Posts about martial arts history and concepts.
On Tuesday, June 3, 1924, up-and-coming wrestler Jim Browning challenged Taro Miyake in a mixed styles match in Nashville, Tennessee. Browning, a wrestler from Verona, Missouri recently left the Missouri-Kansas area to wrestle in Tennessee and Kentucky. The 21-year-old Browning was developing a reputation for solid wrestling. Browning impressed promoters so much in the 1920s that the promoters put the […]
» Read more
Taro Miyake originally came to prominence as a jiu jitsu expert fighting legitimate mixed styles contests with professional boxers and wrestlers. Miyake used the legitimate contests, most of which he won, to generate interest in jiu jitsu. Like many judo and jiu jitsu instructors, Miyake discovered how hard it was to make a sustainable income from martial arts instruction. Taro […]
» Read more
On Friday, November 27, 1891, former American Heavyweight Wrestling Champion Joe Acton wrestled future World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Bob Fitzsimmons in San Francisco, California. The men wrestled for a reported $1,000.00 purse. Acton usually gave up size to his opponent but Acton outweighed the 148-pound Fitzsimmons by seven pounds. The men wrestled a two-out-of-three falls match according to catch-as-catch-can wrestling […]
» Read more
When Wladek Zbyszko travelled from the United States to Brazil for a lucrative tour on Brazil’s well-developed professional wrestling circuit, Zbyszko little suspected that he would wrestle his first contest in almost twenty years. Like their American counterparts, Brazilian professional wrestlers worked with each other to put on exciting exhibitions for the fans. The Brazilian professional wrestlers occasionally wrestled a […]
» Read more
Before immigrating to the United States, Taro Miyake first settled in England. Miyake assisted Yukio Tani with establishing Judo and Jujitsu in England. Miyake and Tani challenged professional wrestlers to matches as part of their effort to establish their martial arts. Tani took part in challenge matches prior to the arrival of Miyake. Miyake grappled his first opponent, Tani himself, […]
» Read more
On October 20, 1916, Ad Santel, a noted “hooker” or skilled submission wrestler, met Taro Miyake, a Jujitsu black belt, in a mixed wrestling vs. jujitsu contest. After about 20 seconds, Santel secured a half-Nelson on Miyake, lifted him off the mat and slammed Miyake to the floor. The impact knocked Miyake senseless. Miyake’s seconds assisted him back to the […]
» Read more
I was recently honored to be a guest on The Martial Culture Podcast. Coach Rene Driefuss and Matt Peters were excellent hosts. I truly enjoyed my time on their podcast. We spoke about one of my books, Gotch vs. Hackenschmidt: The Matches That Made and Destroyed Legitimate American Professional Wrestling in particular. However, we spoke in general about the history […]
» Read more
From late 1921 to 1923, John Contos promoted professional wrestling in St. Louis, Missouri. However, Contos decided to leave promotion to focus on managing the career of budding star Dan Kolov. Prior to leaving St. Louis, Contos sold the promotion to Tom Packs, his nephew and assistant in the promotion. Packs’ first card was scheduled for Friday, January 4, 1924. […]
» Read more
An ad was printed in the January 16, 1921 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch advertising a mail order course on Jujitsu from Capt. Allan Smith. Capt. Smith was originally born in Scotland but was fascinated with demonstrations of Japanese Jujitsu (actually Judo) he saw in England. Smith traveled to Japan with a company and learned Judo reaching 1st degree […]
» Read more
On Thursday, January 30, 2020, Grandmaster Pat Weseman promoted me to 4th Dan in Taekwondo at the Advanced Class. When I started classes with Grandmaster Weseman and her husband Art, I did not foresee reaching this milestone. I originally started taking classes with my nephew Jim in Spring 1995. After getting married in 1996, I stopped taking classes for several […]
» Read more