Professional Wrestling

DOUG JOHNSON: Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English. I'm Doug Johnson. Today on our program, we answer a question about professional wrestling in America. DOUG JOHNSON: Our listener question this week comes from Vietnam. Dang wants to know about professional wrestling in America. He says he watches World Wrestling Entertainment programs on television. He can see that tens of thousands of people attend the W.W.E. matches in America. Professional wrestling is a sport with a lot of acting. It features exciting men and women often wearing unusual costumes. The Undertaker, Hornswoggle, and John Cena are some of the male wrestlers in World Wrestling Entertainment events. The female wrestlers are called Divas. They include Maryse, Savanna and the Bella Twins. The wrestlers have long-standing conflicts with each other. The writers for W.W.E. programs create stories about what goes on among the competitors outside the ring. During a fight, the wrestlers use moves that would never be permitted in a real wrestling match. For example, you might see a W.W.E. wrestler jump off the ropes and land on top of his opponent. Or the wrestlers might pull each other's hair. Sometimes wrestlers will jump into the ring to help one fighter against an opponent. The crowd cheers and claps for all the wrestling tricks and misbehavior. This is exactly what the audience comes to see. And the fans are many. The Nielsen Media Research company shows almost sixteen million people in the United States watch W.W.E. programs every week. Almost eighty percent of the viewers are over eighteen years old. And thirty-six percent are female. W.W.E. programs are shown around the world on the Internet and television. The programs are broadcast in more than one hundred forty-five countries and thirty languages. Last week, W.W.E. officials reported the company earned more than one hundred seventeen million dollars in the fourth financial period of last year. The W.W.E. chairman and chief is Vince McMahon. Mister McMahon's grandfather, Jess, started the company under a different name in the early nineteen fifties. It was more wrestling than acting back then. Vince McMahon got into the business against his own father's wishes. But Vince McMahon is good at it. Under his leadership World Wrestling Entertainment has grown into the huge business it is today. HOST: I'm Doug Johnson. Our program was written by Mario Ritter, June Simms and Caty Weaver, who was also our producer. For transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs, go to voaspecialenglish.com. You can also post comments. Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA's radio magazine in Special English. Source: Voice of America