The History of Wrestling
Almost everyone has their own memories of watching wrestling on television. Viewing this sport can be gruesome especially for those who couldn’t bear the thought and the sight of people being tossed around like furniture. Well, wrestling can be that and more so anyone who doesn’t have a tough stomach should think twice before watching wrestling.
People who don’t have a tough stomach for the throwing and the bumping of burly and big people inside the ring still watch wrestling because of the excitement characterized by the sport. While watching human beings being tossed around like salad, one wonders of wrestling is a manifestation of man’s innate animalism.
However, history will show that the wrestling we regularly witness on television now is even less violent than the original wrestling hundreds of years ago. Wrestling was earlier used to train military personnel so muscle work is understandable.
Depending on the point of view of a person, he can either thank or curse the Greeks for making wrestling popular. As an event in the Olympics, wrestling was a much more violent and heart stopping sport. Blame it on man’s penchant for what hurts but wrestling became a familiar sport all over the world including Japan which popularized their own brand of wrestling as well as China and even the Arab world.
The Greeks and the French were the first to develop a love for wrestling but the sport ultimately reached the modern world and became popular in the Western countries. The traditional wrestling used to be characterized by two burly opponents, each wanting to defeat the other by pinning the opponent on the floor. New styles in wrestling allowed the wrestlers to grab their opponents and use their legs to pin down the opponents.
The wrestling style identified with the Greeks and Romans prohibited the use of legs to pin down opponents. However, this was allowed in the freestyle wrestling type.
While people identify wrestling with modern civilization, there is proof that wrestling was popular even in the ancient ages with the discovery of drawings depicting wrestling in some French caves. It may be the brutality of wrestling that made it a popular sport among the Greeks, Romans, French, and later on among the royal houses of Japan, China and the United States.
While wrestling didn’t originate in America, the popularity of wrestling on live televised shows can be attributed to them. American country fairs thrived on wrestling as a means of entertaining their guests. Even the military which used wrestling as a training method for their personnel also participated in wrestling shows.
True to form, it was New York City that hosted the very first wrestling competition in a national scale way back 1888. The Olympic Game of the modern world also saw the first wrestling competition in Missouri way back in 1904. Since then, wrestling became a favorite hobby, pastime and sport of every American.
While wrestling shows look like a free-for-all competition where the burly musclemen can use their body parts to pin down their opponents, wrestling is actually governed by rules depending on the version being followed. Wrestlers can either choose between the proper or upright type of wrestling or the ground form of wrestling.
Proper type of wrestling aims to throw the enemy on the ground and three such successful efforts to throw the opponent on the ground means a win for the successful wrestler. The ground type of wrestling is actually a free-for-all wrestling where the winner is the wrestler who can bear the most tumbles. In this type, the wrestler who raises his hands first admits defeat.
To prove that it is really a game governed by rules, wrestlers aren’t allowed to bite their opponents but they are allowed to trip them. Unlike boxing where weight is a major factor in the matching, wrestling doesn’t distinguish. And lo! Wrestling was originally held in a muddy arena, and not in the clean boxing ring that we see on television today.
To be an ideal wrestler, one has to be big and strong and fast. He must also be able to bear the fall and the weight of his opponent. Furthermore, a future wrestler must be fearless.
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