixed matches to honest ones was really so high. The wrestler Lou Thesz recalled that between 1915 and 1920, a series of exposés in the newspapers about the integrity of professional wrestling alienated a lot of fans, sending the industry "into a tailspin". But rather than perform more shoot matches, professional wrestlers instead committed themselves wholesale to fakery. Several reasons explain why professional wrestling became fake whereas boxing endured as
9963-514: The general chaos which had surrounded "All In" Wrestling prior to the War prompted Admiral Lord Mountevans , a fan of the sport, to collaborate with Commander Campbell (a member of the popular The Brains Trust radio panel show), member of parliament Maurice Webb and Olympic wrestler Norman Morell to create a committee to produce official rules for wrestling. These rules became known as Admiral-Lord Mountevans rules . The most notable action of
10086-455: The government. They pledged to stop allocating exclusive territories to its promoters, to stop blacklisting wrestlers who worked for outsider promoters, and to admit any promoter into the Alliance. The NWA would flout many of these promises, but its power was nonetheless weakened by the lawsuit. Paul Bowser's AWA joined the NWA in 1949. The AWA withdrew from the Alliance in 1957 and renamed itself
10209-420: The group. By agreeing to rotate talent and block out rival promoters, Joint Promotions was soon running 40 shows a week, while leaving wrestlers with little bargaining power. The financial advantages of this arrangement helped the members survive the tough conditions caused by a post-war tax that took 25% of all entertainment revenue. Other promoters were not so successful. The closure of Harringay Arena in 1954
10332-416: The heel "Battling Guardsman" and then being rebranded as Big Daddy two years later. After an initial transition period as a heel / tweener in the mid-1970s (most notable for his tag team partnership with future arch-rival Giant Haystacks and a heel vs heel feud with legendary masked wrestler Kendo Nagasaki , whom Daddy unmasked during a 1975 televised bout), from the summer of 1977 onwards, Big Daddy became
10455-513: The independent. By 1956, the NWA controlled 38 promotions within the United States, with more in Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand. The NWA's monopolistic practices became so stifling that the independents appealed to the government for help. In October 1956 the US Attorney General's office filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NWA in an Iowa federal district court. The NWA settled with
10578-471: The industry was anything but a competitive sport. The first wrestling promoter to publicly admit to routinely fixing matches was Jack Pfefer . In 1933, he started talking about the industry's inner workings to the New York Daily Mirror , resulting in a huge exposé. The exposé neither surprised nor alienated most wrestling fans, although some promoters like Jack Curley were furious and tried to restore
10701-487: The industry's inner workings to the New York Daily Mirror , maintaining no pretense that wrestling was real and passing on planned results just before the matches took place. While fans were neither surprised nor alienated, traditionalists like Jack Curley were furious, and most promoters tried to maintain the facade of kayfabe as best they could. Not the least interesting of all the minor phenomena produced by
10824-450: The jump from late-night ITV to British Wrestling's old Saturday afternoon ITV timeslot, where it stayed until moving to Super Channel at the end of 1995 and then Channel 5 on Friday evenings from mid-1999 until WCW's demise in 2001. Both major 1990s US promotions made several arena tours of the UK while the WWF held the pay-per-view event SummerSlam 1992 in London 's Wembley Stadium before
10947-512: The late 1980s. Tag wrestling , however, did prove to be popular, with televised tag matches happening a mere eight or so times a year to keep them special. The success of wrestling on television did however create a better opportunity for the independent groups. The opposition to Joint came from the Australian-born promoter, Paul Lincoln . Having promoted shows in the 1950s with himself in the main event as masked heel Doctor Death, Lincoln led
11070-406: The live event business as wrestling became part of mainstream culture. By the mid-1960s, Joint Promotions had doubled their live event schedule to somewhere in the region of 4,500 shows a year. Every town of note had a show at least once a month, and at some points more than 30 cities had a weekly date. The style of wrestling at the time was unique – not only in terms of the rule system, but also for
11193-578: The local UK wrestling circuit, organising a WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament in Blackpool in January 2017, which crowned the inaugural WWE United Kingdom Champion . Several professional wrestling journalists reported that the WWE's renewed interest in the region was to prevent the World of Sport Wrestling programme from succeeding. The World Of Sport Wrestling TV revival resumed production in May 2018 and
