Ultimate History of Pro Wrestling - A Time Line of Every Major Event in Pro Wrestling History - 1901
By: Karl Stern
Much of the text of this entry comes from issue 82 of the DragonKing Press Newsletter available as a downloadable .pdf in the digital downloads section.
1901
The Long Form History of Pro Wrestling podcast covers the years 1900-1903 on this episode - Click Here.
02-06-1901: New York City, NY at Madison Square Garden: Attendance: 7,000: Ernest Roeber battled Paul Pons to a draw. The match was stopped by the police at midnight. The newspaper reported that they believed the match to be “fixed”.
03-27-1901: Oscar Wasem defeated Frank Gotch in front of a crowd of 500 people in Burlington, IA at Turner Hall.
03-28-1901: In Buffalo, NY: at the Olympic: Dan McLeod beat Mort Henderson... Dan McLeod vs Jack Anderson (canceled feature)... Butch Saar beat Eddie Johnson ... Zangwalla beat Kid Leonard. Reported as “large crowd” though no attendance is given.
04-22-1901: Frank Gotch defeated J. Crow to win $100 and all gate receipts.
05-1901: Frank Gotch arrives in Alaska to tour the Yukon and begins wrestling under the name “Frank Kennedy”. Historian Mark Hewitt did an excellent summary of Frank Gotch in the Yukon in this article - http://jmanly.ejmas.com/articles/2001/jmanlyart_hewitt_0901.htm
05-07-1901: New York City, NY: Madison Square Garden: Attendance: 4,000: Nouroulah Hassan defeated Tom Jenkins… Nick Elliott battled Archie Martin to a draw… Hjalmar Lundin defeated Karl Schmidt… Billy Lawrence defeated Young Muldoon.
06-23-1901: Future wrestler and promoter Paul Jones (Andrew Lutziger) is born in Russia.
07-03-1901: In Buffalo, NY: July 3, 1901 at the Broadway Arsenal: Dan McLeod beat Tom Sharkey... Dennis Gallagher beat Eddie Bald. Attendance: 2,000.
07-05-1901: Tom Jenkins defeats Ernest Roeber to unify several “championship” recognitions in St. Louis.
07-09-1901: New York City, NY: Madison Square Garden: Attendance: 3,000+: Gus Ruhlin defeated Bob Fitzsimmons… Eddy Kelly defeated Charlie Wild… Harry Pininsky defeated Gus Walters… Karl Schmidt battled Nick Elliott to a draw.
08-13-1901: Frank Kennedy (Frank Gotch) defeated Alaskan champion Silas Archer for a supposed gate of $18,000.
08-19-1901: Ole Marsh defeated Frank Kennedy (Gotch) in Dawson City, Alaska. This is only Gotch’s third known loss since 1899. He now has a record of 44-3 if all matches are accounted for. Drawings of the match in the Klondike Semi-Weekly Nugget newspaper shows the men grappling on a stage corded off by at least two ropes and the men tumbling into an orchestra pit and landing on the musicians. According to the paper, the crowd thought the match to be fake.
09-13-1901: Ole Marsh again defeats Frank Kennedy (Gotch) in Dawson City, Alaska.
09-21-1901: Frank Kennedy (Gotch) wrestles a three style match series against Ole Marsh and an aged Col. James H. McLaughlin in Dawson City, Alaska. Gotch defeats McLaughlin in Cornish style. Ole Marsh then defeats Gotch in Catch-As-Catch-Can. Gotch defeats McLaughlin in Greco-Roman. Then Gotch finally defeats Marsh in Catch-As-Catch-Can.
09-25-1901: Frank Kennedy (Gotch) faces Paddy Slavin in a boxing match that ends in a second round DQ in Dawson City, Alaska.
10-01-1901: Frank Kennedy (Gotch) defeats Col. James H. McLaughlin in Dawson City, Alaska.
11-1901: Frank Kennedy (Gotch) returns to Iowa and resumes using the name Frank Gotch.
11-07-1901: Tom Jenkins defeats Dan McLeod to win the American title in Indianapolis, IN.
Bill Brown and George Hackenschmidt pose for a wrestling postcard.
11-1901: George Hackenschmidt wins tournaments in France, Germany, and Russia to become recognized at the first true World heavyweight champion. This is the championship that promotions, still to this day, try to tie their title lineage back to.
11-1901: One of the earliest known giants of pro wrestling: "The Giant of Montastruc" Jean-Pierre Mazas, passes away. The original “French Giant” wrestled from 1873 until 1878 when he was badly injured falling from a tree. His obituary said he stood 2.22 meters tall (7 foot 3). There is a French book about his life called The Giant of Montastruc.
12-17-1901: Grand Opera House, Burlington, IA: Frank Gotch defeated Oscar Wasem.
12-19-1901: George Hackenschmidt wins the European World Greco-Roman championship tournament.
Frank Gotch defeated Mike Eli in Iowa in two matches.
1901: Tag team matches are said to have their origins in San Francisco this year. It was said to be a gimmick by promoters to boost interest in their shows. Later in the 20th century, tag team wrestling is credited with beginning in Australia with many regional promotions calling tag team matches “Australian rules” tag team matches. This, however, was mainly just a gimmick idea dated back to the Fabulous Kangaroos tag team to give tag team matches a more exotic flavor.
1901 Newspaper drawing of Frank Gotch taking the orchestra pit bump.
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DragonKingKarl (Karl Stern) is a long time pro wrestling historian who has been published in books, newsletters, and podcasts since the mid-1990s.
The Ultimate History of Pro Wrestling Zone is Karl Stern's attempt to chronicle the entire history of pro wrestling and is a work in progress with hundreds of pages of text added each month.
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Pro wrestling history. The history of professional wrestling. Timeline of pro wrestling history.
