1.
Professional wrestling
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Professional wrestling is a dramatized athletic performance that portrays a combat sport. Various forms of weaponry are sometimes used, the content – including match outcomes – is scripted and choreographed, and the combative actions and reactions are performed to appear violent without injuring the wrestlers. Before the 1980s, these facts were considered trade secrets, in the mid-90s, the presentation of scripted events as legitimate is known as kayfabe. Although the combative content is staged and communicated between the wrestlers, there are physical hazards involved - including permanent injury and death. While it has declined in Europe, in North America it has experienced several different periods of prominent cultural popularity during its century. The advent of television gave professional wrestling a new outlet, unlike in Europe, show wrestling has become especially prominent in Japan and in North America. In Brazil, there was a popular wrestling television program from the 1960s to the early 1980s called Telecatch. High-profile figures in the sport have become celebrities or cultural icons in their native or adopted home countries, although professional wrestling started out as petty acts in sideshows, traveling circuses and carnivals, today it is a billion-dollar industry. Revenue is drawn from live event ticket sales, network television broadcasts, pay-per-view broadcasts, personal appearances by performers, branded merchandise, pro wrestling was also instrumental in making pay-per-view a viable method of content delivery. Annual shows such as WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Royal Rumble, and formerly Bash at the Beach, Halloween Havoc, home video sales dominate the Billboard charts Recreational Sports DVD sales, with wrestling holding anywhere from 3 to 9 of the top 10 spots every week. Due to its persistent cultural presence and to its novelty within the performing arts, there have also been many fictional depictions of wrestling, the 2008 film The Wrestler received several Oscar nominations and began a career revival for star Mickey Rourke. Because actual events are often co-opted by writers for incorporation into storylines for the performers, special care must be taken when talking about people who perform under their own name. The actions of the character should be considered fictional events, wholly separate from the life of the performer and this is similar to other entertainers who perform with a persona that shares their own name. Some wrestlers will incorporate elements of their real-life personalities into their characters, even if they and those who participated felt that it was necessary that spectators should be kept in a constant and complete illusion of a real competition to keep audience interest. For decades, up until the mid-1980s, wrestlers lived their lives as though they were their characters. Wrestlers, bookers and promoters all rigorously enforced the illusion and very few were allowed into the society of professional wrestling to maintain suspension of disbelief. The practice of keeping the illusion, and the methods used to do so, came to be known as kayfabe within wrestling circles. An entire lexicon of slang jargon and euphemism developed to allow performers to communicate without outsiders knowledge of what was being said, occasionally a performer will deviate from the intended sequence of events
2.
Martial arts
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Although the term martial art has become associated with the fighting arts of eastern Asia, it originally referred to the combat systems of Europe as early as the 1550s. The term is derived from Latin, and means arts of Mars, Martial arts may be categorized along a variety of criteria, including, Traditional or historical arts vs. contemporary styles of folk wrestling and modern hybrid martial arts. Such traditions include eskrima, silat, kalaripayat, kobudo, and historical European martial arts, Many Chinese martial arts also feature weapons as part of their curriculum. Similarly, modern Western martial arts and sports include fencing, stick-fighting systems like canne de combat or singlestick. Combat-oriented Health-oriented Many martial arts, especially those from Asia, also teach side disciplines which pertain to medicinal practices and this is particularly prevalent in traditional Asian martial arts which may teach bone-setting, herbalism, and other aspects of traditional medicine. Spirituality-oriented Martial arts can also be linked with religion and spirituality, numerous systems are reputed to have been founded, disseminated, or practiced by monks or nuns. Throughout Asia, meditation may be incorporated as part of training, in those countries influenced by Hindu-Buddhist philosophy, the art itself may be used as an aid to attaining enlightenment. Japanese styles, when concerning non-physical qualities of the combat, are strongly influenced by Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. Concepts like empty mind and beginners mind are recurrent, aikido, for instance, can have a strong philosophical belief of the flow of energy and peace fostering, as idealised by its founder Morihei Ueshiba. Traditional Korean martial arts place emphasis on the development of the spiritual and philosophical development. A common theme in most Korean styles, such as taekkyeon and taekwondo, is the value of peace in a practitioner. The Koreans believe that the use of force is only justified through defense. Many such martial arts incorporate music, especially strong percussive rhythms, the oldest works of art depicting scenes of battle are cave paintings from Spain dated between 10,000 and 6,000 BCE that show organized groups fighting with bows and arrows. Chinese martial arts originated during the Xia Dynasty more than 4000 years ago and it is said the Yellow Emperor Huangdi introduced the earliest fighting systems to China. The Yellow Emperor is described as a general who, before becoming Chinas leader, wrote lengthy treatises on medicine, astrology. One of his opponents was Chi You who was credited as the creator of jiao di. The foundation of modern Asian martial arts is likely a blend of early Chinese, during the Warring States period of Chinese history extensive development in martial philosophy and strategy emerged, as described by Sun Tzu in The Art of War. Legendary accounts link the origin of Shaolinquan to the spread of Buddhism from India during the early 5th century AD, with the figure of Bodhidharma, to China
3.
