Agreed. I was full time wrestling by '82.' Nine months of the year. Folk and FS/GR.
I can't remember wrestling ever, "being ahead." If you got some Olympic wrestling on TV it was a big deal. If you were able to get some wrestling on a PBS channel you were lucky and lived in a wrestling area. Went to quite a few WC's in Toledo. That was as big as I ever knew wrestling to be for a whole bunch of years.