Professional wrestling in the United States, through the advent of television in the 1950s, and cable in the 1980s, began appearing in powerful media outlets, reaching never before seen numbers of viewers. It became an international phenomenon with the expansion of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). Throughout the 1990s, professional wrestling achieved highs in both viewers and financial success during a time of fierce competition among competing promotions, such as WWF, World Championship Wrestling, and Extreme Championship Wrestling.
The nature of professional wrestling changed dramatically to better fit television, enhancing character traits and storylines. Television also helped many wrestlers break into mainstream media, becoming influential celebrities and icons of popular culture. In the United States, in the First Golden Age of professional wrestling in the 1940s–1960s, Gorgeous George gained mainstream popularity, followed in the Second Golden Age in the 1980s–early 1990s by Hulk Hogan, André the Giant, "Macho Man" Randy Savage, Ric Flair, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, Ultimate Warrior, Sting, Dusty Rhodes, Bret "The Hitman" Hart, Shawn Michaels, and The Undertaker, and in the Third Golden Age of the mid-1990s–early 2000s by the likes of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, The Rock, and Triple H. More recent stars formed following the mid-2000s include John Cena, Randy Orton, Rey Mysterio, Roman Reigns, and Cody Rhodes.
1860s–1940s: From competition to performance Carnival days Professional wrestling, in the sense of traveling performers paid for mass entertainment in staged matches, began in the post-Civil War period in the late 1860s and 1870s. During this time, wrestlers were often athletes with amateur wrestling experience who competed at traveling carnivals with carnies working as their promoters and bookers. Grand circuses included wrestling exhibitions, quickly enhancing them through colorful costumes and fictional biographies for entertainment, disregarding their competitive nature. Wrestling exhibits during the late 19th century were also shown across the United States in countless "athletic shows" (or "at shows"), where experienced wrestlers offered open challenges to the audience. It was at these shows, often done for high-stakes gambling purposes, that the nature of the sport changed through the competing interests of three groups of people: the impresarios, the carnies, and the barnstormers.
Impresarios were the managers who chose how a wrestler could gain fame and interest among the fans, creating personas and improvising matches to make them more interesting. Carnies, who traveled and wrestled at these events, used tricks to protect their money and reputations during competitions, devising little-known and often dangerous wrestling moves, called "hooks". Hooks are illegal in conventional amateur wrestling, but have high rates of success against even the most athletic and experienced of competitors, essentially removing rules from professional wrestling. In addition, some spectators capable of beating the carnies roamed the country to compete in open challenges, setting side bets to make money. The barnstormers competed as traveling wrestlers did and often cooperated with the carnies to stage the matches, providing enormous profits for both sides in betting. Through the interest in money-making among the three groups, wrestling became a business-oriented entertainment venue, distinguishing itself further and further from its authentic amateur wrestling background.
Wrestling performers were arranged in a pyramid hierarchy of fame and money, based strictly on athletic talent. The lowest were the journeymen, young performers with promise and some skill, but who relied mainly on showmanship to gain fans. The actual wrestlers, called "shooters" because of their ability to "shoot", or fight real matches competitively, were more successful and less common. At the top were the elites, or the hookers, named for their ability to use arcane wrestling hooks to inflict damage and serious injury on the competition without much effort. Wrestlers considered themselves among a select group, and often kept the fact that their sport was commonly faked—to an extent—in high secrecy. They used a jargon of their own (often shared with carnies) to communicate so the audience would not understand them, including the word "kayfabe".
"Farmer" Burns and Frank Gotch era During the late 19th century-early 20th century, wrestling was dominated by Martin "Farmer" Burns and his pupil, Frank Gotch. Burns was renowned as a competitive wrestler, who, despite never weighing more than 160 pounds during his wrestling career, fought over 6,000 wrestlers (at a time when most were competitive contests) and lost fewer than 10 of them. He also gained a reputation for training some of the best wrestlers of the era, including Gotch, known as one of America's first sports superstars.
Gotch, regarded as "peerless" at his peak, was the first to actually claim the world's undisputed heavyweight championship by beating all contenders in North America and Europe. He became the world's champion by beating European wrestling champion Georg Hackenschmidt, both in 1908 and 1911, seen by modern wrestling historians as two of the most significant matches in wrestling history.
The popularity of wrestling during the early 20th century was highest in the Midwest, where ethnic European communities, many of them German, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Greek, and Scandinavian in ancestry, continued to carry on fighting styles practiced in their home nations. At this time, during the late 19th century, and early 20th century, the majority of wrestling was still competitive, and it was immensely popular. In fact, wrestling's popularity was second only to baseball from 1900 to the early 1920s, launching trading cards and competitive wrestling programs in colleges, high schools, and athletic clubs, legacies that have endured to the present day.
