Combat Sports Historian and Martial Artist
Posts about professional wrestling during the 1900s.
On Thursday, January 27, 1904, Tom Jenkins defended his American Wrestling Championship against an up-and-coming wrestler from Iowa. After the first fall, the fans realized it was the toughest match of the c Frank Alvin Gotch, the Humboldt, Iowa farm boy who would defeat Georg Hackenschmidt for the World Heavyweight Championship in 1908, was Jenkins’ challenger. Jenkins had defeated Gotch’s
In January 1921, Ad Santel started a minor controversy by claiming Ed “Strangler” Lewis was a better wrestler than the late Frank Gotch. Santel trained with both Gotch and Lewis, so he did have an insider’s knowledge. Was he right though? Gotch was the last Undisputed World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion. Gotch won the title by defeating the great Georg Hackenschmidt.
On Monday, December 13, 1920, Ed “Strangler” Lewis won the first of six World Heavyweight Wrestling Championships from Joe Stecher. The fact he won the title from his biggest rival and business enemy must have been particularly satisfying. A year before this match, Stecher and Lewis met in a match lasting over three hours. Lewis made a mental error in
When the 1915 New York International Wrestling Tournament restarted in October 1915, a mysterious masked man sat at ringside demanding an entry into the tournament. Prior to the masked man’s arrival, the tournament had been lightly attended. The attraction of the masked man sitting at ringside attracted both fan and newspaper interest. Crowds started showing up for the matches. After
In late 1902, Harvey Parker, a professional wrestler who began wrestling in 1900, travelled to St. Louis to challenge the local wrestling community. Parker may have thought St. Louis to be an easier town than “Farmer” Burns territory in Chicago and Iowa. However, Parker would discover two capable wrestler in St. Louis, George Baptiste and Oscar Wasem. By 1902, George
Estonia gave birth to three of the greatest wrestlers of the first two decades of the 20th Century: Georg Lurich, George Hackenschmidt and Aleksander “Alex” Aberg. As part of the Russian Empire at the time, Estonia contained a number of elementary and high schools with superior physical education programs. Lurich and Hackenschmidt both started out as weightlifters and transitioned into
On Saturday, November 25, 1899, St. Louis wrestling fans experienced a shock, when a visiting wrestler easily threw local champion Oscar Wasem in a little over 20 minutes. After the easy victory, fans smelled a rat, when the “Indianapolis Cyclone” spoke with a Lancashire accent. Oscar Wasem surpassed George Baptiste as St. Louis’ wrestling champion in the mid-1890s. Wasem possessed
The International Wrestling Tournament occurred in two phases between May 19, 1915 and December 31, 1915. Fifty wrestlers would compete in the first phase of the tournament including World Greco-Roman Champion Aleksander “Alex” Aberg. The second installment had 40 wrestlers including up and coming star Ed “Strangler” Lewis, who joined a month into the tournament on November 22, 1915. The
In the 1910s, American professional wrestling permanently moved from legitimate wrestling contests to prearranged exhibitions. Fan interest, promoter control and less wear and tear on the wrestlers all played a role in this transition. Another less talked about pressure was outside of the sport itself. Prior to the 20th Century, professional boxing was illegal in the United States. Bare knuckle
Paul Pons was a French Greco-Roman Wrestling Champion. He was good enough to give George Hackenschmidt a run for his money in several tournaments. However, when he came to Chicago in 1900, he was “defeated” by a local wrestler. The circumstances of the loss leave a lot to be desired. Paul Pons traveled to the United States in 1900. One