Rasslin' as We Knew It

There is hardly a fan of professional wrestling over 40 that does not bemoan the transition (some would call it death) this pastime experienced in the 1980's as it became redefined as "sports entertainment". Gone was the era of "kayfabe" - the code word that described the veil of secrecy among the wrestling brotherhood which kept spectators from not quite knowing whether the violence they saw in arenas or on television stations throughout the nation was real or was rehearsed and scripted in advance. It was in this decade that the wrestling czars (chiefly by that point there was only one - the head of the old Northeastern territory, Vince McMahon Jr.) publicly admitted that the so-called matches were really exhibitions, or planned demonstrations.

While this categorization of the performers as glorified stunt men robbed them of the mystique that had existed prior, the calculated admission of choreographed contests paradoxically increased the public awareness of wrestling, and it became big business due to sleek marketing tie-ins and the creation of larger-than-life characters. Crowds that averaged in the few thousands during the classic era of rasslin' now swelled to the tens of thousands. Cutting edge video techniques and special effects were imported from television and movie productions. Not only were the matches planned in advance, but long-winded speeches during televised broadcasts increasingly were produced by scriptwriters, and the entire enterprise became a "soap opera on steroids". The stars were no longer promoted based upon their ability to tell a story through their wrestling style - more important in the modern era is the ability to talk and have a flawless physique.

The epitome of this corporatization came in the late 1990's when the two major wrestling companies of that time, the WWF (later rechristened as WWE due to a trademark conflict with the World Wildlife Fund) and WCW were either, in the case of the former, a publicly traded company, or in the latter, part of one of the globes largest corporations, Time-Warner. The spirit of renegade, underground entertainment that glued the collective psyche of wrestling fans during the '50's through the '70's had by then all but died out. The last few of the remaining old-school territories breathed their last gasps before the start of our current century.

Before the 'modern-era' of professional wrestling, the 'sport' existed as a collection of territories that had their own champions, personalities, and styles. Now, knowledge of "the way it was" is becoming fragmentary and dilute. The Internet has offered an avenue for those who preferred the almost sublime-by-comparison slow-paced and less exciting version of wrestling from the older days, and wrestlingclassics.com along with kayfabememories.com have become gathering spots for those who like to tell stories from "back when". The series that this article represents the first installment of is not for those who are well-versed in the history of pro wrestling. It is instead for those of you whose memories of this unique form of entertainment began with Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, Macho Man Randy Savage; for those of you that grew up watching Sting, the Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin. It is not an attempt to convince you that rasslin' was superior to sports entertainment, but rather to educate you on the rich, sometimes tragic and often hysterical tradition that has led to the modern day Cena's, Batista's and Edge's.

I will draw from my experience of growing up a voracious fan of the sport, watching either live or on tape performances from every territory of significance from the '60's to the '80's. I especially hope that those of you who read and appreciate these stories will contribute to ongoing discussions that broaden even further our understanding of this perplexing yet addictive spectator pastime.

Next: Classic Wrestling Territories

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