Download

Timeline of the Invention and Evolution of Professional Wrestling

By carsonrgb

  • European Greco-Woman wrestling gains popularity

  • The Rise of Traveling Carnivals

    Wrestlers were a prominent part of traveling carnivals, and the men in charge realized that the more impressive their athletes were the more people would pay to see them – and bet on them to win. As betting became more popular, a decision was made to start controlling the outcome of the wrestling matches.

  • Martin "Farmer" Burns beats Evan "Strangler" Lewis to become the American Heavyweight Champion

    Burns wrote the popular book "Lessons in Wrestling and Physical Culture" and trained more than 1,600 wrestlers.

  • France's "Colossus" Paul Pons defeats Russia's Wladislaus Pytlasinski to win the first World Championship

    Wrestling in Europe was still somewhat legitimate. This contest was wrestled under Greco-Roman rules.

  • Frank Gotch wins the American Heavyweight Championship

    One of Burns' students, Gotch became one of the first mainstream wrestling personalities and helped catapult wrestling out of the carnivals and into popular entertainment.

  • Frank Gotch defeats George Hackenschmidt to become World Champion

  • Frank Gotch retires as champion

    Claims of match fixing in wrestling started to become more prominent.

  • World War I begins

    The popularity of wrestling takes a nose dive during the war and the format and presentation stemming from the carnivals days becomes obsolete.