11316-463: The market in the late 1980s, contributed to a decline in support for domestic British wrestling and stars. In 1985, World of Sport ended, and a subsequent stand-alone wrestling programme lasted until the end of 1988. Without mainstream television access, domestically produced professional wrestling would struggle in the United Kingdom. Nonetheless, the largely untelevised live circuit survived and at times thrived with some promotions featuring
11439-492: The match before tagging Daddy in for the finish. Basing a whole cartel around one performer, however, though good for television, produced mixed results for live events. While Big Daddy was a massive draw in terms of family audiences, in equal part he alienated much of the existing adult fanbase for wrestling. Many wrestlers shared the adult fans' dislike of the Big Daddy phenomenon. They were dissatisfied with their position within
11562-498: The members of wrestling cartels as the champion drew big crowds wherever he performed, and this would occasionally lead to schisms. By 1925, this cartel had divided the country up into territories which were the exclusive domains of specific promoters. This system of territories endured until Vince McMahon drove the fragmented cartels out of the market in the 1980s. This cartel fractured in 1929 after one of its members, Paul Bowser , bribed Ed "Strangler" Lewis to lose his championship in
11685-721: The name of Joint Promotions . Joint Promotions was represented in London by the Dale Martin promotion, which had incorporated in 1948, and involved Les Martin, and the brothers Jack, Johnny and Billy Dale. Other promoters included Norman Morell and Ted Beresford in Yorkshire , Billy Best in Liverpool , Arthur Wright in Manchester and George de Relywyskow in Scotland , with Arthur Green the secretary of
11808-537: The new style of wrestling which was coined "All-in" wrestling. Though, like many wrestlers throughout the business, Oakeley would claim his wrestling was entirely legitimate, his claim was highly dubious. Under the British Wrestling Association banner, Oakeley's promotion took off with wrestlers such as Tommy Mann, Black Butcher Johnson, Jack Pye , Norman "the Butcher" Ansell, "College Boy", and Jack Sherry on
11931-437: The platform used in boxing , serves as the main stage ; additional scenes may be recorded for television in backstage areas of the venue, in a format similar to reality television . Performers generally integrate authentic wrestling techniques and fighting styles with choreography , stunts , improvisation , and dramatic conventions designed to maximize entertainment value and audience engagement. Professional wrestling as
12054-474: The proceedings. Women wrestlers and mud-filled rings also became common place. In the late 1930s, the London County Council banned professional wrestling, leaving the business in rough shape just before World War II . After the war, attempts to relaunch the business in 1947 failed to catch on with journalists, who condemned the gimmickry of professional wrestling as "fake". The revelation of this, and
12177-714: The promotion's closing in 1991. In the spring of 1984, the WWF purchased Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW), which had been ailing for some time due to financial mismanagement and internal squabbles. In the deal, the WWF acquired the GCW's timeslot on TBS . McMahon agreed to keep showing Georgia wrestling matches in that timeslot, but he was unable to get his staff to Atlanta every Saturday to fulfill this obligation, so he sold GCW and its TBS timeslot to Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP). JCP started informally calling itself World Championship Wrestling (WCW). In 1988, Ted Turner bought JCP and formally renamed it World Championship Wrestling. During
12300-438: The roster, while Oakeley himself would win a series of matches to be crowned the first British Heavyweight Champion . The business was reaching one of its highest points at the time, with the best part of forty regular venues in London alone. The great demand for wrestling, however, meant there were not enough skilled amateurs to go around, and many promoters switched to more violent styles , with weapons and chairshots part of
12423-582: The same business model, with British-born former WWF star "British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith replacing Daddy as the headlining household name, until Smith was lured back to the WWF in the summer of 1994. Thereafter, RWS went into decline and eventually ceased promoting in 1995. By contrast, All Star had used its two years of TV exposure to build up a returning Kendo Nagasaki as its lead heel and established such storylines as his tag team-cum-feud with Rollerball Rocco and his " hypnotism " of Robbie Brookside . The end of TV coverage left many of these storylines at
