Episode 51 – Marin Plestina

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In this episode, I discuss the threat that Marin Plestina posed to the wrestling trust between 1917 and 1921.

Update

We should be back to the same prodcution schedule with Dan by the middle of April.

I share why you should never group text.

I also talk about how Vince McMahon never made long-term agreeements.

Main Content

I discuss how my recent research changed my opinion of the threat that Marin Plestina posed to the wrestling trust between 1917 and 1921.

Plestina posed a dangerous threat as one of the top three or four hookers in the business at the time. Plestina could submit any wrestler and held his own with World Champion Joe Stecher.

Despite Plestina and his manager, Joseph C. “Ole” Marsch exposing Jack Curley’s manipulation of the world championship through worked matches, Curley refused to let Plestina wrestle the Big Four: Joe Stecher, Earl Caddock, Ed “Strangler” Lewis, and Wladek Zbyszko.

After four years of an intense rivalry, Curley gave Plestina a match with John “The Nebraska Tigerman” Pesek. If Plestina defeated Pesek, Curley would have to book Plestina to wrestle the World Championship and Curley would have to work with Pesek’s promoter, Tex Rickard.

Review

I tell the back story behind Dick Shikat’s and Joseph “Toots” Mondt’s relationship and recommend the seven minute video of the two men from the University of South Carolina archive.

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