The Origins of Pro Wrestling...

[Shadowmancer]

This may be in the wrong forum, I'm not too sure, but this is just going to be me working out where the true origins of Pro Wrestling come from, not just the pioneer era, not just the modern era, not just the television era, not just the traditional Greco-Roman wrestling. There is more to it than just that, this is based off my own thoughts on the subject. So this will mainly be based on conjecture and opinion rather than hard research into it.

First off this thread may not be for everyone to look into as a matter of course because of the sheer scale of what I hope to write as well as the topics being raised being outside of what is considered important for the business of Pro Wrestling.

First off what is the first origin of Wrestling? I would say that the origin of Pro Wrestling itself can be traced back to the figurative age of Cavemen, I use the term figurative because well they weren't exactly all bruising dolts back then, and that was only the Neanderthals, but wrestling as a struggle between invariably two men has occurred for time immemorial. The rules for these "initial" were more than likely non-existent, I haven't looked at any of the archaeological data about combat between Neolithic peoples, because generally speaking it is outside my general scope of interest for ancient time periods. But I would imagine that combat inside a tribal system would be over leadership or women, whether this was a wrestling match I don't know, it probably was a brawl to say the least. The result of these combats probably depended on the area that the tribe was situated, if there were plenty of men to go hunting and to defend their tribal grounds than it is possible that these fights could have led to maiming or to death, however in places like Australia with the Aboriginal people they fought to first blood. This period of time is possible to say is the pinpoint for when wrestling started for prizes. Saying that is probably just a leap of logic because during the time period in discussion it is possible to say that it is so far from what we now consider Pro Wrestling that it is possible to say that it is not even remotely related apart from it being a fight. However if you think of modern pro wrestlers as fighting for gain of some kind, whether respect or monetary gains, whatever, it is possible to see these early fights as being a very much distant forerunner to modern pro wrestling.

Moving forward by a Millennia or two, to the Ancient Greeks, different from the modern Greeks in so many ways, none of which I will get into because that is neither here nor there when discussing the origins of pro wrestling. The Greeks wrestled competitively with minimal rules but with rules all the same. They wrestled for large crowds, but this was for the honour of themselves and the honour of their City-State whether that be Athens, Sparta, Argos, Thebes or any of the numerous other city-states of Greece. As a forerunner to modern pro wrestling there is probably the main fact that it was a form of Wrestling that allowed punching as well as other suspect moves that are illegal under UFC rules depending on the games they were fought at, this being digital manipulation. But this is where it could be postulated that the idea of fame for wrestling comes in with there being red and black figure vases depicting wrestling and wrestlers, mainly Heracles and Theseus. The form of Wrestling fought at the ancient Olympics seems to utilize numerous holds that are still in use today.

Going across the Ionian and Adriatic seas now, the trip in the past now goes to Rome where perhaps the biggest demonstration of what Pro Wrestling is now can be seen; that being the Gladiators. While you may question why this is put forward as a partial origin to modern Pro wrestling, it is fairly simple people paid to see gladiators fight, not to the death for all as some would have you believe (looking at you Ridley Scott and you the makers of Spartacus), Gladiators were fucking expensive in resources. They made some sort of money out of fighting that much is certain, because there are recorded examples of Gladiators buying their freedom after a certain amount of fights, whether they started off as freemen or as slaves is immaterial. The spectacle involved in the fights is well documented but the bloodshed may generally been as bad as a Mick Foley Hell in a Cell, where Foley is bleeding as bad as Flair, Rhodes, Corino and himself combined. But death wasn't a guarantee in the arena if the gladiator lost. I remember there being a theory mentioned that Gladiators were brought to the houses of wealthy Roman matrons if they were very successful in the ring, this seems to fit partly with modern pro wrestling with the 'Rats'. This shows somewhat this fame concept that is seen and has been written about by wrestlers, e.g. Jericho in A Lion's Tale. This combined with the Roman Spectacle which a possible example being the "Octavia" shows that there was a large amount of what makes modern pro wrestling what it is, can be seen within the culture of the Romans during the heights of their empire.

Now skipping over the dark ages and the Middle Ages because I do not know of anything that is able to be said that is similar to Modern Pro Wrestling and able to be seen within the confines of the potential development of Modern Pro Wrestling. However if you do know anything about this please help contribute as this is just me going through and listing some of my thinking so far and there could be room for more theoretical development over how Pro wrestling evolved into what it is today from being a straight fight within neolithic society and the other types of fighting able to be seen within the Greeks and Roman worlds. I know that there are probably things that I am missing when discussing the origins of Modern Pro Wrestling in antiquity. But if you have any theories for the Middle Ages and if there is any development into the Modern Pro Wrestling, please add them.

