Episode 76 – Solving the Masked Marvel

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In this episode, I discuss Ed “Strangler” Lewis defeating the Masked Marvel during the 1915 New York International Wrestling Tournament.

Update

After years of looking for Bernarr MacFadden’s wrestling matches in St. Louis, I stumbled across a reporter’s recollections of the best wrestling matches he covered during his twenty year career. MacFadden wrestled as B.A. McFadden in St. Louis. I recently found all his matches.

Don’t forget to check out A Geek History of Time podcast.

I am starting to wonder if Ed “Strangler” Lewis and Joe Stecher wrestled three contests to a draw before Lewis beat Stecher in a fourth match. I am making answering this question one of my research goals this year.

Main Content

Sam Rachmann promoted the 1915 New York International Wrestling Tournament to try and replace Frank Gotch with Aleksander “Alex” Aberg. Fans filled the Manhattan Opera House for the spring tournament.

A disappointing finale and the waning novelty of a Greco-Roman wrestling tournament drove fans away from the fall tournament. To try and salvage the tournament, Sam Rachmann introduced catch-as-catch-can wrestling and lured a young Ed “Strangler” Lewis into the tournament.

Rachmann’s most successful gimmick was the introduction of a masked wrestler at ringside, the Masked Marvel. The Marvel was the first known masked wrestler in the United States.

The Masked Marvel sat at ringside challenging the wrestlers and building fan interest. Newspapers across the United States carried coverage of the Masked Marvel.

Eventually, Rachmann allowed the Masked Marvel into the tournament. The Masked Marvel defeated or drew with everyone for most of December 1915.

On December 20, 1915, the Masked Marvel wrestled Ed “Strangler” Lewis in a catch-as-catch-can wrestling match. Whether Lewis and the Marvel were working or shooting, Lewis crushed the Marvel. Lewis kept the Marvel on the mat until turning the Marvel’s back to the mat with a hammerlock. Lewis pinned the Masked Marvel in eleven minutes, thirty seconds in the one-sided match.

Lewis’s defeat of the Masked Marvel signaled the end of the Marvel’s contender status in the fall tournament.

Review

I review the “Whipper” Billy Watson versus Fritz Von Erich match from Buffalo, New York in 1957.

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