Professional wrestling

:For the Nintendo Entertainment System video game by Nintendo, see Pro Wrestling (video game).

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Nintendo Entertainment System - Video game - Nintendo - Pro Wrestling (video game)

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Professional wrestling is a form of performance art where the participants engage in simulated sporting matches. Originating in the days of travelling carnival shows, professional wrestling's humbler beginnings include strongman feats, hook wrestling, and other acrobatic performances.

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Performance art - Carnival - Hook wrestling - Acrobatic

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For over a century, professional wrestling promoters and performers claimed that the competition was completely real and vehemently defended secrets of the trade (a situation known as kayfabe).

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Any pretense of sporting competition was dropped in the late 1990s, when Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation began to frequently describe its events as "sports entertainment," along with a formal change of moniker to World Wrestling Entertainment (although the name change was in response to a lawsuit from the World Wildlife Fund against the World Wrestling Federation over the rights to the initials "WWF" in the United Kingdom, the increasing use of the term "entertainment" leading up to the suit's resolution seemed to explain McMahon's willingness to change the name).

Related Topics:
1990s - Vince McMahon - World Wrestling Federation - Sports entertainment - World Wrestling Entertainment - World Wildlife Fund - United Kingdom

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