wrestling

wrestling, sport practiced in various styles by two competitors, involving forcing an opponent to touch the ground with some part of the body other than his feet; forcing him into a certain position, usually supine (on his back); or holding him in that position for a minimum length of time. Wrestling is conducted in various styles with contestants upright or on the ground (or mat).

The three basic types of wrestling contest are the belt-and-jacket, catch-hold, and loose styles, all of which appear to have originated in antiquity. Belt-and-jacket styles of wrestling are those in which the clothing of the wrestlers provides the principal means of taking a grip on the opponent. In many cases this is no more than a special belt worn by both wrestlers, while in others a special belted jacket and special trousers are worn. Catch-hold styles require the contestants to take a prescribed hold before the contest begins; often this grip must be maintained throughout the struggle. Loose styles of wrestling, which are used in modern international competition, commence with the wrestlers separated and free to seize any grip that they choose except such as are explicitly forbidden (e.g., taking hold of an opponent’s clothing or using a life-threatening grip, such as a stranglehold).

Wrestling can also be classified in terms of what is required to win. These categories can be graded on an ascending scale of violence as follows: break-stance sports are those that require forcing the opponent to relinquish a certain posture or position; toppling requires that the standing opponent be forced to touch the ground with some part of his body other than his feet; touch-fall wrestling requires that the opponent be forced into a certain position, usually supine, for a brief instant; pin-fall wrestling requires that the opponent be held in such a position for a measurable length of time; and submission wrestling requires the opponent to vocally or visually signal defeat by his own choice.

Early history

No sport is older or more widely distributed than wrestling, often in highly local styles that have persisted to the present day.

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Wrestling probably originated in hand-to-hand combat, and in particular as a sportive form of combat substituting the submission of a contestant for his death. Works of art from 3000 bce depict belt wrestling in Babylonia and Egypt, and the Sumerian Gilgamesh epic has a description of such wrestling. Loose wrestling in India dates to before 1500 bce. Chinese documents from 700 bce describe loose wrestling, as do Japanese records from the 1st century bce. The belt wrestling practiced locally in the 20th century by the Swiss, Icelanders, Japanese, and Cossacks differed little from that of the Egyptians in 2500 bce.

Wrestling was probably the most popular sport of the ancient Greeks. Young men belonged to palaestras, or wrestling schools, as the focal point of their social life. Illustrations of wrestling on Greek vases and coins are common throughout all periods of ancient Greece, but all that can be told from it is that the style was loose wrestling and that wrestlers, as did all Greek athletes, competed naked. Wrestling was part of the Olympic Games from 776 bce. There were two wrestling championships in these games: a toppling event for the best two of three falls; and the pankration (Latin: pancratium), which combined wrestling and boxing and ended in the submission of one contestant. Upright wrestling was also a part of the pentathlon event in the Olympic Games, a bout being fought to a clear-cut fall of one of the wrestlers. The most famous ancient Greek wrestler was Milon of Croton, who won the wrestling championship of the Olympic Games six times. Wrestling was less popular among the Romans than it had been with the Greeks, and, with the fall of the Roman Empire, references to wrestling disappeared in Europe until about 800 ce.

Middle Ages

When the Islamic rulers of Persia began hiring Turkic mercenaries about 800 ce, the soldiers brought with them a style of loose wrestling called koresh, in which grips may be taken on the long, tight leather pants worn by the wrestlers and the bout ends with a touch fall of the loser briefly on his back. Gradually the Turks took over the entire Muslim dominion, and their wrestling style spread. Later Mongolian invasions in the 13th century introduced Mongolian wrestling, which received royal patronage, and wrestling became the national sport of modern Iran.

Sumo, a Japanese belt-wrestling style, was a popular spectator sport under imperial patronage (710–1185). Originally a submission spectacle, sumo became highly ritualized as a toppling match with victory coming also from the forcing of an opponent out of a 12-foot (4-metre) circle. By the 17th century sumo wrestling had become a professional sport in Japan. From the samurai martial art jujitsu, judo, the other prominent Japanese wrestling style, was derived in the 19th century and became an international sport in the second half of the 20th century.

Wrestling occurred in several styles throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. The first recorded English match was held in London early in the 13th century. In England and Brittany a form of jacket wrestling commonly called Cornwall and Devon (see Cornish wrestling) survives from at least the 4th or 5th century. Wrestling as a martial skill was taught to the knights of the Holy Roman Empire, and wrestling instruction books appeared in manuscript before the introduction of printing and thereafter in print. Mongolian loose wrestling, introduced to India after the Mughal conquest of 1526, has survived in both India and Pakistan. As the modern era began, the English kings Henry VIII and Charles II and the French king Francis I were notable patrons of wrestling.