Before the animalistic UFC, there was this: men wrestling on an Oriental rug in the middle of a field, wearing penny loafers. Ah, yes, judging by this 1905 pic of a match from the Toronto archive, it seems wrestling was a true gentlemen's sport: lucky audience members tucked into a picnic basket while other men were free to lounge in the grass, demurely peering at the match.

The wrestler on top was obviously a spot monkey, but clearly, those theatrics didn’t bother the audience — early 20th-century wrestling seemed to draw larger crowds than the Russian Revolution. Take that, UFC 129.