Ballyhoo!: The Roughhousers, Con Artists, and Wildmen Who Invented Professional Wrestling (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780826222992)

Ballyhoo! The Roughhousers, Con Artists, and Wildmen Who Invented Professional Wrestling is a history of professional wrestling's formative period in the U.S., from roughly 1874 to 1941, and the contested interplay of wrestlers and promoters who built the "sport" as we know it. During this period, the major conventions that would define wrestling to the present day were perfected and codified, as wrestling morphed from a rough sport practiced on farms and at town gatherings to melodramatic mass entertainment that reliably drew large crowds in cities across the nation.

The narrative uses the life and career of Jack Curley--a boxing promoter whose fortune took a turn for the better when he began promoting wrestling matches--as a compass as it charts the development of wrestling. By the late 1910s, Curley's shows were selling out Madison Square Garden monthly. Ballyhoo chronicles his competition with the other promoters, as well as the lives of colorful athletes like "Strangler" Ed Lewis, Frank Gotch, the "Masked Marvel," Jim Londos, "Gorgeous George" Wagner, "Farmer" Martin Burns, and "Dynamite" Gus Sonnenberg.


Author: Jon Langmead
ISBN-10: 0826222994
ISBN-13: 9780826222992
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
Language: English
Published: 01/19/2024
Pages: 316
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.39lbs
Size: 9.22h x 6.29w x 1.01d

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 12/01/2023 pg. 94