Combat Sports Historian and Martial Artist
https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/79nsr9/Episode_36u5sw.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadIn this episode, I will be talking about one of the most vicious hookers in the history of professional wrestling. I will focus on three incidents which illustrate why other wrestlers feared Evan “The Strangler” Lewis. Update The update will be on the light side because I contracted COVID for the second time this
On October 25, 1915, Aleksander “Alex” Aberg won the World Greco-Roman Heavyweight Wrestling Championship from Wladek Zbyszko, the brother of Aberg’s former foe. In 1914, Stanislaus Zbyszko defeated Aberg for the World Greco-Roman Heavyweight Wrestling Championship. Stanislaus Zbyszko returned to Europe. It is doubtful Wladek Zbyszko could make a claim to his brother’s championship. Promoter Sam Rachmann probably created this
https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/sfejv3/Episode_275lyj.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadIn this episode, I will be talking about biggest box office attraction in wrestling history. When he took a working vacation back to his home country of Greece, he filled up 100,000 stadiums. He was the first wrestler to draw 30,000 fans since the second Frank Gotch-George Hackenschmidt match in 1911. Update Why I
https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/tkrvui/Episode_1b3iy0.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadIt Was Almost Real: The Pro Wrestling History Podcast, Episode 1 – Gotch vs. Hack Episode Preview In this episode, I’ll be talking about the facts and myths around the two matches between Frank Gotch and George Hackenschmidt. During May 2016 after researching the men’s careers for the previous two years, I released Gotch
At nearly 70 years of age, Stanislaus Zbyszko made his film debut in Night and the City (1950). Billed as Gregorious, a retired wrestler and the father of London’s wrestling promoter, Zbyszko displayed his wrestling skills, even at his advanced age, in the film’s signature scene. The movie begins with a man chasing Harry Fabian, a London hustler always looking
On May 7, 1901, Tom Jenkins wrestled the giant Nouralah Hassan in New York City. Born in Bulgaria during 1870, Hassan stood six feet, eight inches tall and weighed 331 pounds. While Jenkins possessed superior wrestling skill, fans and reporters expected Hassan’s immense size to present problems for Jenkins. Promoters booked the men to wrestle at Madison Square Garden in
On Friday, June 29, 1883, fourteen wrestlers paid $50 to enter a two-day tournament for a $500 championship belt and $500 prize. Richard K. Fox, owner and publisher of the Police Gazette, put up the prize money and belt. Fox avidly supported the promotion of both professional boxing and professional wrestling. While fourteen men attempted to enter the tournament, Fox
On August 4, 1939, Mort Henderson passed away in Rochester, New York at 60 years of age. Wrestling fans likely did not remember the name Mort Henderson but as his alter ego, the original Masked Marvel, he saved the fall version of the 1915 International Wrestling Tournament in New York City. Sam Rachmann promoted the tournament with the goal of
When Wladek Zbyszko travelled from the United States to Brazil for a lucrative tour on Brazil’s well-developed professional wrestling circuit, Zbyszko little suspected that he would wrestle his first contest in almost twenty years. Like their American counterparts, Brazilian professional wrestlers worked with each other to put on exciting exhibitions for the fans. The Brazilian professional wrestlers occasionally wrestled a
On Saturday, April 9, 2022, the Franklin County Missouri Historical Society invited me to give a PowerPoint presentation on the Union Missouri Bank Robbery of 1902. The book covers the robbery, the investigation, two nationwide hunts for the fugitive and a daring break from the St. Louis City Jail. Two daring robbers, not yet 23 years of age, pulled off