A History of Wrestling

In the year 1965, Terry McCann and Myron Roderick, were unsatisfied with the Amateur Athletic Union. Instead of participating with this group they wanted to form an organization focusing on wrestling designed by wrestling people. The goals of their proposed program was to offer competitive programs designed to recruit wrestlers who had finished high school or college, they wanted to orchestrate education and development programs for not only wrestlers but also their coaches and world wrestling officials and to implement professional wrestling policies and procedures in the different categories of wrestling.

‘There are many different groups though, that make up wrestling’s main operating components. In Sept. 1978, the American Wrestling Federation took over the American Arbitration Association. Two years before this huge take-over took place in wrestling history, the sport of wrestling was acknowledged nationwide with the dedication of The National Wrestling Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame still stands today on a street called Stillwater. In one year the membership to the Hall of Fame grew to include over twenty-five thousand members.

The National American Wrestling Association was created by a group of wrestling event promoters who controlled their individual territories but shared one World Championship. The Northeast promoters got into a power struggle between the other promoters in the organization. The Northeast wanted to promote Buddy Rogers but the other promoters vetoed this as they wanted Lou Thez to be chosen champion. At this time, during the feud, the Northeast decided to start the World Wrestling Foundation. This caused a split and two separate wrestling groups began to compete against each other.

Wrestling is famous for the WWF, the World Wrestling Federation. In the first five years that the WWF was in operation it was controlled by Pedro Morales and Bruno Sammartino. As American prowrestling grew to become an event of immense popularity, a drama played out before fans, Madison Square Garden became the capital of pro wrestling events. The people enjoyed coming out and seeing the men participate in combat wrestling Americanized. In all actuality the WWE did not want the wrestlers to always be in the spotlight because they feared the wrestlers would be questioned about the sports legitimacy. Hulk Hogan was fired by the WWE because he had starred in a movie. This was a brazen move, as Hogan in anger, went to wrestle for the WWE’s fierce competitor, the American Wrestling Association. This was the one and only rival to the National Wrestling Association.

Wrestling has taken on a new era as wrestlers are now promoted into the limelight with talk of feuds and “pulverizing their opponent”. People of all ages love to watch American Championship wrestling, world wrestling events or their local high school wrestling team as they defend the school’s national title. Wrestling is a sport that has only increased in the number of athletes and fans involved since its initial launch. Comedian Andy Kauffman even used wrestling in his comedy sketches. He would hilariously wrestle different people, whether male or female, to the great amusement of his audience. Wrestlers have been in movies, sitcoms and reality shows. It is truly a sport that just keeps on growing take-down after take-down.