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I was looking through my GCSE english work from last year, and this is the speach I did, and got an A* for I might add. It's all basic info which most of you will know, but newcomers to the forum and those wanting to know a few useless facts might find it of interest.
Thanks for reading!
Introduction
One of the first sports a child is likely to try is wrestling. It is an exciting sport and excellent exercise. It is the one sport which brings all the muscles of the body into play. Because it depends on physical rather than visual contact, it is a sport which the visually handicapped can play.
A definition of traditional wrestling is a combat sport in which it is illegal to kick or hit. However the many types of wrestling now either intrigue or confound us in Europe. People ask: What is it? Where did it come from? Is it a spin-off of the pornography versions? Either we instantly become fans, or it leaves us baffled and laughing in mockery. Some people shake their heads and put it down as another example of the dumb American psyche. Others attack its violence and question its morals; despite its obvious choreographed action. Such attacks and complaints have prompted authorities to force Vince Mc Mahon; real-life owner of the WWF and the XFL, to make attempts to tone-down the gratuitous violence and flirtatious innuendo. He skilfully managed this with the introduction of popular plotlines involving the formation of new group, "Right To Censor", who run around the WWF stealing objects intended for explicit use, i.e. tables. Also, much to the fans' displeasure, covered up the scantily-clad women, and a womens' pudding match is nowadays unheard of unfortunately. The comments that have been made refer to the modern day variations of wrestling; but would never have been heard of in the days of wrestling's roots.
MTV latched on to its growing vice-like grip on world cultures with the infamous Celebrity Deathmatch. It has turned heads with its comedy plasticine celebrity stylings in a similar form to Wallace & Gromit; with such out-of-this-world moves as these:
The Mexican Liver Punch
The Bubonic Plague Move
The Sicilian Stomach Punch
The Winnipeg Wax Job and
The Crocodile Crotch Rock
As the characters were indeed plasticine, and it was shown after 9pm, Celebrity Deathmatch escaped the public scrutiny that shrouded the WWF and WCW.
History
Before I move on to the main part of the talk, I should like to say a little about the history of wrestling, and its more traditional forms.
Wrestling is an ancient sport. Egyptian slabs, dating from 3000BC, picture wrestlers using many of the modern-day techniques. In the ‘Iliad’, Homer wrote of a great wrestling match in which Odysseus defeated Ajax for the shield of the slain Achilles. Wrestling featured in the Olympic games of ancient Greece and the Japanese throne was decided in a match between 2 sons of the Emperor in 858AD.
The first matches in modern times began as entertainment and exercise for men during the two world wars. This type, and indeed the type used in the Olympic games today is called Greco-Roman wrestling. Competitors are split into weight classes, and fight in a circular or square ring of area 32 square ft. with a mat 3inches thick. These matches last 7 mins divided into 3 rounds and if no pinfall happens, the winner is decided on points.
Glima
In the Viking age, there was a very popular sport in Northern Europe and Scandinavia called Glima. It is the national sport of Iceland. The distinguishing factor is that the wrestlers use special belts to get a hold of one another, a characteristic of sumo wrestling. They continually walk around each other and attempt to bring the opponent down using a combination of 8 different trips or lifts. The match ends when one opponent falls down. It is almost unheard of nowadays, as it was considered to be a pagan thing, but is still practised in New Zealand, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark.
The WWF
WWF stands for World Wrestling Federation; and the title is certainly appropriate; Vince Mc Mahon first revolutionised wrestling into the form we see today; and so it is fitting that his corporation is indeed the biggest of its kind in the world.
Characters:
As everything is cleverly faked, all the athletes must also be good actors, in order to carry out the soap opera like storylines and rivalries and feuds Various Coalitions are contracted to the WWF; inc. Tag Teams, attractive women who ally themselves with popular stars, trouble makers, and gangs such as DX. All have their own place in the weekly scripts of Smackdown, Raw, Heat, Metal and Superstars, and all play out their own roles with an assigned persona, be it the seductive power-crazy Trish Stratus, or the man with only 3 things on his mind: Intensity, Integrity and Intelligence - The Olympic gold medallist Kurt Angle.
