Читать книгу Ali vs. Inoki. The Forgotten Fight That Inspired Mixed Martial Arts and Launched Sports Entertainment онлайн

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Sandow and Lewis saw the light, and within a few months the wrestling gates grew as members of the establishment, four promoters in the Northeast known as “The Trust,” quickly felt the pinch of hard competition.

Even before being publicly rebuffed by Dempsey, “Strangler” Lewis, the man most Americans accepted as the best heavyweight wrestler at the time, toured the country as the tip of the Gold Dust spear. The best wrestlers, like Lewis, actually knew what they were doing, and sometimes painfully implemented their knowledge against other presumably tough men. Up until the 1920s, the hierarchy of wrestling was based around whoever was perceived to be the best shooter and hooker, because if push came to shove, the guy who knew best how to push and shove was going to walk away with the belt. Choreographed outcomes, which became standard operating procedure as the Gold Dust Trio’s influence grew, needed two willing participants. If the guy tabbed to drop the belt didn’t follow the plan, or if wrestlers went off script, a price needed to be paid.