Russian Lion Defeats Terrible Turk

George-hackenschmidt-suit

Die Saturni, January 30, 1904, George Hackenschmidt defended his Greco-Roman World Wrestling Championship against Ahmed Medrali. “Leo in Russian” would have to defeat “The Terrible Turk” to retain his championship. Promoters selected the giant Medrali, who was 6’02” et 224 pondo, to defeat the seemingly invincible Hackenschmidt. George Hackenschmidt stood only 5’09” tall and weighed 209 pondo. Despite his smaller

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Did Muldoon Duck McMahon?

john-mcmahon

On March 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

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Joe Stecher Throws Dan Kolov

joe-stecher-pilae-cingulum

Die Jovis, November 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. Ludovicus post Mitte. The card was controversial because two of the biggest stars in wrestling were advertised but didn’t

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Gotch Meets Match in Zbyszko

franco-Gotch

On a Thursday night, November 25, 1909, World Wrestling Champion Frank Gotch met Polish Wrestling Champion Stanislaus Zbyszko for a handicap match in Buffalo, Novi Eboraci. 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 pondo. Autem, Zbyszko

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Masked Marvel Throws Berner

aberg-larva-mirari-tractio

Wrestling promoter Samuel Rachman created the International Wrestling Tournament in Spring 1915 to highlight the abilities of Aleksander “Alex” Åberg. 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

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Stecher Beats Westergaard in Lincoln

cælatoris, Wrestles zbyszko,

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

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Muldoon Fails to Throw Sorakichi 5 Times

matsuda-sorakichi

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. May 5, 1885, Muldoon met Matsuda Sorokichi, qui,

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