Editing Professional wrestling (section)

=== Cartelization ===
In the 1910s, promotional cartels for professional wrestling emerged in the [[East Coast of the United States|East Coast]], outside its traditional heartland in the [[Midwestern United States|Midwest]]. These promoters sought to make long-term plans with their wrestlers, and to ensure their more charismatic and crowd-pleasing wrestlers received championships.<ref>[[#refBeekman2006|Beekman (2006). ''Ringside'']], p. 54: "As the controlling force in wrestling, promoters could maximize profits by carefully establishing new stars and through selective scheduling of matches."</ref> This also allowed for further suppression of shoot matches, which by this point were largely limited to challenges by independent wrestlers. A challenged wrestler could often claim that the rules of the promotion did not allow for independent challengers. In other cases promotions would respond to challenges with "policemen": powerful wrestlers employed not for their charisma or star power but their ability to defeat (and often seriously injure) outside opponents. As the industry trend continued, there were fewer independent wrestlers to make such challenges in the first place.<ref>[[#refBeekman2006|Beekman (2006). ''Ringside'']], p. 61</ref>

"Double-crosses", where a wrestler agreed to lose a match but then fought to win, remained a problem in the early cartel days. At times a promoter would even award a victorious double-crosser the title of champion to preserve the facade of sport. But promoters punished such wrestlers by blacklisting them, making it quite challenging to find work.<ref>[[#refBeekman2006|Beekman (2006). ''Ringside'']], pp. 59–60</ref> Double-crossers could also be sued for breach of contract, such as [[Dick Shikat]] in 1936. (Notably, witnesses in this trial testified that most of the "big matches" and all of the championship bouts were fixed.)<ref>[[#refFleischer1936|Fleischer (1936). ''From Milo to Londos'', p. 307]]: "Charges which were substantiated, were made in court to the effect that most of the big matches, and all of the championship bouts, were fixed affairs, with the challenger chosen by the promoters and the champion assured of victory."<br />See ''Joe Alvarez v. Richard Shikat and Al Haft, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, No. 1180, April 27, 1936''</ref>