Category: Istoria luptei profesionale

Sâmbătă, Ianuarie 30, 1904, George Hackenschmidt defended his Greco-Roman World Wrestling Championship against Ahmed Medrali. “Leul rus” would have to defeat “The Terrible Turk” to retain his championship. Promoters selected the giant Medrali, who was 6’02” și 224 de lire sterline, to defeat the seemingly invincible Hackenschmidt. George Hackenschmidt stood only 5’09” tall and weighed 209 de lire sterline. Despite his smaller

La martie 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

Joi, Noiembrie 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 a luptat în Statele Unite doar șase luni în prima jumătate a anului 1898. În primul său meci semnificativ, a fost descalificat pentru un fault vicios. În singurul său alt meci semnificativ, i-a dat lui Evan “Strangler” Lewis bătăile vieții sale. Cu toate acestea, scurtul său turneu în Statele Unite l-a făcut o legendă. Ismail a intrat în

On a Thursday night, Noiembrie 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 de lire sterline. Totuși, 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. La data de 5, 1885, Muldoon met Matsuda Sorokichi, care

Frank Gotch, the farm boy from Humboldt, Iowa, would defeat George Hackenschmidt for the World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship in 1908. This victory and his subsequent defeat of “Salahor” in the 1911 rematch cemented Gotch’s place as one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. Gotch was a very talented wrestler but he was not the undefeated wunderkind of legend. Gotch