Boxing
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Boxing is a combat sport in which two people wearing protective gloves throw punches at each other for a predetermined set of time in a boxing ring. Amateur boxing is both an Olympic and Commonwealth Games sport and is a fixture in most international games—it also has its own World Championships. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of one- to three-minute intervals called rounds, in the event that both fighters gain equal scores from the judges, the fight is considered a draw. In Olympic boxing, due to the fact that a winner must be declared, in the case of a draw - the judges use technical criteria to choose the most deserving winner of the bout. While people have fought in combat since before the dawn of history. The earliest evidence for fist fighting with any kind of gloves can be found on Minoan Crete, in Ancient Greece boxing was a well developed sport and enjoyed consistent popularity. In Olympic terms, it was first introduced in the 23rd Olympiad,688 B. C, the boxers would wind leather thongs around their hands in order to protect them. There were no rounds and boxers fought until one of them acknowledged defeat or could not continue, weight categories were not used, which meant heavyweights had a tendency to dominate. It was the head of the opponent which was primarily targeted, Boxing was a popular spectator sport in Ancient Rome. In order for the fighters to protect themselves against their opponents they wrapped leather thongs around their fists, eventually harder leather was used and the thong soon became a weapon. The Romans even introduced metal studs to the thongs to make the cestus which then led to a more sinister weapon called the myrmex, Fighting events were held at Roman Amphitheatres. The Roman form of boxing was often a fight until death to please the spectators who gathered at such events, however, especially in later times, purchased slaves and trained combat performers were valuable commodities, and their lives were not given up without due consideration. Often slaves were used against one another in a circle marked on the floor and this is where the term ring came from. In AD393, during the Roman gladiator period, boxing was abolished due to excessive brutality and it was not until the late 17th century that boxing re-surfaced in London. Records of Classical boxing activity disappeared after the fall of the Western Roman Empire when the wearing of weapons became common once again, however, there are detailed records of various fist-fighting sports that were maintained in different cities and provinces of Italy between the 12th and 17th centuries. There was also a sport in ancient Rus called Kulachniy Boy or Fist Fighting, as the wearing of swords became less common, there was renewed interest in fencing with the fists. The sport would later resurface in England during the early 16th century in the form of bare-knuckle boxing sometimes referred to as prizefighting. The first documented account of a fight in England appeared in 1681 in the London Protestant Mercury
4.
Kayfabe
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Kayfabe has also evolved to become a code word of sorts for maintaining this reality within the direct or indirect presence of the general public. In relative terms, a wrestler breaking kayfabe during a show would be likened to breaking character by an actor on-camera, in 1989, World Wrestling Federation owner Vince McMahon testified before the New Jersey state senate that wrestling was staged. The characters assumed by wrestlers can be distinguished into two alignments, faces and heels, faces usually win their matches on the basis of their technical skills and are sometimes portrayed as underdogs to enhance the story. Heels are villainous or antagonistic characters, whose personalities are crafted to elicit a response from the audience. They often embrace traditionally negative traits such as narcissism, egomania, unprompted rage, sadism, a wrestler may change from face to heel in an event known as a turn, or gradually transition from one to the other over the course of a long storyline. Matches are usually organized between a heel and a face, but the distinction between the two types may be blurred as a characters storyline reaches a peak or becomes more complicated. Indeed, in recent years, several wrestlers became characters that were neither faces nor heels, many storylines make use of kayfabe romantic relationships between two performers. Very often, both participants have other real-life relationships, and the relationship between the two is simply a storyline. However, more than once, kayfabe romantic relationships have resulted either from a real-life relationship, tag teams of wrestlers, who may or may not look alike, are often presented as relatives, though they are not actually related. Examples include The Brothers of Destruction, The Holly Cousins and The Dudley Brothers, brother tag teams were commonly utilized in years past as a means to develop young talent, by pairing them with a veteran wrestler and giving the younger wrestler a rub by virtue of the association. Sometimes wrestlers will sell a kayfabe injury by not appearing at the following show, other times, a real injury is sometimes used later on as a storyline. One way is for the injured to come back and blame someone else for injuring them, even when the feud was not initially planned out at all, to give a sort of closure to the injury time out. These returns are often given a date in order to increase viewership and ticket sales. Occasionally, though, a return will not even be advertised. Through kayfabe, wrestlers often quit, get fired, or lose challenges with their job at stake only to return at a future time. These types of matches are used when a wrestlers contract is up or to give them some time off to recover from a legitimate injury. There have been examples of breaking kayfabe throughout wrestling history. It is rare for kayfabe to be dispensed with totally and the events acknowledged as scripted, often the break may be implied or through an allusion and standards tend to vary as to what is a break
5.
