20 Pro Wrestling Firsts You Need To Know

18. First Televised Wrestling Event

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The advent of television in the mid 1920s coincided with a downturn in fortune for professional wrestling, and it wasn't until after World War II that the two started a love affair that would once again change the entire business. In 2016 wrestling and television go hand in hand, to the point where the existence of a promotion can be largely dependent on their ability to maintain television programming.

You've got to go way back to July 10th 1946 to find the first televised wrestling event, broadcast on Channel 4 WBKB, from Chicago's Rainbo Arena. The first nationally televised wrestling broadcast in the US came a few years later, a two-hour show emanating from the same venue.

Elsewhere around the world, the first UK show aired on November 9th 1955, which would eventually morph into an integral part of World of Sport just under a decade later. The 1950s also saw the first broadcast wrestling match in Japan, on Nippon TV.

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.