THE
BEGINNINGS
THE
GREEK ERA
The
first that was heard of Greece and wrestling in the same sentence, was
firstly in the form of myth and legend, concerning figures such as Hercules'
and Odysseus. Actually the sport began somewhere around 776 B.C.
and was introduced into the Olympics in 704 B.C, the 18th Olympiad.
The
form of wrestling was an upright one in which contestants were allowed
to use both arms and legs, the fall was gained when any part of either
wrestler touched the ground, if both combatants fell together ,it did not
count and best 2 out of 3 decided the winner.
Once
wrestling was included in the olympics, the sport gained impetus and soon
after every city had one or more PALAESTRA or wrestling schools
ARRICHION GOING FOR IT
The first champions
were spartans, and it is thought they introduced the use of oil into contests,
they regarded wrestling as an art or science, the method of winning was
almost as important as winning itself.
Somewhere around 684
B.C a new form of wrestling was introduced into the games, called PANKRATION,
an all-in no holds barred contest were the wrestlers fought on the horizontal
base (thanx Jim Ross), biting and gouging where forbidden, the loser in
the contest more often than not finished up dead or maimed, the object
being to force someone into defeat. Everything seemed to be allowed,
strangling, finger breaking, punching and kicking.
One of the most famous
of the early PANKRATIASTS was a fighter named
ARRICHION, in his last bout he managed to make his opponent yield
and then fell down dead from the exertion, he managed to keep going on
will power alone
:
MILOS of CROTON
the most famous
of all greek wrestlers was MILO of CROTON, as well as being
the consummate wrestler, apparently he was quite the unusual man as well.
Over the centuries ,
some of the legends attributed to old Milo, shall we say have become somewhat
over the top, an example , i hear you say...O.K
he is said to have eaten
seventeen pounds of meat per day as well as seventeen loaves of bread as
well as drinking ten jugs of wine (how he found time to wrestle has got
me stumped)
Equally as incredible
is the tale that he carried a full grown cow around the 1/4 mile Olympic
Stadium on his shoulders, killed the beast with a punch between its eyes
and then cooked and ate the whole thing single handed.
BUT!!!... there can be no doubt
about his skill as a wrestler, first olympic title in 540 B.C, he then
went on to achieve five more olympic titles, ten Isthmian games, and six
Pythian games.
( these were warm-ups
to the olympics)
ROMAN ERA
Around 186 B.C after
a series of wars, the Roman Empire came into being and of all the greek
sports, only boxing, wrestling and pankration appealed to the romans, although
they did make a few changes to wrestling, they incorporated the Estruscan
style, the resulting form was known as Greco-Roman
Greco-Roman consisted
mostly of ground wrestling, this new style leaned towards strength and
tripping was forbidden.
