With companies like AEW and WWE selling out stadiums, and local promotions selling thousands of tickets per week, wrestling is a hugely popular sport in the UK today.
Wrestling Began As Competitions During Strongman Contests
While the origins of fixing fights goes all the way back to the ancient Egyptians, wrestling as we know it began in Britain during the 1800s.
Jack Carkeek Started What We’d Consider Pro Wrestling To Be
Carkeek was already a wrestler, but in the Cornish style. There have been numerous amateur wrestling styles through the millenia, which included multiple local styles throughout the UK.
Despite coming from America, Jack Carkeek was a champion in the Cornish style, and found a way to make good money from his skills. Carkeek had been indicted for match fixing multiple times in his career, which is hilarious considering how important he became to the history of wrestling in Great Britain.
Jack Carkeek worked as a miner in Michigan, the state in the US he grew up in. He worked in the iron and copper mines, but began to learn the art of Cornish wrestling at the age of 16. There was huge emigration from Cornwall to the United States in the 1800s due to the decline in the mining industrying Cornwall at that time, leading to an influx of Cornish Americans in the area.