Now onto the early-modern period briefly, I say briefly because again I don't know too much about this period when it comes to possibilities for the development of Pro Wrestling. The only place I could say for some degree of certainty that Pro Wrestling may have been developed from slightly is the theatre, Shakespeare's theatre to be precise. This falls mainly through to the stage managed fights such as that of the Battle of Agincourt in "Henry V", but this is perhaps even more able to be seen within the one on one combats that occur in "Romeo and Juliet" between the hero's of Romeo and Mercutio and the villain of Tybalt, this shows what is basic wrestling storytelling in that the heel and the face will fight. This even goes as far as to offer a reason for the main face to fight the heel, in that a friend of the face is defeated in a severe manner and therefore must be avenged. So the elements that make Pro Wrestling what it is today can be seen within the confines of the theatrical.

This leads on neatly onto my next part of the theory of the origins of Modern Pro Wrestling being from the past further back then the pioneer era, through actual fighting as well as stage drama and comedy. This use of Shakespeare as a possible development in the history of Pro Wrestling is also able to be seen within the Japanese Theatre form of Kabuki, basically the early form of Kabuki was considered to be women selling themselves for money while dancing and singing, if you look at it like that then you can see the evolution of what is now the Divas in the WWE. (Selling their bodies today in the sense of using their bodies to gain viewers and therefore money through looking good). But the word Kabuki itself could be lending something to what Modern Pro Wrestling is, with the two versions of what Wikipedia saying the origin of the word means, I like the one that effectively says that it is bizarre theatre, the reason for this being the fact that it is Pro Wrestling and companies like CHIKARA and HUSTLE are there to show the bizarre side of Pro Wrestling. So it is possible that there is the influence of this in Japanese Pro Wrestling to be seen if looking closely enough.

Now while all this look at historical "mumbo-jumbo" may be boring you it is now that I get to what is traditionally considered to be where pro Wrestling comes from. The carny days; the Strong Men competitions where people would get paid if they lasted a certain amount of time in the ring with the attraction. These being just major distractions for pick pockets, also where the term Mark also comes from in regards to referring to those watching Pro Wrestling. But this was a shoot, these guys did fight in reality, certain names of wrestlers are still known of the period before 1900 Evan "Strangler" Lewis being one of them. But there are relatively few if not none known of the true pioneer wrestlers, the ones that worked the Carnies as the sideshow, during the late 1700's and early 1800's. This is the final stop on this train of thought because this is where there has been major agreement on being the early days of Pro Wrestling.

In Conclusion the idea that Modern Pro Wrestling is a 'relic' or an evolution of Wrestling during the Carny days, depending on your point of view, is most likely going to be wrong if any of my theories are even remotely able to be accepted in some capacity outside of what I have said, as a way of expanding Pro Wrestling's origins back to early man. Is it all going to be correct? Probably not. Are some of these theories going to be correct or able to be pointed at as valid? I hope so. Again this is all my own personal thinking about the subject and is not backed up by any detailed research but by trains of logical thought. Any theories that you have on the subject of Modern Pro Wrestlings origins please contribute as there is much that could be discussed or analyzed within what I have written just as there could be far more that could be looked at such as the Dark and Middle Ages where my thinking has not gone and my knowledge of the time period is highly limited to being religious conflicts.

(For those that read all this and then wondered how many words this is it is 1831 well within a 2000 word essay tolerance level)

 

[Lee]

Wow, very interesting article, whilst I don't feel like I can justify a 1831 word reply, there's one thing I remember reading a while back, can't remember where I got it from, and this is a paraphrase of that, so it is not my own idea, I really wish I could remember where I got it from but it may add to your history;

Genesis 32, a mysterious figure (the tradition of masked wrestlers carries on to this day) wrestles Jacob till the break of day. Against all the odds Jacob prevails, even though his opponent cheats by dislocating his hip.

Jacob is the arch fast-talking subverter of the rules who has the tables turned on him time and again and, unwittingly, ends up by fulfilling the divine plan (ie Jacob is good at promos!)

By a remarkable, and I suppose accidental, coincidence, this story enacts the archetypal conflict of professional wrestling, where a wrestler whom the crowd is meant to warm to i.e "Heel" and "face"—Jacob at Peniel. The man named the "Heel" claims he has seen the "face" of God.

EDIT; Found it http://www.sbl-site.org/publications/article.aspx?articleId=569 quite a good read.

