The Evolution of Matches

[N E O G E O B O Y S]

The other day I was thinking, wrestling as a whole has been around for a very long time, and even though some basic ideas are still working (the face vs heel iteration for example)I'm sure that the style of the matches hadn't been the same from the beggining

So I will love to ask, how has matches evolved from the beggining of wrestling to this day? which kind of maneuvers were more prominent in the 60's? what's the difference between a match from the 70's with the 80's?

[kamero00]

It has to at least go back to the 40's.

The way I understand it is, it WAS real for a while, but matches were taking 4 hours to finish, so they started fixing it and it probably grew from there.

[Joe Neglia]

Goes back way further than that. Late 1800s saw the carnivals and independent guys travel around, bringing out their big brawler and challenge anyone in town, with bets placed on the match. Then they'd have their ringer step in as the local boy challenger. There are reports doubting the sport going back to 1880, and starting around 1915, pro wrestling, which had previously been trailing only baseball as a nationwide sport, numbers dwindled dramatically until around 1920, when the blueprint for the way it is now really went into effect.

[DoubleDare]

Up until the 80s it seemed, they loved doin the criss cross where one opponent ones against the ropes horizontally and the other runs vertically against the ropes until one of them collides.

[Bo Rida]

There's some good stuff on the early days of wrestling in this documentary, the first 15 minutes of so in particular cover the likes of George Hackenschmidt and some footage of crazy (seemingly) unregulated bouts from the 30s.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILQmWal2Dus