Back in the early ’90s, in France they had the brilliant idea of starting a game show called “Fort Boyard”. It was set in an ancient fort off the French coast. Each week a group of contestants had to go through various challenges and my favorite one was called “Mud Wrestler”.
You guess it, there was some mud wrestling going on. The contestant had to try grabbing a key hanging from the ceiling in a room with a muddy floor, while a woman wrestler was trying to stop her. You could find some good fighting at times, since the contestants were quite eager to pass the challenge.
The show went on for years and was exported in many other countries too. It’s probably an ancestor of “Fear Factor”, except that the US show focuses more on eating or touching awful stuff and they seldom have games were there is a direct physical confrontation.
Source: Wikipedia