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e. The history of professional wrestling, as a performing art, started in the late 19th century, with predecessors in funfair and variety strongman and wrestling performances (which often involved match fixing) in the 1830s. [1] Professional wrestling is a popular form of entertainment in Australia, North America, Latin America, Europe, and Japan.
Mar 14, 2024 · Russian Aleksandr Karelin entered Sydney universally regarded as the greatest Greco-Roman wrestler of all-time, and with a chance to become wrestling's first four-time Olympic champion. Undefeated in his 13-year international career, the chiseled and fearsome Karelin advanced to the 130kg (286 lbs) final, where he faced unassuming - and by Karelin's standards, unaccomplished - American Rulon ...
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wrestling, sport practiced in various styles by two competitors, involving forcing an opponent to touch the ground with some part of the body other than his feet; forcing him into a certain position, usually supine (on his back); or holding him in that position for a minimum length of time. Wrestling is conducted in various styles with contestants upright or on the ground (or mat).
The three basic types of wrestling contest are the belt-and-jacket, catch-hold, and loose styles, all of which appear to have originated in antiquity. Belt-and-jacket styles of wrestling are those in which the clothing of the wrestlers provides the principal means of taking a grip on the opponent. In many cases this is no more than a special belt worn by both wrestlers, while in others a special belted jacket and special trousers are worn. Catch-hold styles require the contestants to take a prescribed hold before the contest begins; often this grip must be maintained throughout the struggle. Loose styles of wrestling, which are used in modern international competition, commence with the wrestlers separated and free to seize any grip that they choose except such as are explicitly forbidden (e.g., taking hold of an opponent’s clothing or using a life-threatening grip, such as a stranglehold).
No sport is older or more widely distributed than wrestling, often in highly local styles that have persisted to the present day.
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Wrestling probably originated in hand-to-hand combat, and in particular as a sportive form of combat substituting the submission of a contestant for his death. Works of art from 3000 bce depict belt wrestling in Babylonia and Egypt, and the Sumerian Gilgamesh epic has a description of such wrestling. Loose wrestling in India dates to before 1500 bce. Chinese documents from 700 bce describe loose wrestling, as do Japanese records from the 1st century bce. The belt wrestling practiced locally in the 20th century by the Swiss, Icelanders, Japanese, and Cossacks differed little from that of the Egyptians in 2500 bce.
Wrestling was probably the most popular sport of the ancient Greeks. Young men belonged to palaestras, or wrestling schools, as the focal point of their social life. Illustrations of wrestling on Greek vases and coins are common throughout all periods of ancient Greece, but all that can be told from it is that the style was loose wrestling and that wrestlers, as did all Greek athletes, competed naked. Wrestling was part of the Olympic Games from 776 bce. There were two wrestling championships in these games: a toppling event for the best two of three falls; and the pankration (Latin: pancratium), which combined wrestling and boxing and ended in the submission of one contestant. Upright wrestling was also a part of the pentathlon event in the Olympic Games, a bout being fought to a clear-cut fall of one of the wrestlers. The most famous ancient Greek wrestler was Milon of Croton, who won the wrestling championship of the Olympic Games six times. Wrestling was less popular among the Romans than it had been with the Greeks, and, with the fall of the Roman Empire, references to wrestling disappeared in Europe until about 800 ce.
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When the Islamic rulers of Persia began hiring Turkic mercenaries about 800 ce, the soldiers brought with them a style of loose wrestling called koresh, in which grips may be taken on the long, tight leather pants worn by the wrestlers and the bout ends with a touch fall of the loser briefly on his back. Gradually the Turks took over the entire Muslim dominion, and their wrestling style spread. Later Mongolian invasions in the 13th century introduced Mongolian wrestling, which received royal patronage, and wrestling became the national sport of modern Iran.
Sumo, a Japanese belt-wrestling style, was a popular spectator sport under imperial patronage (710–1185). Originally a submission spectacle, sumo became highly ritualized as a toppling match with victory coming also from the forcing of an opponent out of a 12-foot (4-metre) circle. By the 17th century sumo wrestling had become a professional sport in Japan. From the samurai martial art jujitsu, judo, the other prominent Japanese wrestling style, was derived in the 19th century and became an international sport in the second half of the 20th century.
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t. e. 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 ...
The Oldest Sport. Wrestling, mankind’s oldest and most basic form of recreational combat, traces its origins back to the dawn of civilization. Carvings and drawings estimated to be between 15,000 and 20,000 years old, found in caves in southern Europe, illustrate wrestlers in hold and leverage positions. Sumerians cast wrestlers in bold ...
History of WWE. The history of American professional wrestling promotion WWE dates back to the early 1950s when it was founded on January 7, 1953 as the Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC). The public branding of the company has undergone several name changes throughout the years, from the CWC to the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) in ...
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Sep 24, 2020 · Public DomainDepiction of a young Lincoln winning a bout. Before his untimely assassination at age 56 and prior to his career as a lawyer Abraham Lincoln excelled at wrestling. Born in 1809, Lincoln was living in New Salem, Illinois by 1831. Then in his early 20s — and long before his career as a politician — Abraham Lincoln was a complete ...