Wrestling's popularity experienced a dramatic tailspin in 1915 to 1920, becoming distanced from the American public because of widespread doubt of its legitimacy and status as a competitive sport. Wrestlers during the time recount it as largely faked by the 1880s. It also waned due to Gotch's retirement in 1913, and no new wrestling superstar emerging to captivate the audience's attention.
1920–1948: Expansion
Following the retirement of Frank Gotch, professional wrestling—except in the Midwest where legitimate wrestlers such as Michigan's "Poison Ivy" took on all comers at State Fairs—was losing popularity fast.Detroit News archives, 1925–30. Media attention focused on the illegitimacy of wrestling instead of its athleticism, and without a superstar like Gotch, no major personality reached a wide fanbase. In response, three professional wrestlers, Ed Lewis, Billy Sandow, and Toots Mondt, joined to form their own promotion in the 1920s, modifying their in-ring product to attract fans. The three were referred to as the "Gold Dust Trio" due to their financial success. Their promotion was the first to use time-limit matches, "flashy" new holds, and signature maneuvers. They also popularized tag team wrestling, introducing new tactics such as distracting the referee, to make the matches more exciting.
The Trio's lasting legacy, and perhaps their greatest innovation within professional wrestling, was the use of a regular group of wrestlers for a packaged show. Rather than paying traveling wrestlers to perform on certain dates and combining wrestlers in match-ups when they were available, they decided to keep wrestlers for months and years at a time, allowing long-term angles and feuds to develop. This was the key to their success; they were able to keep wrestlers from their competition, and were able to have regular wrestling cards. Their business succeeded quickly, gaining popularity for its freshness and unique approach to wrestling; a traveling stable of wrestlers. The Trio gained great popularity nationwide during their best years, roughly 1920 to 1925, when they performed in the Eastern territory, acquiring fans from the highly exposed big cities.
The Trio was dealt a severe blow by Stanislaus Zbyszko, when he beat the rookie Wayne Munn for their world heavyweight championship, against the original booking. Munn, who had been recruited to wrestling and pushed to the level of champion in only a few months, was the Trio's new star and main attraction. Zbyszko was supposed to lose to Munn, but refused to follow along, beating Munn so decisively and thoroughly that the referee awarded him the title to prevent a riot. In addition, Zbyszko quickly dropped the title to Joe Stecher, a rival of Ed Lewis, making the situation worse for the Trio.
Stecher, although an able booker, was afraid of losing his championship, refusing to wrestle many contenders as a result. This made it impossible for the Trio to retrieve it. They responded by calling the Munn-Zbyszko match illegitimate, and reinstated Munn as champion, but quickly had him drop it to Lewis. This left two champions, Ed Lewis and Joe Stecher, who were regarded as the dominant wrestlers of the period. Stecher and Lewis agreed to a unification match years later, in 1928, when Stecher gave in and lost the title to Lewis. By this time, the Zbyszko double-cross had already caused irreparable damage, detracting from the Trio's dominance over the wrestling industry. In addition, the build-up of Munn followed by such a humiliating loss had devalued his title and credibility as a major wrestling superstar permanently.
Growth of wrestling promotions In March 1887, Evan Lewis defeated Joe Acton for the American Catch-as-Catch-Can championship in Chicago. Soon, every wrestling promotion had created its own championship, which was considered each company's pride and glory. As promotions were attempting to become nationally renowned, acquiring rival championships marked victory.
In the 1930s and 1940s, small wrestling promotions had fierce competition with each other, often stealing talents and "invading" enemy companies to win over fans. With inter-promotional matches occurring nationwide, the promotions were vying for dominance.
1948–1984: Territory era, rise of television
In 1948, wrestling reached new heights after a loose confederation was formed between independent wrestling companies. This was known as the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). In the late 1940s to 1950s, the NWA chose Lou Thesz to unify the various world championships into a single "World Heavyweight" title. Thesz's task was not easy, as some promoters, reluctant to lose face, went so far as to shoot title matches to keep their own champions popular with the fans.
The first pro wrestling studio television show was taped on December 18, 1942, at WRBG-TV in Schenectady, New York, at a time when few Americans owned television sets. The earliest successful recurring wrestling program was Hollywood Wrestling in Los Angeles, which debuted on KTLA in 1947 and was syndicated in numerous U.S. cities by 1952.
From the advent of television, professional wrestling matches began to be aired during the 1950s, both locally and nationally, reaching a larger fanbase than ever before. This was a time of enormous growth for professional wrestling, as rising demand and national expansion made it a much more popular and lucrative form of entertainment than in decades previous. This was called a "Golden Age" for the wrestling industry. It was also a time of great change in both the character and professionalism of wrestlers as a result of the appeal of television. Wrestling fit naturally with television because it was easy to understand, had drama, comedy and colorful characters, and was inexpensive for production. From 1948 to 1955, each of the three major television networks broadcast wrestling shows; the largest supporter being the DuMont Television Network.
Gimmick characters