Wrestling's
origins go way back in time. In fact when the ancient Games of the Olympiad were
born, wrestling was already an ancient game. Widely recognized as the world's
oldest competitive sport, wrestling appeared in a series of Egyptian wall
paintings as many as 5000 years ago. When the Games began in 776 BC, more than
two millenniums later, it included wrestling, and, in the years that followed,
wrestling featured as the main event. The sport would return in a similar role
when the Olympic Games returned after a 1500-year absence in 1896. Organizers,
seeking direct links to ancient times, found a natural in the sport that had
enjoyed popularity across much of the ancient world, from Greece, Assyria and
Babylon to India, China and Japan. They resurrected Greco-Roman wrestling, a
style they believed to be an exact carryover from the Greek and Roman wrestlers
of old. In Greco-Roman wrestling, the wrestlers use only their arms and upper
bodies to attack. They can hold only those same parts of their opponents. 
Professional
wrestling is a form of
performance art where the participants engage in simulated
sporting matches. Originating in the days of travelling
carnival shows, professional wrestling's humbler beginnings
include strongman feats,
hook wrestling, and other
acrobatic performances. Although it should be noted that in
the earlier parts of the 20th Century, "professional wrestling"
was at times, just that, a professional contest of amateur style
wrestlers competing for a purse with similar league structure to
professional boxing. However, these contests disappeared from
the sports world with the advent of television, due to their
extreme length and lack of drama.
It
was found over the years to be much more profitable when
contests were arranged for both length and dramatic effect. For
over a century, professional wrestling promoters and performers
such as such those of the
WCW,
WWE and
Lucha Libre in Mexico claimed that the competition was
completely real and vehemently defended secrets of the trade (a
situation known as
kayfabe). On top of these "staged matches", organizations
turned to other low-brow tactics such as adding sex to the
pre-packaged entertainment they were selling. These
organizations arguably had a devastating impact on the wrestling
community, taking the spirit of honorable and respectful
competition out of the public's view of the sport, and due to
their promotions pure wrestling was nearly forgotten.
