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History Of Professional Wrestling In The United States
Professional wrestling in the United States, through the advent of television in the 1950s, and cable in the 1980s, began appearing in powerful media outlets, reaching never before seen numbers of viewers. It became an international phenomenon with the expansion of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). Throughout the 1990s, professional wrestling achieved highs in both viewers and financial success during a time of fierce competition among competing promotions, such as WWF, World Championship Wrestling, and Extreme Championship Wrestling. The nature of professional wrestling changed dramatically to better fit television, enhancing character traits and storylines. Television also helped many wrestlers break into mainstream media, becoming influential celebrities and icons of popular culture. In the United States, in the First Golden Age of professional wrestling in the 1940s–1960s, Gorgeous George gained mainstream popularity, followed in the Second Golden Age in the 1980s� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shawn Michaels
Shawn Michaels (born Michael Shawn Hickenbottom on July 22, 1965) is an American retired professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE, where he is the Senior Vice President of Talent Development, Creative, and oversees the creative aspects of the NXT (WWE brand), NXT brand, the promotion's Farm team, developmental territory. Regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, he is known by the nicknames "The Heartbreak Kid" (often abbreviated as HBK), "The Showstopper", and "Mr. WrestleMania". Michaels wrestled consistently for WWE, formerly the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, renamed in 2002), from 1988 until his first retirement in 1998. He performed in non-wrestling roles for the next two years, resuming his wrestling career with WWE in 2002 until ceremoniously retiring in 2010. He returned for a one-off final match in 2018. In 2016, he began working as a coach at the WWE Performance Center, and was a producer on ''WWE NXT, NXT'' in 2018, before becoming the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Gotch
Frank Alvin Gotch (April 27, 1878 – December 17, 1917) was an American professional wrestler. Gotch was the first American professional wrestler to win the World Heavyweight Championship in catch wrestling, and he is credited for popularizing professional wrestling in the United States. He competed back when the contests at championship level were largely legit (see catch wrestling), and his reign as World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion (from 1908 to 1913) is one of the ten longest in the history of professional wrestling. He became one of the most popular athletes in America from the 1900s to the 1910s. ''Pro Wrestling Illustrated'' described Gotch as "arguably the best North American professional wrestler of the 20th century". Early life The son of Frederick Rudolph and Amelia Gotch, of German ancestry, he was born and raised on a small farm three miles south of Humboldt, Iowa. He took up wrestling in his teens, earning a reputation by beating locals. He adopted the to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Burns
Martin Burns (February 15, 1861 – January 8, 1937), nicknamed Farmer Burns, was an American Catch wrestling, catch wrestler, wrestling coach, and teacher. Born in Cedar County, Iowa, he started wrestling as a teenager and made money traveling around the Midwest wrestling in carnivals and fairs. As a professional wrestler, he claimed the American Heavyweight Championship by defeating Evan "Strangler" Lewis in 1895 and held the title for two years, during the time when contests were legitimate. At this time, Martin Burns himself claimed to have wrestled in more than 6,000 matches and is said to have lost only seven. After the end of his active wrestling career he started a successful wrestling school in Omaha, Nebraska, Omaha and later coached Cedar Rapids' Washington high school to the first Iowa high school state wrestling tournament title. He died in Council Bluffs in 1937. In 2001 Martin "Farmer" Burns was inducted into the International Wrestling Institute and Museum Hall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kayfabe
In professional wrestling, kayfabe (pronounced ) is the portrayal of staged events within the industry as "real" or "true", specifically competition, rivalries, and relationships between participants. The term has evolved to become a code word of sorts for maintaining this "reality" within the direct or indirect presence of the general public. In the United States, kayfabe is often seen as the suspension of disbelief that is used to create the non-wrestling aspects of promotions, such as feuds, angles, and gimmicks in a manner similar to other forms of fictional entertainment. In relative terms, a wrestler breaking kayfabe would be likened to an actor breaking character on-camera. Since wrestling is performed in front of a live audience whose interaction with the show is crucial to its success, kayfabe can be compared to the fourth wall in acting, since hardly any conventional fourth wall exists to begin with. Because of this lack of conventional fourth wall, wrestlers we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shoot (professional Wrestling)
A shoot in professional wrestling is any unplanned, unscripted, or real-life occurrence within a wrestling event. It is a carny term shortened from "straight shooting", which originally referred to a gun in a carnival target shooting game that did ''not'' have its sights misaligned. Terminology such as this reflects the professional wrestling industry's roots in traveling carnivals. Initially, the term referred to practice or ability in catch wrestling as a legitimate sport. It has since come to mean any legit attack or fight in professional wrestling regardless of the combat system employed, and its meaning has broadened to include unscripted events in general. The opposite of a shoot is a work or kayfabe. 'Shoot' may also refer to legitimate 'shooting' for a takedown, as in interscholastic, amateur, and Olympic wrestling. Occurrences Professional wrestling is staged entertainment rather than a sports competition. As such, virtually everything in it is worked (part of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barnstorming
