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| | WRESTLING -- JACK PFEFER COLLECTION |
 | | During the 1920s professional wrestling showed a steady increase in popularity; by the early Depression years it was one of the most lucrative forms of sporting entertainment in the country, receiving broad coverage in the nation's dailies (where it was still treated, by and large, as a legitimate competitive sport). |
 | | By the late '30s, professional wrestling was performance rather than sport; in its theatricality it resembled, in kind if not always in degree, the televised rituals of today. |
 | | He also never withdrew from his public stance that professional wrestling was pure show, and for a class of patrons who, whatever their gullibility, now went to matches primarily to be entertained, he sought new ways to entertain them. |
| www.nd.edu /~joycecol/Wrestling/pfefer.html (1617 words) |
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