Match Types
Matches are in numerous formats, and new ones are invented and added every year. I’ll just give a short summary of the 3 most exciting, usually reserved for special pay-per-view events:
Last-Man-Standing Match- if you incapacitate your opponent so that he cannot get up again for 10 seconds, you are the last-man-standing and therefore the winner. (HHH vs. Chris Jericho @ Fully Loaded)
Iron Man match- the match must last 60 mins. And the person who has scored the most pinfalls is declared the winner. (Rock vs. HHH @ Insurection)
TLC match-tables, ladder, chairs are brought into the ring as weapons and you must set up a ladder and reach money or a championship belt suspended above the ring. (Hardyz vs. Dudleyz vs. Edge & Christian @ Summerslam)
For a match to be won, each wrestler has a varied range of moves to wear their opponent out, before a finishing move, which usually results in a certain pinfall.
One participant must cover the other wrestler on the mat and the referee must count 1, 2, 3. This results in a pinfall. However, if the opponent manages to raise a shoulder or kick out, then the count is stopped and the match continues. Another method of winning is by submission. In this case, each wrestler applies pain to the opponent, until it grows so bad that he can’t bear it and has to tap out.
Moves
The potentially life-threatening moves are of course, carefully choreographed and brilliantly executed, to totally immerse fans in the action; some of them even think it's real! However, in ECW, the moves are for real to a certain extent, and needless to say the careers of those wrestlers tend to be shorter than those of WWF, and WCW! They can be executed from the mat, or from the elasticated ropes surrounding the ring, or one of the 4 turnbuckles, which mark out the ring boundary and anchor the ropes.
Each wrestler has a personalized finishing move, which generally incapacitate their opponent. They are moves such as:
The Rock Bottom by The Rock
The Pedigree by Triple H
The Last Ride by Undertaker
The Walls of Jericho by Chris Jericho
The Olympic Slam by Kurt Angle
The Swanton Bomb by Jeff Hardy
Belt Holders:
World Wrestling Federation Champion: Steve Austin
Tag Team Champions: Dudley Boys
Intercontinental Champion: Edge
European Champion: Christian
Hardcore Champion: RVD
Light Heavyweight Champion: Billy Kidman
WCW Champion: Y2J
WCW US Champion: Kurt Angle
WCW Cruiserweight Champion: Tajiri
WCW Tag Team Champions: Test and Booker T
(These were correct but probably have changed since)
Real Names:
Occasionally, the wrestlers are satisfied with their own names, such as:
Kurt Angle
Matt & Jeff Hardy
The Mc Mahon Family
Chris Benoit
Mick Foley
But others give themselves a new more dynamic name, either to personalize their wrestler's character, or to remind themselves that they are playing a role.
The Rock: Duane Johnson
Chris Jericho: Chris Irvine
Triple H: Paul Levesque
Kane: Glen Jacobs
Undertaker: Mark Callaway
Rikishi: Solofa Fatu
"Stone Cold" Steve Austin: Steve Williams
The Wrestlers Earnings
As you might expect, with the WWF becoming larger and more popular by the day, the wrestlers must have a salary to match; after all, the amount of stress and risk they put their bodies through, they deserve it, and this could be the only chance they have to keep them for the rest of their lives. They all have contracts, and are available to be signed by other factions. The most recent additions to the WWF are Tazz and Raven, both from ECW.
Wage Brackets
$50,000-$100,000 p.a The mainly non-wrestling female superstars, e.g Trish Stratus and Terri
$200,000-$250,000 p.a Minor wrestlers earn this much, e.g Perry Saturn, Crash, Esse Rios etc.
$250,000-$500,000 p.a More popular wrestlers & tag-teams, e.g. Hardyz, Rikishi & Too Cool
$500,000-$1m p.a Main big-name wrestlers, inc. Jericho, Benoit, Kane & Undertaker
$2m upwards WWF Champion (The Rock) earnt over $6m last year, Austin, Kurt Angle, Triple H
Were it not for the medium of television, wrestling would never have got to where it is today, so I’d like to leave you with the Corporation’s own reminder. These are fully trained athletes. Please don’t try this at home!
