Welcome to yet another edition of Oldschool Updates, where we highlight noteworthy additions to the oldschool sections of the database from the previous week.
History Nugget
The GB Top-100 and Year End Awards are right around the corner. It is the time, where we celebrate the best, and most entertaining specimens to appear inside the squared circle during the year. Since we are in that mood, this week’s update will look at a “best-of”-list from 90 years ago.
The year is 1932, and John McIntosh was reminiscing about his first 15 years of putting on shows in El Paso’s Liberty Hall. McIntosh was born in Pittsburgh in 1886 but moved to Texas during his teenage years. There he found work as an engraver for El Paso newspapers, before turning to the promotion of sporting events – primarily wrestling. McIntosh would promote shows, with an occasional break, for 30 years and break in such stars as Yaqui Joe and Francisco Aguayo. Here is the best of the best, according to the El Paso wrestling czar:
Best drawing wrestler: Matty Matsuda who reigned supreme on El Paso mats for seven years.
Most scientific wrestler: Matty Matsuda
Toughest wrestler: Ed Lewis
[b]Wrestler who showed the most financial sportsmanship: Ed Lewis, who refused to take his guarantee when the house didn’t measure up to expectations
Wrestler who showed the most in-ring sportsmanship: Matty Matsuda who lost a lot of falls because he didn’t want to make the customers think he had won unfairly
Best showmen: Dutch Mantell and Joe Parelli
Best match: Joe Parelli vs Johnny Meyers from April 5, 1926
Biggest crowd: 4,500 to see Chris Jordan wrestle Matty Matsuda on March 3, 1920 (Newspapers reported the attendance at around 3,200)
Largest house (money-wise): The John Spellman – Gus Sonnenberg bout from March 5, 1930
Longest match: Chris Jordan vs Charlie Rentrop lasted from 9 pm. Until 2. Am. (This was an exaggeration, but the match did last more than 3 hours)
Roughest match: Billy Hallas vs Joe Parelli from January 20, 1931
Most promising youngster: Buck Jones
Best dressed: Matty Matsuda
Oldest wrestler who showed the most stuff: Wladek Zbyszko
Biggest wrestler to appear in El Paso: Wayne Munn
Most intestinal fortitude: Henry Jones who went through with a bout when he was shot full of “dope” to ease the pain of a bad injury
Cockiest wrestler: Wildcat Pete
Wrestler who lost his head easiest: Billy Hallas
Most uncalled for incident: Cal Farley tossing a young wrestler into the orchestra pit
Best hold ever shown: Matsuda’s flying mare
Richest wrestler: Jim Londos
Funniest incident: Ali Hassan hitting Joe Parelli over the head with his cane and spitting in his face
Best Jiu jitsu wrestler: Iota Shima
Strongest wrestler: Gus Kallio
Coolest wrestler: Billy Romanoff
Fastest wrestler: Billy Trout
Most freakish looking wrestler: Constantine Romanoff
Most perfectly built wrestler: George Kotsonaros
Ugliest wrestler: Bull Montana
Notable new and updated shows
San Francisco 1947
San Francisco is now as complete as possible for all the years 1947-1966. For whatever reason, the newspapers didn't really cover wrestling in 1946, even though it appears to have taken place weekly.
Notable stars: Frank Sexton, Ray Eckert, Bobby Bruns, Sandor Szabo, and Dr. Len Hall
Provo, Utah – 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, and 1956
A deep-dice into the fourth-largest city in the state of Utah. This city was part of the Salt Lake Wrestling Club territory which covered Utah and southern Idaho. It was a junior heavyweight territory featuring many of the same wrestlers who appeared in the Amarillo and Portland territories. Previously, we didn't have any cards for this territory for 1949, so this provides the location for some wrestlers who had career "gaps" for that year.
Notable stars: Kenny Mayne, Mike Nazarian, Treach Phillips, Gypsy Joe, and Roy Shire
1938 ongoing updates – Omaha and Grand Junction
Another update to our ongoing efforts to have the most complete database of wrestling happenings for the year 1938. The total amount of cards in the database for this year is now a staggering 11,666.
Notable stars: Joe Dusek, Olaf Swenson, Abe Kashey, John Pesek, and Earl Lacy
Shreveport 1931
Julius Siegel, brother of long-time Houston promoter Morris Siegel, was the promoter in Shreveport. He brough both light heavyweights as well as full-blown heavyweights to the Coliseum for weekly shows.
Notable stars: Hugh Nichols, Jack Humberto, Cyclone Fox, George Sauer, and Billy Edwards
Bremerton 1945
Far from the most prolific city on the Western Athletic Club circuit, Bremerton nevertheless presented some of the major stars of the era during the summer of 1945.
Notable stars: Lou Thesz, Seelie Samara, Earl McCready, Ted Christy, and Jim Londos
Notable profile updates
Added aliases to several wrestlers appearing in Louisiana in the early 1930s, like Silent Olsen, Roland Meeker, Jack Hagan, and Jimmy Simms
Three wrestlers passed milestones this week. Jack Donovan flew past 2,000 matches, while Abe Yourist and Buzz Jones both joined the 1,000 match fraternity.
Notable championship updates
The histories of the Intermountain Junior Heavyweight Title and Intermountain Tag Team Titles have been updated. |