12546-418: The same night in the same town. Professional wrestling as a whole seemingly began to fall into disarray as the true nature of wrestling began to fall into question as many newspapers tried to expose the worked aspects of the sport. However, this trend did not ultimately harm the industries as the suspension of disbelief was all too easy to maintain for fans, even if they knew the truth. On 28 September 1985,
12669-440: The stamina for an hours-long fight. Audiences also preferred short matches. Worked matches also carried less risk of injury, which meant shorter recovery. Altogether, worked matches proved more profitable than shoots. By the end of the 19th century, nearly all professional wrestling matches were worked. A major influence on professional wrestling was carnival culture. Wrestlers in the late 19th century worked in carnival shows. For
12792-429: The start of the 20th century, wrestling was introduced to the public as part of a variety act to spice up the limited action involved in the bodybuilder strongman attractions. One of its earliest stars was a Cornish - American ex- miner named Jack Carkeek (world Cornish wrestling champion in 1886 ), who would challenge audience members to last ten minutes with him in the ring. The development of wrestling within
12915-526: The strong emphasis on clean technical wrestling. Heels made up a minority of the roster, with most shows containing an abnormally high proportion of clean sportsmanly matches between two "blue-eyes" (as faces were known backstage in the UK). This continued for several decades. Gimmick matches were a rarity, and midget wrestling failed to catch on, while women were banned by the Greater London Council until
13038-426: The territories of his former NWA peers, now his rivals. By the end of the 1980s, the WWF would become the sole national wrestling promotion in the U.S. This was in part made possible by the rapid spread of cable television in the 1980s. The national broadcast networks generally regarded professional wrestling as too niche an interest, and had not broadcast any national wrestling shows since the 1950s. Before cable TV,
13161-559: The traditional British style of wrestling, while others adopted the contemporary American independent style. In the 21st century, mirroring the growing strength of the Independent circuit in the United States, support for domestic professional wrestling once again began to grow, leading to the rise of several prominent and stable independent wrestling promotions throughout the United Kingdom. This, combined with strategic partnerships with Japanese professional wrestling promotions, allowed for
13284-505: The trial, witnesses testified that most of the "big matches" and all of the championship bouts were fixed. By the 1930s, with the exception of the occasional double-cross or business dispute, shoot matches were essentially nonexistent. In April 1930, the New York State Athletic Commission decreed that all professional wrestling matches held in the state had to be advertised as exhibitions unless certified as contests by
13407-471: The truth, their audiences would desert them. Today's performers don't "protect" the industry like we did, but that's primarily because they've already exposed it by relying on silly or downright ludicrous characters and gimmicks to gain popularity with the fans. It was different in my day, when our product was presented as an authentic, competitive sport. We protected it because we believed it would collapse if we ever so much as implied publicly that it
13530-535: The way of proceedings: the "in-show" happenings, presented through the shows; and real-life happenings outside the work that have implications, such as performer contracts, legitimate injuries, etc. Because actual life events are often co-opted by writers for incorporation into storylines of performers, the lines between real life and fictional life are often blurred and become confused. Special discern must be taken with people who perform under their own name (such as Kurt Angle and his fictional persona ). The actions of
13653-420: The wrestlers quietly began faking their matches so that they could give their audiences a satisfying spectacle. Fixing matches was also convenient for scheduling. A real ("shoot") match could sometimes last hours, whereas a fixed ("worked") match can be made short, which was convenient for wrestlers on tour who needed to keep appointments or share venues. It also suited wrestlers who were aging and therefore lacked
13776-425: Was Wrestling As You Like It , which printed its first issue in 1946. These magazines were faithful to kayfabe . Before the advent of television, professional wrestling's fanbase largely consisted of children, the elderly, blue-collar workers and minorities. When television arose in the 1940s, professional wrestling got national exposure on prime-time television and gained widespread popularity. Professional wrestling
