Combat Sports Historian and Martial Artist
Posts about 20th Century wrestlers, wrestling matches, and wrestling films.
During November 1921, John “The Nebraska Tigerman” Pesek wrestled a legitimate contest with Marin Plestina to settle a promotional war between Jack Curley and boxing promoter Tex Rickard. Pesek fouled an injured Plestina, who was helpless to defend himself. After the match, Rickard returned to boxing while the New York State Athletic Commission banned Pesek from wrestling in New York.
In 1919, John “The Nebraska Tigerman” Pesek found himself in the same position as Marin Plestina. The dominant wrestling trust would not give Pesek a match with one of the “Big Four” – Earl Caddock, Joe Stecher, Ed “Strangler” Lewis, and Wladek Zbyszko. Unable to secure a match with Stecher, Pesek wrestled Jim Londos in Omaha, Nebraska on October 10,
On Thanksgiving in America, Thursday, November 26, 1908, Yussouff Mahmout wrestled former American Heavyweight Wrestling Champion Tom Jenkins at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Mahmout recently to the United States to wrestle Frank Gotch for the World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship. If Mahmout defeated Jenkins, Mahmout would prove to be a bona fide challenger to Gotch. Jenkins was the
When thinking about African American history month, I thought about the first great Black wrestler that I saw personally. When I started watching wrestling in St. Louis during 1979, “Sailor” Art Thomas wrestled regularly on Wrestling at the Chase, our local weekly wrestling show. Wrestling at the Chase aired every Sunday at 11 a.m. on KPLR Channel 11. Although Thomas
Jack Claybourne, one of the earliest African-American, professional wrestlers, was born Elmer Claybourn at Mexico, Missouri, on March 8, 1910. In 1910, Mexico was home to about 5,939 residents. Claybourne started his professional wrestling career in Missouri in 1931. Initially, Claybourne wrestled in nearby Moberly, Missouri. Moberly had a population of 13,722 residents compared to 8,290 residents in Mexico, Missouri
Wrestling historians consider either Ed “Strangler” Lewis or Frank Gotch to be the greatest American professional wrestler. While we know quite a bit about the early career of Frank Gotch, we know much less about the early career of Ed “Strangler” Lewis. Various sources claim Lewis learned catch-as-catch-can wrestling in the carnivals when he was only fourteen years old. Lewis
During the early 1930s, the most powerful promoters in professional wrestling, Jack Curley, Joseph “Toots” Mondt, Paul Bowser, and Tom Packs executed double-crosses on each other hurting the overall drawing power of their wrestlers. During the promotional war, Jack Pfefer aligned himself with Jack Curley and “Toots” Mondt, who ran out of New York City. In late 1933, Curley and
I took a second look at this match after listening to the Shut Up and Wrestle podcast interview with Mike Chapman, one of the foremost experts on Frank Gotch. Mike Chapman put forth a convincing argument for his belief that both Earl Caddock vs. Joe Stecher world title matches were “shoots” or legitimate contests. After reviewing the accounts of the
On Tuesday, June 3, 1924, up-and-coming wrestler Jim Browning challenged Taro Miyake in a mixed styles match in Nashville, Tennessee. Browning, a wrestler from Verona, Missouri recently left the Missouri-Kansas area to wrestle in Tennessee and Kentucky. The 21-year-old Browning was developing a reputation for solid wrestling. Browning impressed promoters so much in the 1920s that the promoters put the
Over the past twenty years, preservationists have found several wrestling films from the 1920s through the 1950s that were assumed lost. Fans can watch most of the newly discovered films on YouTube. One of the surviving films is eighteen minutes of an hour, twenty minutes match from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1930. Jim Londos wrestled Dick Shikat (video link) for a