Thanks for reading!
Introduction
One of the first sports a child is likely to try is wrestling. It is an exciting sport and excellent exercise. It is the one sport which brings all the muscles of the body into play. Because it depends on physical rather than visual contact, it is a sport which the visually handicapped can play.
A definition of traditional wrestling is a combat sport in which it is illegal to kick or hit. However the many types of wrestling now either intrigue or confound us in Europe. People ask: What is it? Where did it come from? Is it a spin-off of the pornography versions? Either we instantly become fans, or it leaves us baffled and laughing in mockery. Some people shake their heads and put it down as another example of the dumb American psyche. Others attack its violence and question its morals; despite its obvious choreographed action. Such attacks and complaints have prompted authorities to force Vince Mc Mahon; real-life owner of the WWF and the XFL, to make attempts to tone-down the gratuitous violence and flirtatious innuendo. He skilfully managed this with the introduction of popular plotlines involving the formation of new group, "Right To Censor", who run around the WWF stealing objects intended for explicit use, i.e. tables. Also, much to the fans' displeasure, covered up the scantily-clad women, and a womens' pudding match is nowadays unheard of unfortunately. The comments that have been made refer to the modern day variations of wrestling; but would never have been heard of in the days of wrestling's roots.
MTV latched on to its growing vice-like grip on world cultures with the infamous Celebrity Deathmatch. It has turned heads with its comedy plasticine celebrity stylings in a similar form to Wallace & Gromit; with such out-of-this-world moves as these:
The Mexican Liver Punch
The Bubonic Plague Move
The Sicilian Stomach Punch
The Winnipeg Wax Job and
The Crocodile Crotch Rock
As the characters were indeed plasticine, and it was shown after 9pm, Celebrity Deathmatch escaped the public scrutiny that shrouded the WWF and WCW.
History
Before I move on to the main part of the talk, I should like to say a little about the history of wrestling, and its more traditional forms.
Wrestling is an ancient sport. Egyptian slabs, dating from 3000BC, picture wrestlers using many of the modern-day techniques. In the ‘Iliad’, Homer wrote of a great wrestling match in which Odysseus defeated Ajax for the shield of the slain Achilles. Wrestling featured in the Olympic games of ancient Greece and the Japanese throne was decided in a match between 2 sons of the Emperor in 858AD.
The first matches in modern times began as entertainment and exercise for men during the two world wars. This type, and indeed the type used in the Olympic games today is called Greco-Roman wrestling. Competitors are split into weight classes, and fight in a circular or square ring of area 32 square ft. with a mat 3inches thick. These matches last 7 mins divided into 3 rounds and if no pinfall happens, the winner is decided on points.
Glima
In the Viking age, there was a very popular sport in Northern Europe and Scandinavia called Glima. It is the national sport of Iceland. The distinguishing factor is that the wrestlers use special belts to get a hold of one another, a characteristic of sumo wrestling. They continually walk around each other and attempt to bring the opponent down using a combination of 8 different trips or lifts. The match ends when one opponent falls down. It is almost unheard of nowadays, as it was considered to be a pagan thing, but is still practised in New Zealand, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark.
The WWF
WWF stands for World Wrestling Federation; and the title is certainly appropriate; Vince Mc Mahon first revolutionised wrestling into the form we see today; and so it is fitting that his corporation is indeed the biggest of its kind in the world.
Characters:
As everything is cleverly faked, all the athletes must also be good actors, in order to carry out the soap opera like storylines and rivalries and feuds Various Coalitions are contracted to the WWF; inc. Tag Teams, attractive women who ally themselves with popular stars, trouble makers, and gangs such as DX. All have their own place in the weekly scripts of Smackdown, Raw, Heat, Metal and Superstars, and all play out their own roles with an assigned persona, be it the seductive power-crazy Trish Stratus, or the man with only 3 things on his mind: Intensity, Integrity and Intelligence - The Olympic gold medallist Kurt Angle.
