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Ringside: A History of Professional Wrestling in America
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.81209
EAN: 9780275984014
ISBN: 027598401X
Label: Praeger Publishers
Manufacturer: Praeger Publishers
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: June 30, 2006
Publisher: Praeger Publishers
Studio: Praeger Publishers
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Editorial Review:
Despite its status as one of the oldest and most enduringly popular sports in history, wrestling has been pushed to the background of the current American sports scene. Most people today would have a hard time even considering wrestling (with some of its modern theatrics) in the same terms as track and field or boxing. But until the 1920s, wrestling stood as a legitimate professional sport in this country, and a widely practiced amateur one as well. Its past respectability may not have endured, but the advent of cable television in the 1980s offered the sport a renewed opportunity to play a determining role in American popular culture. This opportunity was not wasted, and wrestlers now assume places in politics and film at the highest levels. Ringside, the first work to fully examine the history of professional wrestling in this country, provides an illuminating and colorful account of all of the various athletes, entertainers, businessmen, and national outlooks that have determined wrestling's erratic route through American history. This chronological work begins with a brief account of wrestling's global history, and then proceeds to investigate the sport's growth as a specifically American institution. Wrestling has continued to survive in the face of technological developments, scandals, public ridicule, and a lack of centralized control, and today this supremely adaptable entertainment form represents, in sum, an international industry capable of attracting enormous television and pay-per-view audiences, along with massive amounts of advertising and merchandizing revenue. Ringside focuses on the business of wrestling as well as on the performers and their in-ring antics, and offers readers a fully nuanced examination of the development of professional wrestling in America.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Professional Wrestling 101
I knew what I was going to get when I read this book before I even started it.When I saw that the author,Scott Beekman was a college professor (Ohio University)I knew Professor Beekman would be treating professional wrestling in somber tones.After all he has to face his esteemed colleagues in department meetings and annual conferences and he couldn't very well write a book on professional wrestling that was, well you know....fun or funny. (tongue firmly in cheek) I'll give one example of where the ... Read More
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