Worlds Deadliest

The late nineteenth and early twentieth century United States was a place of rapid change and progress, as you could easily discover by flipping through a history book. During this time, America had been colonized from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, cities were growing at a rapid pace, and social issues were taking place that would change lives forever. During the last decade of the nineteenth century, new forms of mass entertainment were also coming about. In a stark contrast to this modern world, different forms of entertainment were not readily available at a person’s fingertips upon a thought and a whim. So for stimulation, people had to travel to find spectacles to partake in.

The traveling show became a part of American culture in the 1890s with the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair being the basis for them. Circuses, vaudeville, burlesque, and magic lantern shows all began touring rural America not long after. Among the most popular and enduring of these shows is of course the circus, or the traveling carnival. The circus reached it period of maximum popularity from the late 1900s to the 1930s, where reportedly over 300 were in operation. One of the most celebrated and romanticized side acts of the circus was this Athletic, or “AT” Show.[1]

Catch wrestling, in the United States, gained its most prominent fame during these notorious Athletics shows. It was a popular sport that early on featured predominantly veterans of the Civil War who had wrestling and fighting skills but lacked an appropriate outlet in which to showcase them. They would join these traveling carnivals and go from town to town offering to fight the local tough guys. The rules of the matches often varied from carnival to carnival and even town to town. The goal of the match was relatively simple. They would carry the hometown hero through a number of rounds to create a show worth watching for the paying crowd and defeat him using pins, submissions and takedowns.
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