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Title details for Ballyhoo! by Jon Langmead - Available

Ballyhoo!

The Roughhousers, Con Artists, and Wildmen Who Invented Professional Wrestling

by Jon Langmead
ebook
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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.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Sports and American Culture

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 29, 2024

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780826274953

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780826274953
      • File size: 9089 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Booklist

      December 1, 2023
      The story of professional wrestling certainly did not begin with WrestleMania or Vince McMahon's WWE. Its history, as seen in Langmead's Ballyhoo!, is as colorful and controversial as its contemporary version. The story centers around promoter Jack Curley, whose vision for the sport played an outsize role in its proliferation during the turbulent time period from the turn of the century through the 1930s and beyond. Wrestling evolved, survived, thrived, and sometimes languished amid the Great Depression and all the legal tanglings of a sport that straddled being organized and anything but. In that early era, the tenets of modern wrestling were cultivated, including the reliance on race-based tropes that would remain prevalent through the next century's dawning. With Ballyhoo!, Langmead has crafted a history of a sport (or is it entertainment?) that feels definitive and engrossing. The book also fulfills the promise of its subtitle, introducing a large cast of wholly unique characters that rounds out this entirely bombastic read.

      COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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