吉姆·布朗寧在家鄉出演

維羅納, 密蘇里州是密蘇里州西南部的一個小鎮. 永不超過 900 歷史上的居民, only 438 大約有人把維羅納稱為家 1926. 但, 週一在鎮上舉行了職業摔跤卡, 三月 22, 1926.

沒有廣泛使用汽車或為處理它們而建造的道路, 旅行將是非常困難的 1926. Assuming you could only draw wrestling fans from Lawrence County, where Verona was located, the promoter had a pool of 24,000 fans to draw from.

The card was a success though as the Springfield News-Leader described a large crowd attending the matches. 吉姆布朗寧, a future world wrestling champion, was the main reason for the success of the card.

Browning was born in an unincorporated area of Lawrence County, 密蘇里州, known as Verona on March 31, 1903. By the time Browning was in his teens, Verona had been incorporated into a town around 1916.

布朗寧, who weighed around 215 英鎊, developed into a wrestler of some ability. To further his skill set, Browning moved to Emporia, Kansas in 1920 for professional wrestling training.

Browning started professional wrestling in 1923 and secured matches with some of the top wrestlers of the time: 斯坦尼斯Zbyszko, John Pesek and Dick Daviscourt.

In one of his early matches, Browning scored a disqualification victory over former world champion Zbyszko. Promoters obviously saw significant potential in Browning.

在 1923, Browning started wrestling for George Hillis, a Springfield, Missouri based promoter, who promoted wrestling matches in southwest Missouri. The arrangement allowed Browning to move back to his hometown.

通常, moving to such a small town would be a handicap for a professional wrestling career before widespread airplane travel was available. Since Springfield connected to St. 路易, Missouri by train, Browning was also within reasonable travelling distance to transportation hubs in St. Louis and Kansas City.

On the March 22, 1926 card, Browning was supposed to wrestle frequent world title challenger Dick Daviscourt. 然而, Daviscourt was pulled from the card to wrestle current world title claimant Joe Stecher 在紐約市.

Fans still turned out to see Browning wrestle lesser-known Jake Yonsko. Browning made Yonsko look good by dropping the first fall to Yonsko in 7 分鐘, 10 秒. Yonsko secured the pin of Browning with a headlock.

Yonsko didn’t get any more offense after the first fall. Browning used a crotch hold to pin Yonsko in only four minutes to end the second fall. The third fall was even shorter. Browning pinned Yonsko in 1 minute, 10 seconds with a headlock and arm scissors.

The undercard was two matches featuring local wrestlers. Browning was the only significant name on the card but the crowd left the venue pleased with the night’s action.

維羅納, Missouri was an odd location for a professional wrestling card but if you had good wrestler people wanted to see, you could successfully promote professional wrestling in smaller towns and venues. Without a star people wanted to support, you were risking a financial disaster.

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Sources: The Springfield Leader and Press, 十一月 7, 1923 版, P. 14 和 The Springfield News-Leader, 十二月 18, 1923 版, P. 5 and March 24, 1926 版, P. 5

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