Posts about professional wrestling history from the 1860s to the 1940s.
I recently discovered a three minute clip on YouTube, which included two of Jim Londos’ matches from the 1930s. In the first match, Londos wrestles Abe Coleman. In the second match, Londos wrestles a mixed styles match with Oki Shikina, who was trained by Taro Miyake, the Judo black belt and professional wrestler. Londos was the biggest box office star […]
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Recently, I went through St. Louis Wrestling Club cards from 1981 trying to find the first card I attended with my sister Vicky. My big sister taking me to the wrestling matches in St. Louis every three weeks led to my interest in professional wrestling history. When my mom married my stepdad, Ernest C. Diaz, I got five bonus sisters. […]
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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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Earl Caddock had a relatively short but storied professional wrestling career in the late 1910s and early 1920s. Making his professional debut in 1915 after winning three AAU National titles in amateur wrestling, Caddock only wrestled professionally until 1922. However, he would be recognized as world champion after defeating Joe Stecher in April 1917. Caddock’s Army service during World War […]
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Jack Claybourne, one of the earliest African-American, professional wrestlers, was born Elmer Claybourn at Mexico, Missouri, on March 8, 1910. In 1910, Mexico was home to about 5,939 residents. Claybourne started his professional wrestling career in Missouri in 1931. Initially, Claybourne wrestled in nearby Moberly, Missouri. Moberly had a population of 13,722 residents compared to 8,290 residents in Mexico, Missouri […]
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I’m writing this post to correct an earlier post I wrote about double crosses in professional wrestling. I originally thought double crosses ended after Stanislaus Zybszko double crossed the Gold Dust Trio. Zbyszko, after agreeing to lose to Munn, defeated him in what turned into a legitimate contest for the World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship. Ed “Strangler” Lewis, who dropped the […]
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On January 30, 1930, Gus Sonnenberg defended his AWA World Title, based in the Boston promotion of Paul Bowser, in Boston Arena against former world champion Joe Stecher. Two minutes of film survived from the hour-long match. Gus Sonnenberg traded on his celebrity as a professional football player to become a wrestling star. Sonnenberg helped the Providence Steam Roller win […]
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On Wednesday, July 24, 1935, Vincent Lopez, the biggest babyface in Los Angeles during the 1930s, wrestled Man Mountain Dean, who started his professional wrestling career under his real name Frank Leavitt. A film of nearly the entire match, 10 of the 16 minutes, survives. Frank Leavitt did not achieve much success from 1914 to 1926, so Leavitt retired for […]
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On Memorial Day, May 30, 1925, Joe Stecher defeated Stanislaus Zbyszko in a worked match to reclaim the World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship that Stecher had lost in December 1920. Stecher was part of a conspiracy that paid Stanislaus Zbyszko to double-cross Wayne “Big” Munn in April 1925. Zbyszko defeated Munn legitimately in one of professional wrestling’s most famous double-crosses. As […]
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