Internet
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The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite to link devices worldwide. The origins of the Internet date back to research commissioned by the United States federal government in the 1960s to build robust, the primary precursor network, the ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1980s. Although the Internet was widely used by academia since the 1980s, Internet use grew rapidly in the West from the mid-1990s and from the late 1990s in the developing world. In the two decades since then, Internet use has grown 100-times, measured for the period of one year, newspaper, book, and other print publishing are adapting to website technology, or are reshaped into blogging, web feeds and online news aggregators. The entertainment industry was initially the fastest growing segment on the Internet, the Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries, the Internet has no centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage, each constituent network sets its own policies. The term Internet, when used to refer to the global system of interconnected Internet Protocol networks, is a proper noun. In common use and the media, it is not capitalized. Some guides specify that the word should be capitalized when used as a noun, the Internet is also often referred to as the Net, as a short form of network. Historically, as early as 1849, the word internetted was used uncapitalized as an adjective, the designers of early computer networks used internet both as a noun and as a verb in shorthand form of internetwork or internetworking, meaning interconnecting computer networks. The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used interchangeably in everyday speech, however, the World Wide Web or the Web is only one of a large number of Internet services. The Web is a collection of interconnected documents and other web resources, linked by hyperlinks, the term Interweb is a portmanteau of Internet and World Wide Web typically used sarcastically to parody a technically unsavvy user. The ARPANET project led to the development of protocols for internetworking, the third site was the Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, followed by the University of Utah Graphics Department. In an early sign of growth, fifteen sites were connected to the young ARPANET by the end of 1971. These early years were documented in the 1972 film Computer Networks, early international collaborations on the ARPANET were rare. European developers were concerned with developing the X.25 networks, in December 1974, RFC675, by Vinton Cerf, Yogen Dalal, and Carl Sunshine, used the term internet as a shorthand for internetworking and later RFCs repeated this use. Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation funded the Computer Science Network, in 1982, the Internet Protocol Suite was standardized, which permitted worldwide proliferation of interconnected networks.5 Mbit/s and 45 Mbit/s. Commercial Internet service providers emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990
6.
Shawn Michaels
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Michael Shawn Hickenbottom, better known by his ring name Shawn Michaels, is an American actor, professional wrestling personality, television presenter and retired professional wrestler. He is currently signed to WWE, as an ambassador and trainer, Michaels wrestled consistently for WWE, formerly the World Wrestling Federation, from 1988 until his first retirement in 1998. He held non-wrestling roles from 1998 to 2000 and resumed wrestling in 2002 until retiring ceremoniously in 2010, in the WWF/E, Michaels headlined major pay-per-view events between 1989 and 2010, closing the companys flagship annual event, WrestleMania, five times. He was the co-founder and original leader of the successful stable and he also wrestled in the American Wrestling Association, where he founded The Midnight Rockers with Marty Jannetty in 1985. After winning the AWA Tag Team Championship twice, the continued to the WWF as The Rockers. Within the year, Michaels would twice challenge for the WWF Championship and win his first WWF Intercontinental Championship, heralding his arrival as one of the industrys premier singles stars. He would go on to be regarded as its finest performer in the 1990s and 2000s. Michaels was voted the greatest professional wrestler of all time in a 2011 poll of the WWE roster, Michaels is a four-time world champion, having held the WWF Championship three times and WWEs World Heavyweight Championship once. He is also a two-time Royal Rumble winner, the first WWF Grand Slam Champion, Hickenbottom was born on July 22,1965, in Chandler, Arizona. As a child, Hickenbottom disliked the name Michael, so his family, ever since, he has been referred to as Shawn. Additionally, Hickenbottom moved around frequently since his father was in the military and he knew he wanted to become a professional wrestler at the age of twelve and said he performed a wrestling routine in his high schools talent show, complete with fake blood. Hickenbottom was already an athlete, his career began at the age of six when he started playing football and he was a stand-out linebacker at Randolph High School on Randolph Air Force Base and eventually became captain of the football team. After graduating, Hickenbottom attended Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas and he then began pursuing a career in professional wrestling. Hickenbottom began to train under Mexican professional wrestler Jose Lothario, during his training, Hickenbottom adopted the ring name, Shawn Michaels. Michaels performance in his debut match impressed many veterans, including Terry Taylor, in January 1985, he debuted for World Class Championship Wrestling, the NWA territory in Dallas, Texas. In April 1985, Michaels went to work for another NWA territory in Kansas City called Central States Wrestling, there, he and tag team partner Marty Jannetty defeated The Batten Twins for the NWA Central States Tag Team Championship, later losing it back to the Battens. After leaving Kansas City, he returned to Texas to wrestle for Texas All-Star Wrestling, during his time with TASW, Michaels replaced Nick Kiniski in the American Breed tag team, teaming with Paul Diamond. Michaels and Diamond were awarded the TASW Tag Team Championship by Chavo Guerrero Sr, the team was later renamed American Force
7.
