Posts about professional wrestling history from the 1860s to the 1940s.
In December 1907, the San Francisco Chronicle released an article on where the top 19th Century professional wrestlers were living and employed. The article also stated that all the wrestlers listed were still hale and hearty at the time of the article. According to the article, J.H. McLaughlin was 64 years of age and a railroad conductor. One of the […]
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I recently discovered a 1932 film, Uptown New York (affiliate link), with Wladek Zbyszko playing himself. Zbyszko wrestled another wrestler named DeLonn, which I believe is a young Brother Jonathan. Brother Jonathan was the father of Don Leo Jonathan. Director Victor Shertzinger placed the wrestling scene about thirty minutes into the film. To start the film, Shertzinger uses establishing shots […]
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(I released an encore episode of the podcast this week, Episode 132.) During the summer of 1983, I did something rare by attending a handful of live wrestling cards without my sister Vicky. Vicky, who was fifteen years older than me, started taking me to the St. Louis wrestling cards. Vicky had two season tickets in 1981 and 1982, so […]
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I first learned about Jim Browning, when researching the double-crosses of the early 1930s. Joseph “Toots” Mondt, who was up to his neck in the middle of the double-crosses, had “Jumping” Joe Savoldi drop the title to Browning after Mondt orchestrated the successful double-cross of Jim Londos in 1932. Mondt put the title on Browning to prevent further double-crosses. Since […]
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In this episode, I discuss a part-time wrestler, full-time city constable Paul Kisselbach killed in the line of duty during September 1949. I also review the wrestling card from the Omni in Atlanta on April 22, 1984. News and Update It is a slow time in pro wrestling as a number of people are engaging in verbal, and threatened physical, […]
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On Friday, January 22, 1932, Jack Claybourne, one of the first nationally known African American professional wrestlers, wrestled Billy Wolfe at the Athletic Hall in Moberly, Missouri. 36-year-old Billy Wolfe started wrestling professionally in 1922. Claybourne and Wolfe main evented the card. In the opening match, Wolfe’s second wife, Barbara Ware, wrestled Ruth Case of Kirksville, Missouri. Ware won the […]
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Publishing giant Bernarr MacFadden was plain old Barney McFadden, when McFadden wrestled professionally in St. Louis during the late 1880s and early 1890s. McFadden specialized in Greco-Roman wrestling but did occasionally wrestle other styles. In November and December 1891, McFadden wrestled both styles in professional matches. On Saturday, October 31, 1891, McFadden wrestled Chicago wrestler Henry E. Pearson in a […]
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On Friday, June 12, 1925, Jim Browning, a Missouri wrestler plying his trade in Tennessee, wrestled the more experienced Dick Daviscourt. The 22-year-old Browning had been a professional for two years. 37-year-old Daviscourt made his professional wrestling debut in 1914. Browning and Daviscourt were familiar with each other as they ran into each other in a Wichita gymnasium Whether the […]
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Finding the first wrestling card that Vicky and I attended did not prove that difficult. Finding the last card, we attended proved more of a challenge. I thought it was around 1985 or 1986. It turned out to be in June 1984. Within two and a half years, Pat O’Connor, Bob Geigel, and Verne Gagne decimated a forty-year-old promotion they […]
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For years, I believed the version of the Divided Championship era that I read about in The Fall Guys (affiliate link) by Marcus Griffin and other sources. Stanislaus Zbyszko double-crossed the Gold Dust Trio by shooting on Wayne “Big” Munn and defeating Munn legitimately in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during April 1925. A month later, Memorial Day 1925, Zbyszko dropped the […]
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