Is pro wrestling fake? It is, and it isn't.
In the early nineteen hundreds, pro wrestling was a sport, with genuine matches, genuine winners and losers. Basically, it was amateur wrestling with a paycheck and a touch of fame. When the printing press came along, a true world's champion could finally be recognized, via the newspaper. These men were “shooters” and “hookers.” They were not performers, but true wrestlers who could tie the biggest, strongest man in knots and make him beg for mercy.
Along the way, though, promoters began to establish themselves in their own respected regions of the US. The “invasion” of one promoter into the territory of another could mean bad news for him and anyone who supported him - for real.
The general audience (at that time, almost entirely made up of adults) began to tire of the matches, though. One match could last for hours. No doubt the matches were great and exciting, with good, solid wrestling, but no one wants to sit there watching the same two guys stretch and twist each other for that length of time.
Taking note of this, the promoters began to design matches that contained high action and ended relatively quickly. (Nowadays, a forty-minute match, even without the limits of TV time restrictions, is overly long.) They also noticed that the fans enjoyed it best when a championship changed hands, instead of staying with one individual for too long. So they began scheduling when the champion would drop his title.
Many hold Ed “Strangler” Lewis to be the greatest wrestler of all time. I would endorse that, as well. He got his nickname because of the sleeper-hold he used; Europeans thought he was strangling his opponents in order to win, and the new handle soon appeared in the newspapers.
There was little danger in the new design for wrestling. When the time came for someone to drop the belt, if there were any issues with this, men like Ed “Strangler” Lewis were good enough to win the title back on their own.
Quickly, wrestling became a means for money. One must do what the show calls for. Wrestlers who could beat anyone in a few seconds often performed for twenty or so minutes and lost, because the money was right.
Rumors began to circulate about wrestling, and I would venture that it began with leaked information. Whispers about men oiling their bodies in order to slip out of holds, payoffs behind the curtain, and so on. It finally hit the bottom of the barrel when a drunken reporter published the next day's results for matches. Pro wrestling became cartoonish, phony, something to be laughed at.
When television came on the scene, pro wrestling was revitalized. On the average, one home out of every neighborhood had a TV. And if you were on TV, you were special (that sentiment hasn't changed much, really).
Many great wrestlers never succeeded, even with the access that television gave. Many who couldn't wrestle their way out of a paper bag became stars. Because of one word: charisma. Those that could draw a crowd, talk to the crowd, and give a good performance, were the ones that succeeded, regardless of wrestling ability.
In pro wrestling, there are no true winners or losers when it comes to matches. The “wins” and “losses” are simply part of the overall storyline.
Fast forward to the eighties. Almost any semblance to true scientific wrestling has been thrown out the window. In the eighties, you had great performers, well-crafted storylines, and characters that electrified crowds worldwide.
Wrestling is not a sport. It employs athleticism. Is it fake, then? It is no more fake than the next play or movie you may see. For it is not intended to be a sport. It's a live-action comic book, a violent form of theater.
As a lifelong fan of pro wrestling, I am concerned by much of what I see now. Wrestling, like any art form, reflects our society. I'm not saying that I want to go back to the stale, black-and-white form of the superhero and the arch villain; but when people raise a trash-talking, no-respect-for-anyone type of character to hero status, it makes me wonder where our society really is.
Once in a while, a pro wrestler will come along who has it all - wrestling ability, charisma, drawing ability, etc. And because it is a reflection of society (current events are often used for storylines), once in a while you might find someone in the ring to look up to, someone whose character teaches you, not how to beat people up or to answer everything with violence, but how to look within yourself and find the courage to work for your dreams.
I, for one, am glad that pro wrestling is mostly performance (though the bumps they take are real, and they do get hurt; a handful have even died). At least we're not the Romans, cheering on the gladiatorial games, which ended in death. Wrestling also, unlike pro boxing, delivers: when they book a three-hour show, you get three full hours, not a fight you paid a lot of money for only to see it end in a few seconds.
All in all, it seems that pro wrestling has something to offer almost everyone. And given its place in our society, I wonder where we would be without it.