"Rowdy" Roddy Piper
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Roderick George Toombs, better known by his ring name Rowdy Roddy Piper, was a Canadian professional wrestler and actor. In professional wrestling, Piper was best known to audiences for his work with the World Wrestling Federation. Although he was Canadian, because of his Scottish heritage he was billed as coming from Glasgow and was known for his signature kilt and he earned the nicknames Rowdy and Hot Rod by displaying his trademark Scottish rage, spontaneity, and quick wit. Piper was described by industry veteran Ric Flair as the most gifted entertainer in the history of professional wrestling, One of the most recognizable pro wrestling stars worldwide, Piper headlined numerous pay-per-view cards, including the WWF and WCWs respective premier annual events, WrestleMania and Starrcade. Never a world champion, he nevertheless accumulated 34 championships in various promotions during a 42-year ring career and he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005. Toombs was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on April 17,1954 and his father, Stanley Baird Toombs, was an officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police while they lived in The Pas, Manitoba. After being expelled from junior high for having a switchblade in school and falling out with his father, Piper left home and he picked up odd jobs at local gyms, running errands for several professional wrestlers. As a young man, he became proficient in playing the bagpipes and his childhood best friend was ex-NHL player and Stanley Cup winner Cam Connor. Piper was a boxer and a wrestler before he started to become a professional wrestler. He won the Golden Gloves boxing championship and he was awarded a Black Belt in Judo from Gene LeBell, American Judo champion, instructor, stuntman, and professional wrestler. Roddy started wrestling under the care of promoter Al Tomko in Canada, his first match involving midget wrestlers in front of an audience in Churchill. He soon began earning money wrestling while still going to school and his first match in a pro and famous organization was with the legendary Larry Hennig in the American Wrestling Association. Friends of his played the bag-pipes during his entrance while he was handing out dandelions and then the ring-announcer had to announce something, so, after seeing the pipe band he then announced Here comes Roddy the piper, thus giving birth to Roddy Piper and the name stuck. From 1973 to 1975, Piper was a jobber in the American Wrestling Association, NWA Central States territory surrounding Kansas City and he also worked in Texas for Paul Boeschs NWA Houston Wrestling promotion, and in Dallas for Fritz Von Erichs Big Time Rasslin. By late 1975 and early 1976, Piper was a top villain for Mike, in 1977–78, he also started to work for Roy Shires NWA San Francisco Wrestling in addition to remaining with the Los Angeles office, where Piper developed his Rowdy character. Piper also managed a stable of wrestlers in California, in the Los Angeles area, Piper feuded with Chavo Guerrero Sr. and his father Gory Guerrero. Piper and Chavo Guerrero faced each other in matches for the Jules Strongbow Memorial Scientific Trophy. Piper also defeated Chavo for the Americas Heavyweight Title, during the feud, Piper lost a hair match and had his head shaved
8.