Match Types
Matches are in numerous formats, and new ones are invented and added every year. I’ll just give a short summary of the 3 most exciting, usually reserved for special pay-per-view events:
Last-Man-Standing Match- if you incapacitate your opponent so that he cannot get up again for 10 seconds, you are the last-man-standing and therefore the winner. (HHH vs. Chris Jericho @ Fully Loaded)
Iron Man match- the match must last 60 mins. And the person who has scored the most pinfalls is declared the winner. (Rock vs. HHH @ Insurection)
TLC match-tables, ladder, chairs are brought into the ring as weapons and you must set up a ladder and reach money or a championship belt suspended above the ring. (Hardyz vs. Dudleyz vs. Edge & Christian @ Summerslam)
For a match to be won, each wrestler has a varied range of moves to wear their opponent out, before a finishing move, which usually results in a certain pinfall.
One participant must cover the other wrestler on the mat and the referee must count 1, 2, 3. This results in a pinfall. However, if the opponent manages to raise a shoulder or kick out, then the count is stopped and the match continues. Another method of winning is by submission. In this case, each wrestler applies pain to the opponent, until it grows so bad that he can’t bear it and has to tap out.
Moves
The potentially life-threatening moves are of course, carefully choreographed and brilliantly executed, to totally immerse fans in the action; some of them even think it's real! However, in ECW, the moves are for real to a certain extent, and needless to say the careers of those wrestlers tend to be shorter than those of WWF, and WCW! They can be executed from the mat, or from the elasticated ropes surrounding the ring, or one of the 4 turnbuckles, which mark out the ring boundary and anchor the ropes.
Each wrestler has a personalized finishing move, which generally incapacitate their opponent. They are moves such as:
The Rock Bottom by The Rock
The Pedigree by Triple H
The Last Ride by Undertaker
The Walls of Jericho by Chris Jericho
The Olympic Slam by Kurt Angle
The Swanton Bomb by Jeff Hardy
Belt Holders:
World Wrestling Federation Champion: Steve Austin
Tag Team Champions: Dudley Boys
Intercontinental Champion: Edge
European Champion: Christian
Hardcore Champion: RVD
Light Heavyweight Champion: Billy Kidman
WCW Champion: Y2J
WCW US Champion: Kurt Angle
WCW Cruiserweight Champion: Tajiri
WCW Tag Team Champions: Test and Booker T
(These were correct but probably have changed since)
Real Names:
Occasionally, the wrestlers are satisfied with their own names, such as:
Kurt Angle
Matt & Jeff Hardy
The Mc Mahon Family
Chris Benoit
Mick Foley
But others give themselves a new more dynamic name, either to personalize their wrestler's character, or to remind themselves that they are playing a role.
The Rock: Duane Johnson
Chris Jericho: Chris Irvine
Triple H: Paul Levesque
Kane: Glen Jacobs
Undertaker: Mark Callaway
Rikishi: Solofa Fatu
"Stone Cold" Steve Austin: Steve Williams
The Wrestlers Earnings
As you might expect, with the WWF becoming larger and more popular by the day, the wrestlers must have a salary to match; after all, the amount of stress and risk they put their bodies through, they deserve it, and this could be the only chance they have to keep them for the rest of their lives. They all have contracts, and are available to be signed by other factions. The most recent additions to the WWF are Tazz and Raven, both from ECW.
Wage Brackets
$50,000-$100,000 p.a The mainly non-wrestling female superstars, e.g Trish Stratus and Terri
$200,000-$250,000 p.a Minor wrestlers earn this much, e.g Perry Saturn, Crash, Esse Rios etc.
$250,000-$500,000 p.a More popular wrestlers & tag-teams, e.g. Hardyz, Rikishi & Too Cool
$500,000-$1m p.a Main big-name wrestlers, inc. Jericho, Benoit, Kane & Undertaker
$2m upwards WWF Champion (The Rock) earnt over $6m last year, Austin, Kurt Angle, Triple H
Were it not for the medium of television, wrestling would never have got to where it is today, so I’d like to leave you with the Corporation’s own reminder. These are fully trained athletes. Please don’t try this at home!
If this doesn't win GAD i'm gonna complain:D
Wow! Great topic there PMW, definitely GAD worthy. Thanks for the great contribution.
