History of Wrestling

The history of wrestling can easily be traced back tocirculation that it made throughout Europe as it traveled
its roots in the Mediterranean. The Ancient Greeks andfrom festivals and circuses as a spectator sport. The
Romans are credited with developing a number ofsport in these days allowed competitors of any size or
different styles of wrestling that are still in use today.shape to match up against any opponent. As you can
The sport is easily one of the most primitive sportsimagine there was some drastic mismatches and
that can be easily dated back to some five thousandssevere injuries. Not to mention that gambling on the
years ago. Ancient Greeks formed the sport out ofmatches brought out the worst in the athletes as a
necessity as it was a means of training and developingnumber of fixed contests were uncovered.
soldiers into warriors. They used it in hand to handIt wasn’t until the formation of the International
combat which also doubled as a means ofFederation of Associated Wrestling Styles or FILA that
cardiovascular exercise. Ancient drawings andthe sport began to standardize and formulate rules
hieroglyphs mark the walls of some of the greatand the sport was first featured in the 1904 Olympics
Greek Palaces and stadiums with pictures of ancientin St. Louis in the form of freestyle.
wrestlers.Wrestling began to become mainstream throughout
Wrestling history became a means of culture and athe states in the 1900’s and found its way onto
right of passage for the early Greeks. Students usedschool campuses. High school wrestling and collegiate
to study wrestling as a class during school. It was aprograms began to spring up everywhere and are
respected form of physical activity that took thestandard throughout the US today.
utmost strength and grace but when used withProfessional wrestling can basically be categorized
aggression is a deadly form of combat. In the earliesttoday into two main forms international or non folk
of Olympic Festivals wrestling took place around 704style and folk style wrestling. International consists
B.C. It was common to travel to villages throughout themainly of Greco-roman, freestyle and grappling while
country and see carnivals and festivals featuringfolk style literally means the wrestling recognized in the
wrestling in some form as entertainment.area of origin. Examples of folk style are jiu jitsui of
As the Roman Empire rose to power and defeatedBrazil and sumo of Japan not to mention dozens of
the Greeks the form of wrestling that the Greeks hadother less notable styles.
created began to change. The Greeks felt that theWrestling has come a long way from its early roots
Romans weren’t as adept at wrestling and tookbut has kept in tact a number of the same techniques
the grace and skillfulness out of the sport and theand strategies that made it popular five thousand
Greeks were worried about maintaining the trueyears ago. The sport has seen a recent explosion in
history of wrestling. The new conversion of the twothe MMA or mixed martial arts field which features a
empires hence formed Greco-Roman wrestling.combination of a number of wrestling fields. The sport
As time passed the sport made its way west andis growing rapidly and is sure to be a favorite of many
suddenly became popular in the US. It made the samemore generations. So goes the history of wrestling.