Have we forgotten the Pioneers? (2024)

Everyone might laugh at me for admitting this, but the main reason I recognize all of these guys is because when I was kid, I was a hardcore reader of PWI. To this day I have a huge collection of old PWI magazines from the '80s (which my uncle gave me) and up to around 1998/1999. Now obviously for modern wrestling, those magazines were a joke and didn't inform you much of anything real, or what happened behind the scenes like the internet does nowadays, but when it comes to old school wrestling, pre-1950's wrestling, anything to do with PWI was invaluable to have. In particular the PWI Almanacs. I bought like the first 5 and studied them religiously (I've always been a history buff, so any subject I'm passionate about, I always study the history of it, just as I have music). I memorized dates, eras, and specific wrestlers.

And thus to this day, I can tell you a lot more about wrestling history then what's happening currently as I don't watch it nearly as much as I used to (that's why I don't post on here a whole lot, because when it comes to current wrestling, I simply can't keep up with most of you ).

But anyways, if you can pick your hand up on any of the PWI almanacs, you can probably find all kinds of history and info on all of these guys. Again for modern wrestling, PWI doesn't help, it informs you of none of the backstage stuff. But when it comes to old school wrestling, it's pretty accurate in how it chronicles it.

The first important guy on that list to know is probably either William Muldoon or Martin "Farmer" Burns. Both were some of the earliest stars of American professional wrestling, around in the late 1800's. I believe William Muldoon was possibly the first, or at least one of the earliest "world champions" in America. Martin "Farmer" Burns was a reknowed shooter, much like Frank Gotch, Ed "Strangler" Lewis and Lou Thesz would later become. In fact, I believe it was Martin Burns who trained Frank Gotch. Farmer Burns would often do stunts publicly like challenge fans at carnivals, and he was famous for tying ropes around his neck to see how long he could last hanging, just to prove how strong his neck was. He was a pretty strong and tough guy from what I've read.

Tom Jenkins was the next big star in American professional wrestling. He kind of took over I guess from William Muldoon and Martin Burns and was the top American pro wrestling star of the late 1800's/early 1900's. At the same time, George Hackenschmidt was becoming the top wrestler in the world, and ended up beating Tom Jenkins here in America for the world title, I believe. In the early 1900's sometime. Then Frank Gotch took Tom Jenkins' spot as the top American pro wrestler. Frank not only became to top wrestler, he also became the biggest sports celebrity of the 1900s (much like how Michael Jordan was in the '90s, or in wrestling how Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant were). The first huge, big time match was the famous match between Frank Gotch and George Hackenschmidt in the later 1900's (1907 or 1909 I think, don't remember the year).

Now keep in mind at this point, professional wrestling was very real. Matches were wrestled like amateur style wrestling or Greco-Roman wrestling and matches would often last hours before a pinfall finally occured. Wrestling was a legitimate sport for the most part, although there is some dispute that "staged matches" were already taking place as early as the late 1800's. But for the most part, the matches were real. George Hackenschmidt basically retired after losing to Frank Gotch, and by the early 1910's, Frank Gotch was done as well (he would die in 1917 of uremic poisoning at the age of 39, so he was also probably the earliest big named wrestler to die at a young age).

From there, Earl Caddock (who I believe also fought in World War I), Joe Stetcher, Stanislaus Zybysko, and John Pesek pretty much took over and were the top stars of the late 1910's/early 1920's.

Ed "Strangler" Lewis also became a star at this time, and by the mid 20's was the top star in wrestling. Ed "Strangler" Lewis is quite possibly the most important wrestler in pro wrestling history. Modern pro wrestling, everything about it, pretty much came from Ed Lewis, and the promotors Toots Mondt (who would later form the WWWF with Vince McMahon Sr.) and Billy Sandow. This trio was known as "The Gold Dust" trio (I've often wondered if that's where Vince McMahon got the name "Goldust" for Dustin Runnels).

The problem was that by the mid '20s fans were getting tired of wrestling. Wrestling matches were often boring and too long, because the matches were legitimate. People got bored watching two wrestlers hook each other on the mat for 3 hours at a time, which often happened. And promotors didn't like it because the matches often went past the curfews, which caused problems with the police.

So Ed, Toots, and Billy pretty much created the first wrestling promotion. They created the idea of promoting wrestling cards, rather than just a single match, by having undercard matches which built up to the "main event." They were the first wrestling "group" as they hired the same group of wrestlers that toured around the country and wrestled each other. While they probably didn't solely invent staged matches, they were the first promotors and wrestler to prominently feature them, and pretty much set the tone for professional wrestling being a staged form of entertainment, rather than a legitimate sporting contest. They also created "staged" feuds to create more interest from the fans. They even changed the style of wrestling matches from legitimate, amateur styled wrestling to the modern format of bumps, hits, and everything else you see now. Ed was so tough that no one could legitimately beat him. So he would sometimes lose on purpose, just so fans would be interested. And it worked.

By the '30s, Jim Londos (who had sort of an Italian-like gimmick, and who was a very popular babyface, especially with female fans) became a big name. He was kind of the first "heart-throb" star in wrestling, like a '30s version of Rick Martel, Shawn Michaels, or Rick Rude, or John Cena. Supposedly he was the first wrestler to use the sleeper hold, amongst other moves. He drew some of the biggest crowds during the '30s, an amazing feat, considering the country was in the middle of the Great Depression.

Of course Lou Thesz emerged as a top star and won his first world title in 1937. I'm sure everyone knows the story of Lou Thesz.