Thats ok believe me a lot of people will say its worthy of a GAD, its just if there are other good posts too, you may not win
That is a really good post, worthy of a GAD mesa thinks
I was looking through my GCSE english work from last year, and this is the speach I did, and got an A* for I might add. It's all basic info which most of you will know, but newcomers to the forum and those wanting to know a few useless facts might find it of interest.
Thanks for reading!
Introduction
One of the first sports a child is likely to try is wrestling. It is an exciting sport and excellent exercise. It is the one sport which brings all the muscles of the body into play. Because it depends on physical rather than visual contact, it is a sport which the visually handicapped can play.
A definition of traditional wrestling is a combat sport in which it is illegal to kick or hit. However the many types of wrestling now either intrigue or confound us in Europe. People ask: What is it? Where did it come from? Is it a spin-off of the pornography versions? Either we instantly become fans, or it leaves us baffled and laughing in mockery. Some people shake their heads and put it down as another example of the dumb American psyche. Others attack its violence and question its morals; despite its obvious choreographed action. Such attacks and complaints have prompted authorities to force Vince Mc Mahon; real-life owner of the WWF and the XFL, to make attempts to tone-down the gratuitous violence and flirtatious innuendo. He skilfully managed this with the introduction of popular plotlines involving the formation of new group, "Right To Censor", who run around the WWF stealing objects intended for explicit use, i.e. tables. Also, much to the fans' displeasure, covered up the scantily-clad women, and a womens' pudding match is nowadays unheard of unfortunately. The comments that have been made refer to the modern day variations of wrestling; but would never have been heard of in the days of wrestling's roots.
MTV latched on to its growing vice-like grip on world cultures with the infamous Celebrity Deathmatch. It has turned heads with its comedy plasticine celebrity stylings in a similar form to Wallace & Gromit; with such out-of-this-world moves as these:
The Mexican Liver Punch
The Bubonic Plague Move
The Sicilian Stomach Punch
The Winnipeg Wax Job and
The Crocodile Crotch Rock
As the characters were indeed plasticine, and it was shown after 9pm, Celebrity Deathmatch escaped the public scrutiny that shrouded the WWF and WCW.
History
Before I move on to the main part of the talk, I should like to say a little about the history of wrestling, and its more traditional forms.
Wrestling is an ancient sport. Egyptian slabs, dating from 3000BC, picture wrestlers using many of the modern-day techniques. In the ‘Iliad’, Homer wrote of a great wrestling match in which Odysseus defeated Ajax for the shield of the slain Achilles. Wrestling featured in the Olympic games of ancient Greece and the Japanese throne was decided in a match between 2 sons of the Emperor in 858AD.
The first matches in modern times began as entertainment and exercise for men during the two world wars. This type, and indeed the type used in the Olympic games today is called Greco-Roman wrestling. Competitors are split into weight classes, and fight in a circular or square ring of area 32 square ft. with a mat 3inches thick. These matches last 7 mins divided into 3 rounds and if no pinfall happens, the winner is decided on points.
Glima
In the Viking age, there was a very popular sport in Northern Europe and Scandinavia called Glima. It is the national sport of Iceland. The distinguishing factor is that the wrestlers use special belts to get a hold of one another, a characteristic of sumo wrestling. They continually walk around each other and attempt to bring the opponent down using a combination of 8 different trips or lifts. The match ends when one opponent falls down. It is almost unheard of nowadays, as it was considered to be a pagan thing, but is still practised in New Zealand, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark.
The WWF
WWF stands for World Wrestling Federation; and the title is certainly appropriate; Vince Mc Mahon first revolutionised wrestling into the form we see today; and so it is fitting that his corporation is indeed the biggest of its kind in the world.
Characters:
As everything is cleverly faked, all the athletes must also be good actors, in order to carry out the soap opera like storylines and rivalries and feuds Various Coalitions are contracted to the WWF; inc. Tag Teams, attractive women who ally themselves with popular stars, trouble makers, and gangs such as DX. All have their own place in the weekly scripts of Smackdown, Raw, Heat, Metal and Superstars, and all play out their own roles with an assigned persona, be it the seductive power-crazy Trish Stratus, or the man with only 3 things on his mind: Intensity, Integrity and Intelligence - The Olympic gold medallist Kurt Angle.
