Fall Guys: The Barnums of Bounce

I have trouble putting into words just how much I enjoyed this book. One of the few I had been looking forward to reading for years that lived up to my own hype.

Written in 1937, 11 years before the founding of the National Wrestling Alliance, Marcus Griffin set out to inform the public about the secret goings on in the world of professional wrestling, during a time that in many parts of the U.S. wrestling was more popular than baseball, and certainly other new forms of entertainment like pro football, and ice hockey. I wasn't, however, a "Hey, look these guys are fooling you!" it was more of a sneak behind the curtain, "Hey, look how neat this is."

I find it fascinating that so many people attended so many matches, most of which sound absolutely boring by today's standards, with hour+ of rolling around on the mat. I found particularly interesting the tales of how they kept it above board, yet underground at the same time. They forbid spectators betting on wrestling matches, something very strange for the time, particularly as this was how boxing was run. This let them avoid a riot when someone learned it was "fixed" as had happened in boxing. Griffin only reveals one story where they got ran out of town on a rail, and that was more because the bout was so short people felt they didn't get their money's worth.

I really liked the story of the Boston promoter who specifically did start a riot. After running a few shows with less than 100 fans, he went and paid to print 100,000 free passes to a show with 10,00 seats available, and when the papers ran the story about thousands just trying to get in the papers knew they had better start covering these shows because clearly everyone in town wanted to see the results, yet no one was printing them.

I was also surprised by how many times the athletes and promoters agreed ahead of time that particular matches would be "shooting matches" where the winning was not predetermined and actual grappling determined a winner, often for a championship, that would go one and be defended "kayfabe" for years thereafter. Along with that I still don't see how a government organization, a state's athletic commission, actually determined who the worlds heavyweight champion was, but it did shed light on all these Wikipedia articles I've read about how someone was recognized in one state as the champion and not another. Griffin doesn't really make clear how much the athletic commissions where in on it, but I think that was kind of his point.

Above all what I liked was Griffin's writing style. I don't have an estimate for how many different words and phrases he used "professional wrestler", like neckbender, mat hurdler, bonecrusher, etc., without ever actually saying pro wrestler or sports entertainer. The authentic old-timey-ness left a smile on my heart.

This was certainly written for its time, aimed at early 20th century wrestling fans, evident by limited descriptions of various characters in the wrestling world at the time. Certainly, any fan in a big city would know who these people where, but alas, very few did I have any clear understanding.

Personally, I'm going to buy a copy of the updated "annotated version" printed in the 2000s to my "Wishlist" to keep on my shelf and reference in any number of online wrestling flame wars that even my opponent will never read. I recommend anyone with even a cursory interest in pro wrestling to find a copy and read this.