Films and television shows based on combat sports such as boxing, wrestling, or martial arts or starring combat sports athletes.
In this episode, I discuss 19th Century professional wrestlers Andre Christol and Thiebaud Bauer plus review All Out 2021, AEW’s highest selling pay-per-view to date. Update Happy birthday, baby girl! Collar-and-Elbow wrestling is the most popular wrestling style in the 1870s but it’s popularity begins to wain towards the end of the decade. Fans start to want to see more […]
» Read more
In this episode, we discuss the careers of Jim Londos and Primo Carnera leading into a review of the 1950 wrestling match. Update We start off with an update about our recording schedule. One of the team is on the injured reserve, so we will be recording on Skype for the next several episodes. I have converted the majority of […]
» Read more
I recently discovered this film on YouTube. It is one of the rare Abbott and Costello films that I had not seen before. Besides Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, professional wrestlers “Wee Willie” Davis, Sammy Menacker, and Tor Johnson played parts in the film. The film opens with Abbott playing Bud Jones, a wrestling promoter, going over “the script” […]
» Read more
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) released Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) in November 1941. One of the later Thin Man films (affiliate link), the film contains interesting vignettes for wrestling fans. Nick Charles, played by William Powell, is pulled into a state investigation of a local gambling ring. Two local wrestling promoters run the gambling ring, which is art imitating life if […]
» Read more
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 […]
» Read more
On November 18, 1938, former world wrestling champion Jim Londos wrestled current world champion Bronko Nagurski, the great former football player for the Chicago Bears. The men wrestled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for Nagurski’s version of the world wrestling championship. You can view the 14-minute match in its entirety on YouTube. When I viewed the match for the first time, several […]
» Read more
Born Norman Edward Wescoatt in Hawaii on August 2, 1911, “Rusty” Wescoatt played football for the University of Hawaii before making his professional wrestling debut in Hawaii during 1933. Wescoatt was also a swimming champion. Wescoatt initially made more news for his swimming than his wrestling when he traveled to the continental United States in 1935. On Easter Sunday, April […]
» Read more
At nearly 70 years of age, Stanislaus Zbyszko made his film debut in Night and the City (1950). Billed as Gregorious, a retired wrestler and the father of London’s wrestling promoter, Zbyszko displayed his wrestling skills, even at his advanced age, in the film’s signature scene. The movie begins with a man chasing Harry Fabian, a London hustler always looking […]
» Read more
Joe Stecher capturing the world wrestling championship from Earl Caddock is the oldest professional wrestling film in existence. Tragically, promoters filmed the biggest matches of the 1910s and 1920s including the second Frank Gotch-Georg Hackenshmidt match, but they rotted in storage areas. Camera operators filmed Ed “Strangler” Lewis vs. Wayne “Big” Munn, Stecher vs. Stanislaus Zbyszko, and the reunification match […]
» Read more
Willard “Wild Bill” Longson was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 8, 1906 but spent most of his adult life in St. Louis, Missouri. After beginning his career as a professional wrestler in 1931, Longson found himself working for Tom Packs in St. Louis. Longson never really left as it would be his home base for the remainder […]
» Read more