Barnstorming was a form of entertainment in which stunt pilots performed tricks individually or in groups that were called flying circuses. Devised to "impress people with the skill of pilots and the sturdiness of planes," it became popular in the United States during the Roaring Twenties. Barnstormers were pilots who flew throughout the country to sell airplane rides and perform stunts. Charles Lindbergh first began flying as a barnstormer. Barnstorming was the first major form of civil aviation in the history of manned flight. History Background The Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss had early flying exhibition teams, with solo flyers like Lincoln Beachey and Didier Masson also popular before World War I, but barnstorming did not become a formal phenomenon until the 1920s. The first barnstormer, taught to fly by Curtiss in 1909, was one Charles Foster Willard, who is also credited as the first to be shot down in an airplane when an annoyed farmer fired a squirrel g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Impresario
An impresario (from Italian ''impresa'', 'an enterprise or undertaking') is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, Play (theatre), plays, or operas, performing a role in stage arts that is similar to that of a film producer, film or Television show#Production, television producer. History The term originated in the social and economic world of Italian opera, in which from the mid-18th century to the 1830s, the impresario was the key figure in the organization of a lyric season. The owners of the theatre, usually amateurs from the nobility, charged the impresario with hiring a composer (until the 1850s operas were expected to be new) and the orchestra, singers, costumes and sets, all while assuming considerable financial risk. In 1786 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart satirized the stress and emotional mayhem in a single-act farce ''Der Schauspieldirektor'' (''The Impresario''). Antonio Vivaldi was unusual in acting as both impresario and composer; in 1714 he managed seasons at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carny
Carny, also spelled carnie, is an informal term used in North America for a traveling carnival employee, and the language they use, particularly when the employee operates a game ("joint"), food stand ("grab", "popper", or "floss wagon"), or ride ("ride jock") at a carnival. The term "showie" is used synonymously in Australia, while "showman" is used in the United Kingdom. Etymology ''Carny'' is thought to have become popularized around 1931 in North America, when it was first colloquially used to describe one who works at a carnival. The word ''carnival'', originally meaning a "time of merrymaking before Lent" and referring to a time denoted by lawlessness (often ritualised under a lord of misrule figure and intended to show the consequences of social chaos), came into use around 1549. Carny language The carny vocabulary is traditionally part of carnival cant, a secret language. It is an ever-changing form of communication, in large part designed to be impossible to understa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of America, Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by U.S. state, states that had Secession in the United States, seceded from the Union. The Origins of the American Civil War, central conflict leading to war was a dispute over whether Slavery in the United States, slavery should be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prohibited from doing so, which many believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War, Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven Southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Triple H
Paul Michael Levesque (; born July 27, 1969), also known by the ring name Triple H, is an American business executive and former professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE, where he serves as its chief content officer. Levesque began his wrestling career in 1992 under the ring name Terra Ryzing, and gained his first mainstream exposure in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 1994, becoming known as Jean-Paul Levesque. In 1995, he signed with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) and became known as Hunter Hearst Helmsley, which was later shortened to Triple H. In WWF, he gained fame during the Attitude Era as a member of The Kliq and of . He is a world champion in WWE, having won the WWE Championship, WWF/WWE Championship nine times and the World Heavyweight Championship (WWE, 2002–2013), World Heavyweight Championship five times. He is also a WWE Intercontinental Championship, Intercontinental Champion, World Tag Team Championship (WWE), WWE Tag Team Champion (w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dwayne Johnson
Dwayne Douglas Johnson (born May 2, 1972), also known by his ring name The Rock, is an American actor and professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE, where he performs on a part-time basis. Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, Johnson was integral to the development and success of the WWE, World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) during the Attitude Era. He wrestled for the WWF full-time for eight years before pursuing an acting career. Dwayne Johnson filmography, His films have grossed over worldwide, making him one of the world's List of highest grossing actors, highest-grossing and List of highest-paid film actors, highest-paid actors. He is a co-owner of the United Football League (2024), United Football League, a member of the board of directors of TKO Group Holdings—the parent company of Ultimate Fighting Championship, UFC and WWE—and co-founder of Seven Bucks Productions. After accepting an athletic scholarship to play American ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