Good work Shadow

 

[Shadowmancer]

I forgot to look at the Bible for describing a potential Pro Wrestling origin, There is probably more than just that within the Bible and there is probably all of the religious texts out there that there may be some form of Wrestling involved that could be a part in the origins of Pro Wrestling vaguely.

 

[klunderbunker]

In summation, people enjoy spectacle and seeing men hurt each other in the spirit of competition. To see adults attempt to use nothing more than their size and power and athletic ability to defeat another is a basic instinct that has been inside the mind and soul of people since the dawn of man. There is just something interesting about the nature of combat. Take a non fan and put on a boxing match of an mma fight. They will get interested and even start rooting for one or the other. There's no characters involved or anything like that as there is in modern professional wrestling, which is a drama/comedy centered around wrestling action. True competitive grappling and fighting is one of the raw things that is inherent in all people and will always be. That's why wrestling will never die: people enjoy watching others fight.

 

[Tastycles]

What a read. Impressive, to say the least. I think the origins of wrestling can be seen even now in other species. If you watch tiger cubs, or young moose, you can see them playfighting. The purpose of this is so that when they get into a real fight, they are not completely out of their depth and able to know how to fight and work out their own limitations.

It is not unreasonable to assume that adolescent early hominids displayed similar behaviour to practice for the sorts of hand to hand combats that you mentioned.

Throughout history, there have been various such practice competitions - things such as the joust in medieval times are probably the most notable examples, but by no means the only ones. The joust was part of a range of knight "games" that were displayed publicly. These mock combats were often with wooden weapons in the medieval times, but by no means was that exclusive.

With time, these mock combats split into two groups. There were those that remained uncoreogrphed, and were akin to sparring, and there were those that became coreographed. Most major Japanese martial arts have kata, which are coreographed fights using the moves within the martial art.

There are some that go even further, and are essentially war dances. In some cultures, most notably the polynesian ones, these dances are performed ritually by the men. This can be seen today, when they are performed before Tonga, Samoa and New Zealand rugby matches.

Back on topic, most of Shakespeare's tradgedies have combat scenes, as you say, and this in itself was part of the attraction. If you're looking for something that most resembles pro wrestling in the 16th century, look no further. This continued throughout the 17th and 18th centuries in plays by various people.

By the 19th century, with the rise of other combat sports, it is perhaps unsruprising that wrestling came to the fore. For some reason, in the early 20th century, the sport turned into a mock combat, and thus began to draw on some of these older disciplines.

 

[The Great Gouki]

I might have missed it so I apologize if I did...but I didn't see mention of the Native Americans who would wrestle for sport,entertainment, and to settle disagreements. Over all though I give it 9/10!

 

[Shadowmancer]

i have never studied Native American culture in any real capacity, so if that is the case then there is an element that can be added to why pro Wrestling developed in the United States than in Italy or Greece.

As for Haka, I would not put too much thought into that being able to be brought in as elements to pro wrestling as it is not combat, it is a challenge in a form that is laid down, it could be seen as a way of scaring off the enemy or as a build up to a welcoming ceremony. I wouldn't push it that far when it came to origins within Pro Wrestling, because New zealand doesn't have the full history of Pro Wrestling that the US, Mexico, Japan, Canada and Europe has. While there may be names that are important, Steve Rickard for the most important name, it is very much not part of the culture of New Zealand unfortunately.

 

[Shadowmancer]

OK to take hold of the fact that I am feeling a large amount of zeal for posting in the Wrestling sections I asked for this thread to be resurrected and brought out of the Archives because I feel that this is one of those threads that can help shape concepts that people will have in their minds about the origins of Pro Wrestling.

Looking back through the thread I see a number of elements that I only vaguely went over, some that I missed as well some will be added now others at a later date.

I mentioned Heracles in my opening post, and there is a good example of what can be considered a variation of a Pro Wrestling match, you have the archetype face(Heracles) and you have the heel in Antaeus. The story descibes a battle between two stong muscular men, one in which Heracles puts Antaeus on the ground often, and it is able to be extrapolated that these would have been violent slams which would have sent Antaeus into the ground with a fair amount of force. The Bearhug used by Heracles to defeat Antaeus is reminiscent of the types of submissions that started out in Pro Wrestling due to its ease of use and it fitting in with the good but dumb portrayal of Heracles and faces in general.

There are more but they are not coming to me right now. I would like to see more thoughts and suggestions come through so we can truly develop a theory over the pre-history of Pro Wrestling. As a reminder this is all to be before 3 April 1908 as this is the generally accepted date for when Pro-wrestling became pro-wrestling with a world title and all that sort of thing.