look convincing, they still pretended it was authentic. Unlike boxing, professional wrestling didn't take off on the radio because the action was difficult for ringside announcers to describe. Professional wrestling did become very popular on television, however. The first televised professional wrestling was in 1939, but televised wrestling really took off after World War 2. In 1989, Vince McMahon testified before the New Jersey Athletic Commission that professional wrestling is not a competitive sport and that its matches have predetermined outcomes. He did this to have the World Wrestling Federation (his business) exempted from sports licensing fees. Shortly thereafter, New Jersey deregulated professional wrestling. The WWF rebranded itself as a "sports entertainment" company. Scope and influence Show wrestling has become especially prominent in Central/North America, Japan and Europe (especially the United Kingdom). In Brazil, there was a very popular wrestling television program from the 1960s to the early 1980s called Telecatch. High-profile figures in the sport have become celebrities or cultural icons in their native or adopted home countries. Although professional wrestling started out as small acts in sideshows, traveling circuses and carnivals, today it is a billion-dollar industry. Revenue is drawn from ticket sales, network television broadcasts, pay-per-view broadcasts, branded merchandise and home video. Pro wrestling was instrumental in making pay-per-view a viable method of content delivery. Annual shows such as WrestleMania, Bound for Glory, Wrestle Kingdom and formerly Starrcade are among the highest-selling pay-per-view programming each year. In modern day, internet programming has been utilized by a number of companies to air web shows, internet pay per views (IPPVs) or on-demand content, helping to generate internet-related revenue earnings from the evolving World Wide Web. Home video sales dominate the Billboard charts Recreational Sports DVD sales, with wrestling holding anywhere from 3 to 9 of the top 10 spots every week. Due to its persistent cultural presence and to its novelty within the performing arts, wrestling constitutes a recurring topic in both academia and the media. Several documentaries have been produced looking at professional wrestling, most notable of them being Beyond the Mat directed by Barry W. Blaustein, and Wrestling with Shadows featuring wrestler Bret Hart and directed by Paul Jay. There have also been many fictional depictions of wrestling; the 2008 film The Wrestler received several Oscar nominations and began a career revival for its star Mickey Rourke. Currently, the largest professional wrestling company worldwide is the United