Thrashing Seasons: Sporting Culture in Manitoba and the Genesis of Prairie Wrestling par Nathan Hatton

Abstract

Reviewed by: Thrashing Seasons: Sporting Culture in Manitoba and the Genesis of Prairie Wrestling par Nathan Hatton Christopher L. Stacey Hatton, Nathan–Thrashing Seasons: Sporting Culture in Manitoba and the Genesis of Prairie Wrestling. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2016. Pp. 340. Scholarly historical analysis of professional wrestling has arrived—C. Nathan Hatton's prodigious research and fine writing ground his account of sporting culture and wrestling in Manitoba from its inception among various Indigenous people to the 1930s. Professional historians are just beginning to realize how an examination of wrestling can fine-tune existing scholarship and historiography. Hatton manages to connect the story of wrestling in Manitoba to various strands of social, political, and military history, such as the advent of the second industrial revolution and progressive reform, both of which affected agricultural output and urbanization; ethnicity and changes in demographics; and the effects of the First World War. The author identifies throughout the era an interplay between amateur and professional wrestling before the latter became mere entertainment, featuring more and more "worked" (choreographed and predetermined) matches. Equally important, Hatton explores what a scholarly examination of wrestling can reveal about changing perceptions of race, class, ethnicity, gender, and other forms of identity, and he connects the evolution of sporting culture and wrestling in Manitoba to other sports such as boxing and baseball in Canada and the United States. The book's seven chronological and thematic chapters mix both narrative history and historical and historiographical analysis well. He eschews the arcane and often obtuse jargon that plagues a lot of social scientific and cultural analysis, including previous studies of professional wrestling. The province's first combative wrestlers were the Chipewyan and Netsilik Indigenous people and the voyageurs. Voyageurs were European traders, trappers, and adventurers who acquired a certain "masculine capital" (p. 25) through drinking, fighting, and acts of bravery. Perceptions of masculinity have always informed the history of wrestling and sporting culture, and the sport's association with other 'unsavoury' activities, such as gambling, drinking, and other forms of 'vice,' caught the attention of moral reformers. Thus amateur wrestling, free of the taint of gambling, money, and vice, evolved with the growing interest in constructing and maintaining gymnasiums while avoiding gambling, money, and compensation. Reformers saw wrestling and other physical activities as acceptable alternatives to other forms of entertainment they associated with immoral behaviour and vice. The continuing popularity of professional wrestling between 1896 and 1914 reflected the importance of 'muscular Christianity' and interest in various forms of masculine identity. The second industrial revolution was stirring concern about preserving masculinity in the midst of rapid urbanization and demographic changes that included an influx of non-Anglo-Protestant people into the prairie region. Despite professional wrestling's growing popularity, reformers, the press, and local public officials sharply criticized what they saw as unsavoury characters, [End Page 464] criminality, excessive violence, and corruption, including the emergence of "fakers," who 'fixed' matches. The arrival of new immigrants was creating a new market for matches, but that tapped into Anglo-Canadian xenophobia and ethnic rivalries and prejudices. Hatton claims that, while wrestling revealed political, racial, ethnic, and class divisions in its promoting of matches and cards, it also became "contested territory" (p. 13) for such conflicts. So while bouts in the ring reflected xenophobia and ethnic prejudices in a period of emerging British national identity, the sport also engaged non-Anglo immigrants—it "facilitated a level of cultural continuity between the New World and the Old World" (p. 103). The "Simon Pures"—progressive-era, middle-class, reform-oriented institutions, such as the YMCA—facilitated and oversaw amateur wrestling contests and promotions. Because of the social ills they associated with professional wrestling, government officials and reformers sought to promote and expand amateur wrestling by separating it completely from the seedier professional product. Despite their efforts, the lure of money and a bit of fame left considerable overlap. The monograph centres around Manitoba's role in the Great War, which the author views as a turning point for wrestling in the province. While wrestling was collapsing at home, it thrived within various units of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) in Canada and overseas, with enthusiastic...