Frank Gotch

What did the guys think? Because we'll talk about who took over for him for a short period of time in a second, but what was the viewpoint of the guys? My God, he's gone.

They'd never known anything in the Carolinas in the way of wrestling since the days of Frank Gotch.

But Jim Crockett, did the guys think, oh, there's going to be trouble, or did they think, oh, the office will keep going? Well, I don't

know.

But over the period of time, as the television got more important and it started being more important to have regular talent on the cards and you, it started to form, they systematically, and this happened all over the country, the big guys that were in charge either went in and bought out, took over, or ran off the other local promoters or made them employees and, uh, ended up being the big bosses.

But there was alw- that's why Hen- Henry Marcus in Columbia, South Carolina, was in the building when Frank Gotch came through.

But he was still there until TBS bought Crockett out, because it was Henry Marcus, and it was, by God, Columbia.

That was his town, Old High Pockets.

Happy to be here.

So what I thought we would do since this episode is going to be released on Labor Day and it's the 150th episode, even though I've kind of talked about it in the past, I was going to review the second Gotch versus Hackenschmidt match, which was held on Labor Day 1911 because there's just still so much information that's not

accurate

about that match.

No, we can get right into it.

All right.

So, and I know I probably talked about this with you, uh, years ago, but there's probably new listeners and they might not have gone back to listen to the first episode about the two matches between Hawk, George Hackenschmidt and Frank Gotch or Gotch versus

Hack.

[laughs]

Like, does it mean the greatest attraction, the most famous, the greatest in-ring worker? What does that even mean? Like, there's a mill- like, what are we saying? How could you compare Hulk Hogan to, like, Frank Gotch and to Bryan Danielson? Like, how in the world is that even a question? So I just, I, I run from questions like that.

I don't know.

I would say, though, it's match of the year for sure.

So Evan Lewis was in a class by himself when it came to his mean and nastiness.

Frank Gotch could do similar things, but not to that level.

And he always cheated.

So Frank Gotch's cheating would be palm strikes to his opponent or raking their eyes or, you know, he didn't really outright punch anybody because that would have got him disqualified.

But he would do little stuff like kneeing the opponent when he had the opportunity.

Just little dirty tactics.

And Pardello versus Parr could have been a work as well.

Pardello was a very skilled Italian wrestler.

You definitely get that when Narullah Hassan shows up.

And really, it took the rise of Frank Gotch several, really several years removed from The Turkish Invasion for North American wrestling to really recover from The Turkish Invasion and for a North American wrestler to be seen as a champion worthy of the title of a world heavyweight champion.

So, as I was researching Highland Games and Hippodromes, it just, it just smacks you in the face.

And I said, "Well, what an interesting topic," and I don't think this has really been covered, at least not in the English language, from start to finish.

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And the two wrestlers would have a match with a predetermined outcome based on whatever, you know, wrestling was in vogue at the time, be it collar and elbow or Greco-Roman or catch-as-catch-can or any number of the folk styles of wrestling.

Eventually, they all kind of merged into this.

By the time of Frank Gotch, they've all, they call it catch-as-catch-can wrestling, but it's all a combination of those.

They would do a collar and elbow lockup and then proceed to do Greco-Roman holds and catch-as-catch-can holds as well.

Yeah.

Um, I mean like Frank gotch,

you know, I mean

like he, he revolutionized wrestling and created amateur wrestling essentially in the U S kind of, uh, provided a model for sportsmen for the future, uh, So that would be, I guess, an answer from history.