Match Types
Matches are in numerous formats, and new ones are invented and added every year. I’ll just give a short summary of the 3 most exciting, usually reserved for special pay-per-view events:
Last-Man-Standing Match- if you incapacitate your opponent so that he cannot get up again for 10 seconds, you are the last-man-standing and therefore the winner. (HHH vs. Chris Jericho @ Fully Loaded)
Iron Man match- the match must last 60 mins. And the person who has scored the most pinfalls is declared the winner. (Rock vs. HHH @ Insurection)
TLC match-tables, ladder, chairs are brought into the ring as weapons and you must set up a ladder and reach money or a championship belt suspended above the ring. (Hardyz vs. Dudleyz vs. Edge & Christian @ Summerslam)
For a match to be won, each wrestler has a varied range of moves to wear their opponent out, before a finishing move, which usually results in a certain pinfall.
One participant must cover the other wrestler on the mat and the referee must count 1, 2, 3. This results in a pinfall. However, if the opponent manages to raise a shoulder or kick out, then the count is stopped and the match continues. Another method of winning is by submission. In this case, each wrestler applies pain to the opponent, until it grows so bad that he can’t bear it and has to tap out.
Moves
The potentially life-threatening moves are of course, carefully choreographed and brilliantly executed, to totally immerse fans in the action; some of them even think it's real! However, in ECW, the moves are for real to a certain extent, and needless to say the careers of those wrestlers tend to be shorter than those of WWF, and WCW! They can be executed from the mat, or from the elasticated ropes surrounding the ring, or one of the 4 turnbuckles, which mark out the ring boundary and anchor the ropes.
Each wrestler has a personalized finishing move, which generally incapacitate their opponent. They are moves such as:
The Rock Bottom by The Rock
The Pedigree by Triple H
The Last Ride by Undertaker
The Walls of Jericho by Chris Jericho
The Olympic Slam by Kurt Angle
The Swanton Bomb by Jeff Hardy
Belt Holders:
World Wrestling Federation Champion: Steve Austin
Tag Team Champions: Dudley Boys
Intercontinental Champion: Edge
European Champion: Christian
Hardcore Champion: RVD
Light Heavyweight Champion: Billy Kidman
WCW Champion: Y2J
WCW US Champion: Kurt Angle
WCW Cruiserweight Champion: Tajiri
WCW Tag Team Champions: Test and Booker T
(These were correct but probably have changed since)
Real Names:
Occasionally, the wrestlers are satisfied with their own names, such as:
Kurt Angle
Matt & Jeff Hardy
The Mc Mahon Family
Chris Benoit
Mick Foley
But others give themselves a new more dynamic name, either to personalize their wrestler's character, or to remind themselves that they are playing a role.
The Rock: Duane Johnson
Chris Jericho: Chris Irvine
Triple H: Paul Levesque
Kane: Glen Jacobs
Undertaker: Mark Callaway
Rikishi: Solofa Fatu
"Stone Cold" Steve Austin: Steve Williams
The Wrestlers Earnings
As you might expect, with the WWF becoming larger and more popular by the day, the wrestlers must have a salary to match; after all, the amount of stress and risk they put their bodies through, they deserve it, and this could be the only chance they have to keep them for the rest of their lives. They all have contracts, and are available to be signed by other factions. The most recent additions to the WWF are Tazz and Raven, both from ECW.
Wage Brackets
$50,000-$100,000 p.a The mainly non-wrestling female superstars, e.g Trish Stratus and Terri
$200,000-$250,000 p.a Minor wrestlers earn this much, e.g Perry Saturn, Crash, Esse Rios etc.
$250,000-$500,000 p.a More popular wrestlers & tag-teams, e.g. Hardyz, Rikishi & Too Cool
$500,000-$1m p.a Main big-name wrestlers, inc. Jericho, Benoit, Kane & Undertaker
$2m upwards WWF Champion (The Rock) earnt over $6m last year, Austin, Kurt Angle, Triple H
Were it not for the medium of television, wrestling would never have got to where it is today, so I’d like to leave you with the Corporation’s own reminder. These are fully trained athletes. Please don’t try this at home!