Ray Steele, "Wild" Bill Longson, and Ed Don George were also big stars during the '30s, although Ed Don George was a bigger star more in the early '30s, while Bill Longson was more of a star into the '40s.

Another big pro wrestling star of the late 30s/early '40s that wasn't mentioned on that list was Bronko Nagurski, who is considered one of the greatest football players in NFL history, and who is an NFL HOFer. He was also a great pro wrestler and a world champion at one point in the early '40s.

Orville Brown was a big time popular wrestler in the '40s and who was going to become the first champion of the newly formed NWA in 1948. However, he was in a car accident weeks before the match he was supposed to win the title in, and his career was ended. So Lou Thesz ended up becoming the champion, and the rest, as they say, is history.

That's pretty much a short history on most of those guys. Again a few of them my memory is foggy on so I missed some I think.

Anywhos, to answer the 2nd part of the post, why are these guys forgotten? It's simply time has passed them by, and they didn't benefit from the technology that wrestlers nowadays will benefit from in the future. And these guys were from a whole different era, where wrestling was a completely different thing from what it is now. It's difficult for fans of modern day wrestling probably to grasp the era of wrestling from the late 1800's to mid 1900's, because it was so different and such a long time ago. It's like modern day rock music fans who love bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Disturbed, Mudvayne, etc, probably couldn't name you a Bo Diddley, Little Richard, or Fats Domino song. Heck they may not even be able to tell you who Bo Diddley, Little Richard, or Fats Domino are. Because bands like Avenged Sevenfold are so much different than Little Richard, it's like night and day. Music has changed a lot in 50 years, so has pro wrestling. And everything else for that matter.

Unfortunately, the way our society works is that for the most part, history is often ignored and/or forgotten about. We live in such a fast-paced society where people are constantly looking for something new and fresh. Anything that was popular a week ago is passe and it's time for the next trend or big thing. People also tend to recognize what's familiar to them and what's of their era and time. Going back and studying older times is difficult for a lot of people. Because it's difficult to be interested. They think "how is it relevant to me now." And that it's just so different and weird often times, it's hard to identify and stay interested.

How many modern day people do you know that can sit back and watch a movie in black and white? Not many I know. At the same time I know lot's of people that just can't watch a movie in black and white. They often times can't explain why. Well, it's most likely because they identify so much with colored films and that it's difficult for them to grasp watching a movie in black and white. It's too weird and foreign.

And wrestlers of the early 1900's compared to wrestlers of the modern era of wrestling, it's the same thing. How could a Hulk Hogan fan also sit back and enjoy watching an Earl Caddock match? It'd be like watching something completely different and opposite.

But the real problem is that it's very difficult to get exposure to these guys. It's difficult to get WWE to acknowledge Lou Thesz, Bruno Sammartino, and Buddy Rogers, (big stars of the '50s and '60s), let alone William Muldoon, Tom Jenkins, and Frank Gotch (stars of the late 1800's/early 1900's). WWE, which is who most modern wrestling fans get their wrestling history perspective from, just doesn't acknowledge pro wrestling before the 1960's and 1970's, and that's largely because the promotion itself started and got going in those decades. The only stars from before that time that they acknowledge are wrestlers who wrestled in the WWWF/WWF terittory or were a part of it like Arnold Skaaland, Ernie Ladd, Freddie Blassie, Killer Kowalski, etc. So WWE simply doesn't do it's part as the #1 American pro wrestling promotion, and really the biggest access to pro wrestling history for fans, to exposing fans to the true origins of pro wrestling. Another problem is that these guys wrestled before videotape existed, so you can't watch any of their matches. It's difficult in that regard to learn about them, because we can't watch their wrestling styles in action, their workrates, what moves they used, their charisma levels, etc. So that's why WWE or someone really needs to do some documentaries, or publish some books or something about wrestlers of the '30s and before. These guys need to be discovered and learned about, and unless the fan specifically seeks the knowledge out, they're not going to get it.

I was lucky in that PWI helped expose me to all of these guys and to the beginnings of pro wrestling. There's really not an outlet to discover these guys nowadays, except maybe wikipedia.

I don't think wrestlers nowadays will suffer the same fate though, because communicative and media technology has improved so much in the last 100 years compared to what existed in the era of Frank Gotch. The most advanced thing they had in those days was newspapers and photography. Thankfully if we want to, we can go back and read old newspaper articles and look at pictures of these guys. But that's about all we have. Whereas nowadays, the historys and careers of guys like Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Rock, Ric Flair, Shawn Micheals, the Undertaker, Kurt Angle, etc. will be much more highly preserved for future generations to discover and study. There is videotape of these guys's matches and promos. There are documentaries and books about most of these guys. And if there isn't now, there will be. Technology is improving so much and WWE is stuch a stable company that it will be around to upgrade their video library to whatever method is popular 30-40 years from now, so the careers of these guys will be upgraded (such as whatever comes after DVDs and computers) to whatever format fans 30-40 years from now can watch and learn.

It's a real shame that YouTube, DVD's and the internet didn't exist in the time of Frank Gotch, George Hackenschmidt, or even Buddy Rogers and Verve Gagne. It will be much more difficult for fans of future generations (even harder than it is for our current generation) to learn about these guys.

That's why WWE or someone needs to come out now and focus on these guys so that the origins of wrestling history will not be laid to rest and forgotten about. It's important to know history. How can we understand the present and predict the future if we don't even know the past? That applies to pro wrestling and everything about the world in general.

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