Found a few vids on the history of Pro Wrestling.
The Unreal Story Of Professional Wrestling (1998)
http://www.alluc.ee/l/The-Unreal-Story-Of-Professional-Wrestling-1998-avi/qsoq4zyx
• Professional wrestling, a performing art, is a popular form of entertainment in Australia, North America, Latin America, Europe, and Japan. It developed in the early 20th century, with predecessors in funfair and variety strongman and wrestling performances, which could often involve match fixing, in the 19th century.
• Professional wrestling in the United States, until the 1920s, was viewed as a legitimate sport. This view did not endure into the 1930s, as professional wrestling became identified with modern theatrics, or "admitted fakeness" ("kayfabe"), moving away from being a showcase for true competition.
• The scripted nature of the art has made critics view it as an illegitimate sport, particularly in comparison to boxing, mixed martial arts, amateur wrestling, and the real sport itself, wrestling. No major promoter or wrestler denies that modern professional wrestling has predetermined match outcomes.
•Its popularity declined during World War II, but it was revived in the late 1940s to 1950s, the First Golden Age of professional wrestling in the United States, Mexico and Japan,
There was a marked decline in public interest in the 1970s and early 1980s, but with the advent of cable television in the mid 1980s, there followed a Second Golden Age as the United States experienced a professional wrestling boom, with protagonists such as Andre the Giant, Randy Savage, Ric Flair, and most notably Hulk Hogan.
• In the early 1980s, professional wrestling in the U.S. consisted mainly of three competing organisations: the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) in the Northeast, the American Wrestling Association (AWA) in the Midwest, and the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), which ran a territorial system around the country.
• The nature of professional wrestling was changed dramatically to better fit television, enhancing character traits and story lines Television has also helped many wrestlers break into mainstream media, becoming influential celebrities and icons of popular culture.
• Wrestling's popularity boomed when independent enthusiasts unified and their media outlets grew in number, and became an international phenomenon in the 1980s with the expansion of the World Wrestling Federation (now know as World Wrestling Entertainment, shortened to simply WWE
• The WWF expanded nationally through the acquisition of talent from competing promotions (AWA,GCW) and, because it was the only company to air televised wrestling nationally, became synonymous with the industry, monopolising the industry and the fan base. The WWF's owner Vince McMahon revolutionised the sport by coining the term "sports entertainment" to describe his on-screen product, admitting to its fakery as well as enhancing its appeal to children.
• The WWF became the most colourful and well-known wrestling brand to children because of its child-oriented characters, soap opera dramaticism and cartoon-like personas. Most notable was the muscular Hulk Hogan, who marked the 1980s with his "all-American" persona. His sheer size, colourful attire, charisma and extravagance made his main events into excellent ratings draws
WrestleMania III, with a reported record attendance of 93,173 people, is widely considered to be the pinnacle of the period.[33] The first episode of The Main Event is the highest rated professional wrestling television show to date, with 33 million viewers
• Generally, WrestleMania VI on April 1, 1990, is acknowledged as the end of the 1980s wrestling boom.
• Throughout the 1990s, professional wrestling achieved highs in both viewership and financial success during a time of fierce competition among competing promotions, such as World Wrestling Federation, World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW).
• During the early 1990s, the growing WWF(E) was being hindered by competing brands and nagging legal troubles and since the mid 2000s, there has been another decline in popularity of professional wrestling.
• The WWF was forced to change itself to overcome its competition, remodelling itself with added bloodshed, violence, and more profane, sexually lewd characters. This new "Attitude Era" quickly dominated the style and nature of wrestling to become far more teen-oriented
• WWE's television programs have sine seen all-time low ratings. This is paralleled with a renewed interest in competitive combat sports with the rise of mixed martial arts (MMA/UFC)
The WWF was investigated by the Federal Government in 1991 for a steroid scandal.Large names, including Hulk Hogan, gained infamy when news of their long-time steroid use was revealed.
• A civil lawsuit involving sexual misconduct on the part of Pat Patterson in 1993 further weakened the company.This gained great criticism to the WWF, weakening its once "family-oriented" programming.
• WWE gained national media coverage in 2007 for the Chris Benoit murder-suicide, hypothesized to be related to brain damage resulting from multiple concussions. This incident, along with the death of Eddie Guerrero in 2005, made drug use and young deaths in the business a subject of intense controversy.
"You eat steak for every meal, you get tired of steak. That's what happened with the women and the midgets" Classy Freddie Glassie, (1998)
"What you see in Wrestling is a reflection of what you see in society today and what our society wants, and what it feeds off of." Del Wilkes, 'The Patriot' (1998)
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