Thanks for reading!
Introduction
One of the first sports a child is likely to try is wrestling. It is an exciting sport and excellent exercise. It is the one sport which brings all the muscles of the body into play. Because it depends on physical rather than visual contact, it is a sport which the visually handicapped can play.
A definition of traditional wrestling is a combat sport in which it is illegal to kick or hit. However the many types of wrestling now either intrigue or confound us in Europe. People ask: What is it? Where did it come from? Is it a spin-off of the pornography versions? Either we instantly become fans, or it leaves us baffled and laughing in mockery. Some people shake their heads and put it down as another example of the dumb American psyche. Others attack its violence and question its morals; despite its obvious choreographed action. Such attacks and complaints have prompted authorities to force Vince Mc Mahon; real-life owner of the WWF and the XFL, to make attempts to tone-down the gratuitous violence and flirtatious innuendo. He skilfully managed this with the introduction of popular plotlines involving the formation of new group, "Right To Censor", who run around the WWF stealing objects intended for explicit use, i.e. tables. Also, much to the fans' displeasure, covered up the scantily-clad women, and a womens' pudding match is nowadays unheard of unfortunately. The comments that have been made refer to the modern day variations of wrestling; but would never have been heard of in the days of wrestling's roots.
MTV latched on to its growing vice-like grip on world cultures with the infamous Celebrity Deathmatch. It has turned heads with its comedy plasticine celebrity stylings in a similar form to Wallace & Gromit; with such out-of-this-world moves as these:
The Mexican Liver Punch
The Bubonic Plague Move
The Sicilian Stomach Punch
The Winnipeg Wax Job and
The Crocodile Crotch Rock
As the characters were indeed plasticine, and it was shown after 9pm, Celebrity Deathmatch escaped the public scrutiny that shrouded the WWF and WCW.
History
Before I move on to the main part of the talk, I should like to say a little about the history of wrestling, and its more traditional forms.
Wrestling is an ancient sport. Egyptian slabs, dating from 3000BC, picture wrestlers using many of the modern-day techniques. In the ‘Iliad’, Homer wrote of a great wrestling match in which Odysseus defeated Ajax for the shield of the slain Achilles. Wrestling featured in the Olympic games of ancient Greece and the Japanese throne was decided in a match between 2 sons of the Emperor in 858AD.
The first matches in modern times began as entertainment and exercise for men during the two world wars. This type, and indeed the type used in the Olympic games today is called Greco-Roman wrestling. Competitors are split into weight classes, and fight in a circular or square ring of area 32 square ft. with a mat 3inches thick. These matches last 7 mins divided into 3 rounds and if no pinfall happens, the winner is decided on points.
Glima
In the Viking age, there was a very popular sport in Northern Europe and Scandinavia called Glima. It is the national sport of Iceland. The distinguishing factor is that the wrestlers use special belts to get a hold of one another, a characteristic of sumo wrestling. They continually walk around each other and attempt to bring the opponent down using a combination of 8 different trips or lifts. The match ends when one opponent falls down. It is almost unheard of nowadays, as it was considered to be a pagan thing, but is still practised in New Zealand, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark.
The WWF
WWF stands for World Wrestling Federation; and the title is certainly appropriate; Vince Mc Mahon first revolutionised wrestling into the form we see today; and so it is fitting that his corporation is indeed the biggest of its kind in the world.
Characters:
As everything is cleverly faked, all the athletes must also be good actors, in order to carry out the soap opera like storylines and rivalries and feuds Various Coalitions are contracted to the WWF; inc. Tag Teams, attractive women who ally themselves with popular stars, trouble makers, and gangs such as DX. All have their own place in the weekly scripts of Smackdown, Raw, Heat, Metal and Superstars, and all play out their own roles with an assigned persona, be it the seductive power-crazy Trish Stratus, or the man with only 3 things on his mind: Intensity, Integrity and Intelligence - The Olympic gold medallist Kurt Angle.
