History of Wrestling

The history of wrestling can easily be traced back to its roots in the Mediterranean. The Ancient Greeks and Romans are credited with developing a number of different styles of wrestling that are still in use today. The sport is easily one of the most primitive sports that can be easily dated back to some five thousands years ago. Ancient Greeks formed the sport out of necessity as it was a means of training and developing soldiers into warriors. They used it in hand to hand combat which also doubled as a means of cardiovascular exercise. Ancient drawings and hieroglyphs mark the walls of some of the great Greek Palaces and stadiums with pictures of ancient wrestlers.

Wrestling history became a means of culture and a right of passage for the early Greeks. Students used to study wrestling as a class during school. It was a respected form of physical activity that took the utmost strength and grace but when used with aggression is a deadly form of combat. In the earliest of Olympic Festivals wrestling took place around 704 B.C. It was common to travel to villages throughout the country and see carnivals and festivals featuring wrestling in some form as entertainment.

As the Roman Empire rose to power and defeated the Greeks the form of wrestling that the Greeks had created began to change. The Greeks felt that the Romans weren’t as adept at wrestling and took the grace and skillfulness out of the sport and the Greeks were worried about maintaining the true history of wrestling. The new conversion of the two empires hence formed Greco-Roman wrestling.

As time passed the sport made its way west and suddenly became popular in the US. It made the same circulation that it made throughout Europe as it traveled from festivals and circuses as a spectator sport. The sport in these days allowed competitors of any size or shape to match up against any opponent. As you can imagine there was some drastic mismatches and severe injuries. Not to mention that gambling on the matches brought out the worst in the athletes as a number of fixed contests were uncovered.

It wasn’t until the formation of the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles or FILA that the sport began to standardize and formulate rules and the sport was first featured in the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis in the form of freestyle.

Wrestling began to become mainstream throughout the states in the 1900’s and found its way onto school campuses. High school wrestling and collegiate programs began to spring up everywhere and are standard throughout the US today.

Professional wrestling can basically be categorized today into two main forms international or non folk style and folk style wrestling. International consists mainly of Greco-roman, freestyle and grappling while folk style literally means the wrestling recognized in the area of origin. Examples of folk style are jiu jitsui of Brazil and sumo of Japan not to mention dozens of other less notable styles.

Wrestling has come a long way from its early roots but has kept in tact a number of the same techniques and strategies that made it popular five thousand years ago. The sport has seen a recent explosion in the MMA or mixed martial arts field which features a combination of a number of wrestling fields. The sport is growing rapidly and is sure to be a favorite of many more generations. So goes the history of wrestling.