Combat Sports Historian and Martial Artist
Posts about martial arts concepts and history.
On Friday, March 11, 1932, wrestlers George Tragos and Rudy Dusek faced boxers, Stanley McRae and Tom Pivac in wrestler versus boxer bouts. It took the fans longer to get to their seats than it took the combatants to complete the bouts. The men fought the pair of bouts in Memphis, Tennessee at the Auditorium. Fans know George Tragos, a
In mixed style bouts between wrestlers and strikers, the adage is once the wrestler gets his hands on the striker, the fight is over. In most mixed style bouts between wrestlers or grapplers and boxers, the grappler normally wins after dragging the striker to the ground. Ray Steele defeated Battling Levinsky. “Judo” Gene LeBell smashed Milo Savage. In modern
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
Before immigrating to the United States, Taro Miyake first settled in England. Miyake assisted Yukio Tani with establishing Judo and Jujitsu in England. Miyake and Tani challenged professional wrestlers to matches as part of their effort to establish their martial arts. Tani took part in challenge matches prior to the arrival of Miyake. Miyake grappled his first opponent, Tani himself,
On October 20, 1920, Ad Santel, a noted “hooker” or skilled submission wrestler, met Taro Miyake, a Judo and Jujitsu black belt, in a mixed wrestling vs. jujitsu contest. After about 20 seconds, Santel secured a half-Nelson on Miyake, lifted him off the mat and slammed Miyake to the floor. The impact knocked Miyake senseless. Miyake’s seconds assisted him back
On November 19, 1935, professional wrestler Ray Steele met professional boxer Kingfish Levinsky in a mixed wresting versus boxing bout. The Missouri State Athletic Commission created special rules for the match. The commissioners ruled the bout would consist of three-minute rounds like a boxing match. The commissioners allowed Levinsky to punch even if he was on the mat. Steele could
I was recently honored to be a guest on The Martial Culture Podcast. Coach Rene Driefuss and Matt Peters were excellent hosts. I truly enjoyed my time on their podcast. We spoke about one of my books, Gotch vs. Hackenschmidt: The Matches That Made and Destroyed Legitimate American Professional Wrestling in particular. However, we spoke in general about the history
On St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1905, St. Louis sports fans were treated to a special match between local professional wrestler George Baptiste and traveling Japanese jujitsu practitioner Arata Suzuki. Baptiste delighted local fans by quickly defeating Suzuki in two straight falls. George Baptiste was a professional wrestler and all-around athlete, whose powerful swimming saved many St. Louisans from drowning
An ad was printed in the January 16, 1921 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch advertising a mail order course on Jujitsu from Capt. Allan Smith. Capt. Smith was originally born in Scotland but was fascinated with demonstrations of Japanese Jujitsu (actually Judo) he saw in England. Smith traveled to Japan with a company and learned Judo reaching 1st degree
On Thursday, January 31, 2020, Grandmaster Pat Weseman promoted me to 4th Dan in Taekwondo at the Advanced Class. When I started classes with Grandmaster Weseman and her husband Art, I did not foresee reaching this milestone. I originally started taking classes with my nephew Jim in Spring 1995. After getting married in 1996, I stopped taking classes for several