Match Types
Matches are in numerous formats, and new ones are invented and added every year. I’ll just give a short summary of the 3 most exciting, usually reserved for special pay-per-view events:
Last-Man-Standing Match- if you incapacitate your opponent so that he cannot get up again for 10 seconds, you are the last-man-standing and therefore the winner. (HHH vs. Chris Jericho @ Fully Loaded)
Iron Man match- the match must last 60 mins. And the person who has scored the most pinfalls is declared the winner. (Rock vs. HHH @ Insurection)
TLC match-tables, ladder, chairs are brought into the ring as weapons and you must set up a ladder and reach money or a championship belt suspended above the ring. (Hardyz vs. Dudleyz vs. Edge & Christian @ Summerslam)
For a match to be won, each wrestler has a varied range of moves to wear their opponent out, before a finishing move, which usually results in a certain pinfall.
One participant must cover the other wrestler on the mat and the referee must count 1, 2, 3. This results in a pinfall. However, if the opponent manages to raise a shoulder or kick out, then the count is stopped and the match continues. Another method of winning is by submission. In this case, each wrestler applies pain to the opponent, until it grows so bad that he can’t bear it and has to tap out.
Moves
The potentially life-threatening moves are of course, carefully choreographed and brilliantly executed, to totally immerse fans in the action; some of them even think it's real! However, in ECW, the moves are for real to a certain extent, and needless to say the careers of those wrestlers tend to be shorter than those of WWF, and WCW! They can be executed from the mat, or from the elasticated ropes surrounding the ring, or one of the 4 turnbuckles, which mark out the ring boundary and anchor the ropes.
Each wrestler has a personalized finishing move, which generally incapacitate their opponent. They are moves such as:
The Rock Bottom by The Rock
The Pedigree by Triple H
The Last Ride by Undertaker
The Walls of Jericho by Chris Jericho
The Olympic Slam by Kurt Angle
The Swanton Bomb by Jeff Hardy
Belt Holders:
World Wrestling Federation Champion: Steve Austin
Tag Team Champions: Dudley Boys
Intercontinental Champion: Edge
European Champion: Christian
Hardcore Champion: RVD
Light Heavyweight Champion: Billy Kidman
WCW Champion: Y2J
WCW US Champion: Kurt Angle
WCW Cruiserweight Champion: Tajiri
WCW Tag Team Champions: Test and Booker T
(These were correct but probably have changed since)
Real Names:
Occasionally, the wrestlers are satisfied with their own names, such as:
Kurt Angle
Matt & Jeff Hardy
The Mc Mahon Family
Chris Benoit
Mick Foley
But others give themselves a new more dynamic name, either to personalize their wrestler's character, or to remind themselves that they are playing a role.
The Rock: Duane Johnson
Chris Jericho: Chris Irvine
Triple H: Paul Levesque
Kane: Glen Jacobs
Undertaker: Mark Callaway
Rikishi: Solofa Fatu
"Stone Cold" Steve Austin: Steve Williams
The Wrestlers Earnings
As you might expect, with the WWF becoming larger and more popular by the day, the wrestlers must have a salary to match; after all, the amount of stress and risk they put their bodies through, they deserve it, and this could be the only chance they have to keep them for the rest of their lives. They all have contracts, and are available to be signed by other factions. The most recent additions to the WWF are Tazz and Raven, both from ECW.
Wage Brackets
$50,000-$100,000 p.a The mainly non-wrestling female superstars, e.g Trish Stratus and Terri
$200,000-$250,000 p.a Minor wrestlers earn this much, e.g Perry Saturn, Crash, Esse Rios etc.
$250,000-$500,000 p.a More popular wrestlers & tag-teams, e.g. Hardyz, Rikishi & Too Cool
$500,000-$1m p.a Main big-name wrestlers, inc. Jericho, Benoit, Kane & Undertaker
$2m upwards WWF Champion (The Rock) earnt over $6m last year, Austin, Kurt Angle, Triple H
Were it not for the medium of television, wrestling would never have got to where it is today, so I’d like to leave you with the Corporation’s own reminder. These are fully trained athletes. Please don’t try this at home!