13899-401: Was a founder and was quoted, "We're the pirates". One of Joint Promotions' first moves was establishing (and controlling) the championships called for by the Mountevans' committee. At first, this proved a profitable venture, with title matches leading to raised ticket prices. However, perhaps inevitably, attempts to extend this success by bringing in additional titles led to overexposure. While
14022-484: Was at its peak of popularity when the television show World of Sport was launched in the mid-1960s, making household names out of Adrian Street , Mick McManus , Giant Haystacks , Jackie Pallo , Big Daddy , Mark Rocco , Steve Veidor , Dynamite Kid , and Kendo Nagasaki . An upmarket rebrand of ITV's sports coverage, alongside the entry of the American World Wrestling Federation into
14145-420: Was broadcast on ITV between 28 July and 29 September 2018. In July 2018 WWE announced that they would be launching NXT UK , a new development promotion to be based directly in the UK. Ultimately, the attempted revival would flounder and in 2019 a frustrated ITV moved on from the project, opting instead to begin airing programming from the newly created American promotion All Elite Wrestling . On 1 September 2022
14268-488: Was challenges from independent wrestlers. But a cartelized wrestler, if challenged, could credibly use his contractual obligations to his promoter as an excuse to refuse the challenge. Promotions would sometimes respond to challenges with "policemen": powerful wrestlers who lacked the charisma to become stars, but could defeat and often seriously injure any challenger in a shoot match. As the industry trend continued, there were fewer independent wrestlers to make such challenges in
14391-591: Was previously considered a niche interest, but the TV networks at the time were short on content and thus were willing to try some wrestling shows. In the 1960s, however, the networks moved on to more mainstream interests such as baseball, and professional wrestling was dropped. The core audience then shrunk back to a profile similar to that of the 1930s. In 1989, Vince McMahon was looking to exempt his promotion (the World Wrestling Federation ) from sports licensing fees. To achieve this, he testified before
14514-520: Was represented as part of Joint Promotions by Relwyskow Promotions, run by the family of George de Relwyskow . Relwyskow Promotions was not included in the buyouts of Joint Promotions in the 1960s-1980s and remained under its original management while continuing to receive a proportion of Joint Promotions' TV coverage. It remained active until the retirement of Ann Relwyskow in 1994. In 1990 and again in 1993, television tapings were held in Scotland and matches screened on Grampian Television and STV . During
14637-415: Was something other than what it appeared to be. I'm not sure now the fear was ever justified given the fact that the industry is still in existence today, but the point is no one questioned the need then. "Protecting the business" in the face of criticism and skepticism was the first and most important rule a pro wrestler learned. No matter how aggressive or informed the questioner, you never admitted
14760-459: Was successful, and wrestling became a featured attraction every Saturday afternoon from autumn to spring each year. In 1964, it went full-time as part of the World of Sport sports compilation programme. Televised wrestling allowed wrestlers to become household names and allowed personality to get a wrestler over just as much as size. The exposure of wrestling on television proved the ultimate boost to
14883-417: Was the "world champion". Before the cartels, there were multiple wrestlers in the U.S. simultaneously calling themselves the "world champion", and this sapped public enthusiasm for professional wrestling. Likewise, the cartel could agree on a common set of match rules that the fans could keep track of. The issue over who got to be the champion and who controlled said champion was a major point of contention among
15006-553: Was the last straw for Atholl Oakeley, and Joint Promotions were the only major player left to benefit when Chancellor Peter Thorneycroft abolished the entertainment tax in the 1957 budget. From a press report, some wrestlers decided to go on strike against the Joint Promotions cartel and formed the Wrestlers' Welfare Society for hardship relief but also to act as an employment agency. Bill Benny ('Man Mountain', 1918, Cornwall - 1963, Manchester) wrestler, promoter and nightclubs owner,
15129-455: Was what people wanted to see. Big Daddy became one of the best-known wrestler in British history and even had his own comic strip in Buster comic. Due to his popularity, Crabtree's run was extended by carefully positioning him in tag matches, allowing a host of young partners (which included Young David , Dynamite Kid , Chris Adams , Sammy Lee , Kwik Kick Lee and Steve Regal ) to carry
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