| Abstract: | Between 1930 and 1945 professional wrestling could lay claim to being one of the most transnational sports moving across the Anglo-world. Participants originated from western and eastern Europe, North America, the Antipodes, Britain and India. Significantly, wrestling was one of the few sports in which participants from the British Empire and the USA competed in these decades of comparative sporting isolationism. It is argued here that the ‘All-In’ American style which came to dominate the sport as an extreme and theatrical form of ‘catch-as-catch-can’ wrestling was not uniformly accepted across the Anglo-world. Cultural differences between the USA and the British Empire meant wrestling styles had to be adapted as they crossed national boundaries. The notion of ‘cultural hybridity’ is a valuable concept here as ‘All-In’ met three different responses within the Empire: complete acceptance, modification and rejection. The reasons for the varied responses are considered and the argument made that while American culture was at one level admired in the British Empire, there was also concern about perceived professionalization and corruption in North America, which wrestling seemed to epitomize. |
