Reddit reviews Fall Guys: The Barnums of Bounce

https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Guys-Barnums-Marcus-Griffin-ebook/dp/B00RKMYUSO

I'll try to make this as TL:DR as possible.

Combat sports have always been around, especially of the grappling variety. Over time as people migrated from place to place the regional combat styles would get mixed and new styles would develop. In the 1600-1800's Europe and America there was a strong push for organized sport which gave us most of the modern sports that we have today. By the mid 1800's you had big prestigious Wrestling competitions of various styles all over the place. That's probably where the spark to work matches came from.

The post-American Civil War era and during European immigration boom of the mid 1800's is where you start seeing the first signs of worked matches. The internet of the era was Newspapers. Guys would cut promos on each other via newspapers, they had multi-match feuds, challenging each other with money on the line, etc. Legit combat sports, such as Catch Wrestling, were also taking shape at the exact same time. Which basically means you have to take it on a case by case basis what was worked and what was shoots. Individuals probably took part in both.

Working was illegal from the 1800's-the early 1900's. It was seen as a fraud. Crowds would riot over it. You could be thrown in jail for faking matches. That stopped being a thing around the time of the Gold Dust Trio in 1920's. They really are the ones that started doing purposely worked exciting Pro Wrestling matches. They called it "Slam Bang Western Style Wrestling".

The ratio of worked to shoot matches in the 1800's-1900's is highly debatable. Some people take every result at face value and think that most things were shoots in the early days. Personally, I believe that worked matches were far more widespread than people give credit for. A book like Fall Guys, which was written in 1937 falls somewhere closer to the things were mostly worked side of the spectrum.

In 1937, this book: https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Guys-Barnums-Marcus-Griffin-ebook/dp/B00RKMYUSO

"Fall Guys: The Barnums of Bounce. The inside story of the Wrestling Business, America's most profitable and best organized professional sport.

Originally published in 1937, this well-researched book exposed the wrestling game and showed it to be a cutthroat business of fixed matches, shady promoters, and show wrestlers.

Discusses the early days of Frank Gotch before delving into the conglomeration of the business with the rise of the Gold Dust Trio (Strangler Lewis, Toots Mondt, and Billy Sandow) and its version of slam bang wrestling."

All of Tim Hornbakers work is a must read. The man is the best Wrestling Historian around and goes into great details about events and people plus he has his own website where you can learn from and buy his books.

If you really want a hidden gem then you need Fall Guys: The Barnums of Bounce.

It is a detailed account of the wrestling buisness written in the 1930's and is the best source for the old Gotch and carnival days of wrestling.

You'd probably need to use a VPN to buy it.

https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Guys-Barnums-Marcus-Griffin-ebook/dp/B00RKMYUSO/

Fall Guys is the oldest book I know of that talks about wrestling and kayfabe. Only five bucks for the ebook version.