Editing Professional wrestling (section)

=== Transition towards pure entertainment ===
By the 1930s, with the exception of the occasional double-cross or business dispute,<ref>Thesz (2011). ''Hooker'': "Most of the contests I saw during my career took place in the gym during workouts, and the ones staged in front of paying customers were done to settle business disputes among rival wrestling groups."</ref> shoot matches were essentially nonexistent. In April 1930, the New York State Athletic Commission decreed that all professional wrestling matches held in the state had to be advertised as exhibitions unless certified as contests by the commission. This requirement did not apply to amateur wrestling, which the commission had no authority over.<ref>{{cite news |author= |date=April 9, 1930 |title=Wrestling Placed Under New Status; Commission Rules Clubs Must List Matches as Shows or Exhibitions |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1930/04/09/archives/wrestling-placed-under-new-status-commission-rules-clubs-must-list.html |access-date=May 10, 2023 |archive-date=May 10, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230510185245/https://www.nytimes.com/1930/04/09/archives/wrestling-placed-under-new-status-commission-rules-clubs-must-list.html |url-status=live }}: "Professional wrestling under the jurisdiction of the State Athletic Commission yesterday passed into the status of theatrical classification, except in isolated cases. The commission in a bulletin notified clubs that future wrestling bouts must not be advertised as matches but as shows or exhibitions, except in connection with events which have the specific approval of the commission as certified matches. The ruling was passed at a meeting attended by Commissioners William Muldoon and John J. Phelan."</ref> The Commission did, on very rare occasions, hand out such authorizations, such as for a championship match between [[Jim Londos]] and [[Jim Browning (wrestler)|Jim Browning]] in June 1934.<ref>Hornbaker (2015). ''Capitol Revolution''</ref>

Wrestling fans widely suspected that professional wrestling was fake, but generally did not care as long as it entertained.

{{blockquote|Not the least interesting of all the minor phenomena produced by the current fashion of wrestling is the universal discussion as to the honesty of the matches. And certainly the most interesting phrase of this discussion is the unanimous agreement: "Who cares if they're fixed or not—the show is good."|Morris Markey. ''The New Yorker''. April 18, 1931<ref>quoted in {{cite magazine |author= |title=Is Wrestling Fixed? |url=https://archive.org/details/per_atlanta-constitution_1931-04-27_63_316/page/n5/mode/2up?q=wrestling+fixed |magazine=The Atlanta Constitution |page=6 | date=27 April 1931}}</ref>}}

In 1933, wrestling promoter [[Jack Pfefer]] divulged the inner workings of the industry with ''[[New York Daily Mirror]]'', maintaining no pretense that wrestling was real and sharing planned results just before the matches took place. While fans were neither surprised nor alienated, traditionalists like [[Jack Curley]] were furious, and most promoters tried to maintain the facade of ''kayfabe'' as best they could.<ref>[[#refShoemaker2013|Shoemaker (2013). ''The Squared Circle'', p. 27]]: "Traditionalists like Curley were peeved, insistent on protecting the realism of the sport above all else. And through the next fifty-five years or so—more or less until Vince McMahon began admitting to the WWF's illegitimacy to get around state athletic commission fees in the late '80s—they were able to keep up the facade to some extent because the marks were always willing to accept the violence at face value, and the people who were clued in were happy to play along to further their enjoyment."</ref>

Newspapers tended to eschew coverage of professional wrestling, as journalists refused to support its pretense to being a true sport.<ref>[[#refShoemaker2013|Shoemaker (2013). ''The Squared Circle'']]: "In 1931, Grantland Rice recounted how when he wrote a snippet about wrestling for his syndicated column ''fifteen years prior'', a number of his editors around the country wrote back telling him that they had no interest in printing anything about such a nonsport."</ref> In 1935, ''[[Toronto Star]]'' sports editor [[Lou Marsh]] was among the first to use the term "sportive entertainment" to describe professional wrestling.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Reporter |first=Kerry Gillespie Sports reporter, Doug Smith Sports |date=2017-06-29 |title=Capturing a country through sport: The voices |url=https://www.thestar.com/sports/capturing-a-country-through-sport-the-voices/article_56876e55-bccb-55ed-be71-d76954a43660.html |access-date=2024-12-17 |website=Toronto Star |language=en}}</ref> Eventually promoters resorted to publishing their own magazines in order to get press coverage and communicate with fans.<ref>[[#refBeekman2006|Beekman (2006). ''Ringside'']], p. 97</ref> The first professional wrestling magazine, ''Wrestling As You Like It'', printed its first issue in 1946. These magazines were faithful to ''kayfabe'' and helped sustain the pretense of professional wrestling as a sport.

By the late 1950s, professional wrestling had largely completed its shift from sport to theater.<ref name=":6"/> In 1989,<ref>[[Professional wrestling#refShoemaker2013|Shoemaker (2013). ''The Squared Circle'', p. 27]]: "Traditionalists like Curley were peeved, insistent on protecting the realism of the sport above all else. And through the next fifty-five years or so—more or less until Vince McMahon began admitting to the WWF's illegitimacy to get around state athletic commission fees in the late '80s—they were able to keep up the facade to some extent because the marks were always willing to accept the violence at face value, and the people who were clued in were happy to play along to further their enjoyment."</ref> [[Vince McMahon]]—who sought to exempt his promotion, the [[World Wrestling Federation]], from sports licensing fees—testified before the [[New Jersey State Athletic Control Board]] that professional wrestling is not a real sport because its matches have predetermined outcomes.<ref>[[Professional wrestling#refBeekman2006|Beekman (2006). ''Ringside'']], p. 131</ref> New Jersey subsequently deregulated professional wrestling,<ref>[https://casetext.com/statute/new-jersey-statutes/title-5-amusements-public-exhibitions-and-meetings/chapter-52a/section-52a-1-definitions New Jersey Statutes 5:2A-1] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220806093429/https://casetext.com/statute/new-jersey-statutes/title-5-amusements-public-exhibitions-and-meetings/chapter-52a/section-52a-1-definitions|date=2022-08-06}}: "Professional wrestling" means an activity in which participants struggle hand-in-hand primarily for the purpose of providing entertainment to spectators rather than conducting a bona fide athletic contest."</ref><ref>{{cite news |author=Peter Kerr |date=10 February 1989 |title=Now It Can Be Told: Those Pro Wrestlers Are Just Having Fun |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/10/nyregion/now-it-can-be-told-those-pro-wrestlers-are-just-having-fun.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210404142748/https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/10/nyregion/now-it-can-be-told-those-pro-wrestlers-are-just-having-fun.html |archive-date=4 April 2021 |access-date=31 July 2022 |work=The New York Times}}</ref> and the WWF rebranded itself as a "[[sports entertainment]]" company.