समाचार

WWE.com

In the early days of professional wrestling, wrestlers toured with travelling carnivals as part of the athletic (or ‘at’) show.

The carnies, impresarios and con artists that ran these shows (this was long before the terms ‘booker’ or ‘promoter’ entered the lexicon of the wrestling biz) figured that people would be more inclined to pay money to see their wrestlers if they had imaginative backstories, costumes and ‘gimmicks’.

So, one guy could be a freak of nature who’d been living in a cave and subsisting on stolen livestock until he was 25, whilst his opponent for the night might be a lion tamer or a reformed pirate. Why not? It’s all showbiz in the end, after all…

When wrestling first appeared on TV in the 1950’s, such outlandish, larger-than-life characters became even more important to the business.

Early TV stars like ‘Killer’ Kowlaski or Dick The Bruiser...