The wrestling you'll see at this year's Commonwealth Games isn't like the wrestling you normally see on TV.

There are no crazy costumes, no masks and alter ego personas.

You're unlikely to see anyone choke slammed through a table or hit with a steel chair. But what you are guaranteed is a far more exciting experience, because there is no script here.

This is the real deal - freestylers fusing raw power into a truly dramatic display of technical prowess.

Wrestling is one of the oldest sports in the world. Literary references of it date back to Homer's Iliad with the real origins of wrestling going back as far as 15,000 years to cave paintings in France. Reliefs in Egypt and Babylon, modern day Iraq, even show ancient wrestlers performing many of the holds and moves still used in the present-day sport.

The ancient Greeks are perhaps best known for popularising the sport of wrestling, with it serving as a focal point of the ancient Olympic Games.

The sport was reintroduced in its Greco-Roman form at the first modern Olympics in 1894, with its freestyle counterpart being added at the 1904 games.

The Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this year will feature the sport in both its Greco-Roman and freestyle disciplines. The differences between the two styles are that in Greco-Roman it is forbidden to hold the opponent below the belt or use the legs in the execution of certain moves. This isn't the case in the looser freestyle method of the sport. However, both promise hard-hitting, explosive moves with competitors seeking to make their opponent submit through pinning them to the mat.

The sport is open to both men and women and this year's games will feature seven weight categories for both sexes. Scotland has yet to reveal our official team for Glasgow with the announcement to be made on May 2.

Scotland hasn't produced a gold medal winner since the 1934 games held in London, when Edward Melrose took the title.

However, the Scottish Wrestling Association is hopeful that home advantage may produce one or two medals for the hosts, with good prospects for up-and-coming Ross McFarlane, as well as the more experienced Fiona and Donna Robertson, twins who have previously won medals for Scotland in judo.

Wrestling in Scotland has been slowly gaining in popularity over the past decade or more, and now with an excellent national team coach in the form of Vladimir Gladkov, Scots looking to take the sport seriously no longer need to look to moving abroad to gain experience and expertise.

The Canadians and Indians are again favourites to take gold at this year's games, but that doesn't mean the support of a home crowd won't spur the Scottish team on to some exciting wrestling and maybe even a few medals.