Posts about professional wrestling history from the 1860s to the 1940s.
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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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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Why do wrestlers work matches instead of wrestling competitive contests? The second legitimate contest between Joe Stecher and Ed “Strangler” Lewis at the Omaha, Nebraska Fairgrounds on Tuesday, July 4, 1916, can answer the question definitively. The contest bored the fans to tears as Lewis avoided Stecher for the duration of the match. Go into the match, fans expected to […]
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Wrestling fans know Tom Jenkins as Frank Gotch’s toughest opponent and a multiple time American Heavyweight Wrestling Champion. In 1899, Jenkins was campaigning for a match with current American Heavyweight Wrestling Champion Dan McLeod. To further boost his chances of securing a match with McLeod, Jenkins wrestled Ernst Roeber at the League Ballpark in Cleveland, Ohio on Tuesday, July 4, […]
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During June 1927, the Illinois state legislature rocked the professional boxing and professional wrestling worlds when a subcommittee started investigating the state athletic commission. The legislature believed that promoters were putting on “fake” contests in both sports. Before the committee concluded its work, it suspended the boxing and wrestling licenses of 130 athletes. These revelations further disillusioned wrestling fans aggravated […]
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Bernarr MacFadden, born Bernard Adolphus McFadden in Mill Spring, Missouri, on August 16, 1868, founded a publishing company in 1899 that still operates today. MacFadden, an early proponent of physical culture, authored books and published magazine about physical culture, early bodybuilding training. MacFadden moved into pulp magazines like True Detective in the 1920s. Before MacFadden made his fortune as a publisher […]
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Jim Londos developed a national reputation as one of the top professional wrestlers during the 1910s. However, Londos’ career took a major step forward when Londos started wrestling for the fledgling St. Louis promotion in the early 1920s. Londos headlined the first card in late 1921. Londos wrestled on the second card on Thursday, January 26, 1922, as well. Current […]
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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 […]
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