Michael Cole (wrestling)
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Michael Sean Coulthard better known by his stage name Michael Cole, is an American professional wrestling commentator, show host, voice actor and former journalist. He is signed to WWE where he serves as the commentator on Raw and Raw pay-per-view events. Coulthard began his career in the media as a journalist, working for CBS Radio and his first high-profile assignment was to cover the failed 1988 US presidential campaign of Democratic Party nominee Michael Dukakis. In 1992, he reported on the campaign of Bill Clinton. Coulthard covered the 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, the following year, he spent nine months covering the Yugoslavian civil war. In 1995, he was selected to cover the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. He returned to the campaign trail in 1996 to cover the campaigns of Steve Forbes. Coulthard came to the World Wrestling Federation in mid-1997 after being recommended to company officials by Todd Pettengill and he provided voice-overs for promotional videos and later became the host of LiveWire show alongside Jim Cornette. Cole first appeared on screen at the June 30,1997 episode of Raw is War, interviewing the Legion of Doom, in late 1997, Cole became one of the three announcers for the first hour of Monday Night Raw, alongside Jim Ross and Kevin Kelly. Eventually Cole was permanently replaced by Jerry Lawler later in the year, in 1999, Cole became the regular play-by-play announcer for Monday Night Raw, subbing for Jim Ross when Ross was devastated by Bells palsy. Television program debuted later that year, Cole was chosen to be the shows play-by-play announcer, Cole also had a stint doing commentary on SmackDown. s former sister show WWE Velocity. As an announcer, Cole was rarely involved in storylines, however, he has had roles in storylines involving Heidenreich, Stephanie McMahon, Vito. His 2004 angle with Heidenreich became infamous due to a scene where Heidenreich Heidenraped him in the arena restroom. In a 2008 interview, Heidenreich explained that the Cole rape angle was McMahons idea, and he also appeared in the Taxi Driver parody trailer in promotion of WrestleMania 21. On April 26,2006, WWE announced that Cole would become the Managing Editor of WWE. com, shortly after, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon told shareholders in a meeting held on September 14 that he thought that the website sucks. In response, Cole replied on WWE. Cole went on to say, So in summary, the web site does suck, compared to where we are going to take it, wish I could say the same for the boss. On the June 9 episode of SmackDown, Coles broadcast partner Tazz left from SmackDown to ECW on SciFi, leaving Cole at that moment without a broadcast partner. At ECW One Night Stand, John Bradshaw Layfield announced he would replace Tazz as color commentator and this proved true five days later when he appeared on that weeks episode of SmackDown. as Coles new broadcast partner
9.
Dwayne Johnson
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Dwayne Douglas Johnson, also known by his ring name The Rock, is an American actor, producer, singer, and professional wrestler. He holds American and Canadian citizenships and he later played for the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League and was cut two months into the 1995 season. This led him to become a professional wrestler like his grandfather, Peter Maivia and he returned to wrestling part-time for WWE from 2011 to 2013 and continues to make sporadic non-wrestling appearances for the company. Johnson has 17 championship reigns in WWE, including 10 as a champion, winning the WWF/WWE Championship eight times. He won the WWF Intercontinental Championship twice and the WWF Tag Team Championship five times, Johnson is the sixth Triple Crown Champion in WWE history and won the 2000 Royal Rumble. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, co-written with Joe Layden, was published in 2000. It debuted at No.1 on The New York Times Best Seller list, spent 20 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, Johnsons first leading film role was in The Scorpion King in 2002. For this role, he was paid US $5.5 million and he has since appeared in various films, and become known for his ability to reinvigorate film franchises. Perhaps his greatest success in his career can be sourced to his role as Luke Hobbs in The Fast. Forbes listed Johnson No.25 in the Top 100 Most Powerful Celebrities in 2013 and he is the worlds highest-paid actor of 2016. Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2016, in 2015, Muscle & Fitness named Johnson their Man of the Century. Johnson was born in Hayward, California, the son of Ata Johnson and professional wrestler Wayde Douglas Bowles and his maternal grandfather, High Chief Peter Maivia, was also a wrestler. His maternal grandmother, Lia Maivia, was one of few female promoters, taking over Polynesian Pacific Pro Wrestling after her husbands death in 1982. His cousin, Savelina Fanene, is also a wrestler working for WWE. His father is a Black Nova Scotian, and his mother is of Samoan heritage and his father was part of the first black tag team to win the World Tag Team Championship in the World Wrestling Federation. Through his mother, he is considered a relative of the Anoai wrestling family. Johnson briefly lived in the suburb of Grey Lynn in Auckland and he attended Richmond Road Primary School, before returning to the United States with his parents. Johnson spent 10th grade at President William McKinley High School in Honolulu, as he entered 11th grade, his fathers job required his relocation to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
