Category: Professional Wrestling History

Το Σάββατο, Ιανουάριος 30, 1904, George Hackenschmidt defended his Greco-Roman World Wrestling Championship against Ahmed Medrali. “The Russian Lion” would have to defeat “The Terrible Turk” to retain his championship. Promoters selected the giant Medrali, who was 6’02” και 224 λίρες, to defeat the seemingly invincible Hackenschmidt. George Hackenschmidt stood only 5’09” tall and weighed 209 λίρες. Despite his smaller

Τον Μάρτιο του 22, 1881, Greco-Roman World Wrestling Champion William Muldoon met Collar-and-Elbow World Champion John McMahon at the Terrace Garden in New York City. Muldoon and McMahon met in a best-two-out-of-three-falls match. The first fall was conducted by Greco-Roman rules. The second fall would be contested using collar-and-elbow rules. The last fall would be decided via what The New York

Την Πέμπτη, Νοέμβριος 22, 1923, St. Louis promoter John Contos hosted a controversial card topped by a match between Joe Stecher and Dan Kolov, an up-and-coming Bulgarian wrestler. The card was covered by John E. Wray, the Sports Editor for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The card was controversial because two of the biggest stars in wrestling were advertised but didn’t

Broadcast companies were looking for content during the early days of television. Besides older movies and some broadcast company productions, sports were a source of programming for many television stations. The Dumont Television Network was one of the powerhouse networks in the beginning of the Golden Age of Television. One of their most popular programs was wrestling and the star

Yusuf Ismail only wrestled in the United States for six months in the first half of 1898. In his first significant match, he was disqualified for a vicious foul. In his only other significant match, he gave Evan “Strangler” Lewis the beating of his life. Yet his short tour of the United States made him a legend. Ismail entered the

On a Thursday night, Νοέμβριος 25, 1909, World Wrestling Champion Frank Gotch met Polish Wrestling Champion Stanislaus Zbyszko for a handicap match in Buffalo, New York. Gotch agreed to forfeit the bout if he could not throw Zbyszko twice in an hour. Zbyszko’s size and strength created problems for Gotch, who weighed 190 pounds to Zbyszko’s 260 λίρες. Ωστόσο, Zbyszko

Wrestling promoter Samuel Rachman created the International Wrestling Tournament in Spring 1915 to highlight the abilities of Aleksander “Alex” Aberg. Aberg was the Russian Greco-Roman Wrestling Champion. Rachman believed Aberg could beat any wrestler. Rachman also wanted to lure Frank Gotch, the last undisputed World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion, out of retirement to wrestle with Aberg. Gotch wrestled George Lurich in

In a blog post last month, I wrote about the difficulty promoters had in staging the Joe Stecher vs Jess Westergaard match. Originally scheduled for Omaha, Nebraska, the Omaha Chief of Police and Police Commissioner were concerned about the match being prearranged or a “work”. They didn’t want gamblers being taken in by the exhibition. To prevent this occurrence, they

Dominant champions like William Muldoon often had to accept handicap conditions to get fans interested in watching them wrestle. Since fans only considered Clarence Whistler skilled enough to really threaten his reign, Muldoon would often generate interest by either performing feats of strength or taking on the challenge of handicap conditions. Τον Μάιο του 5, 1885, Muldoon met Matsuda Sorokichi, που

Frank Gotch, το αγόρι αγρόκτημα από Humboldt, Αϊόβα, θα νικήσει τον George Hackenschmidt για το Παγκόσμιο Πρωτάθλημα Πάλης βαρέων βαρών στο 1908. Αυτή η νίκη και η επακόλουθη ήττα του “Hack” στην 1911 ρεβάνς παγιώσει τη θέση Gotch ως ένας από τους μεγαλύτερους παλαιστές όλων των εποχών. Gotch was a very talented wrestler but he was not the undefeated wunderkind of legend. Gotch