In our last blog post I discussed my love of candy and how that love as intersected with a few of our projects over the last couple years. Today I wanted to bring up another of my passions, though unfortunately this has little to do with our work at Preservation Studios. Today I want to look at the history of professional wrestling in Buffalo.
Professional wrestling is a (sport, athletic display, entertainment spectacle) that dates back to the early nineteenth century with European circus troupes. Many troupes featured a strongman whose athletic feats were meant to awe the crowds. Some strongmen took things a step further, challenging audience members to knock them down for fixed sums.
In America the athletic displays presented in carnival wrestling tournaments were enlivened by carnival workers who created fictional back stories for the wrestlers often attributing great feats of strength and endurance to them. Many were also billed from exotic locals and grappling sheiks, hussars, and Cossacks toured the country after the Civil War.
In the 1920s professional wrestling underwent a major evolution with the development of the first wrestling promotions. Whereas earlier wrestling cards featured traveling carnival shows that pitted local grapplers against renowned traveling wrestlers like Frank Gotch and Martin Burns, the new promotions featured a roster of wrestlers who would stay in a territory for months and years, allowing for longer feuds between wrestlers and bigger payoffs for the fanbase.
By the 1950s the territory system was an engrained part of wrestling and the United States was divided up like fiefs by different major wrestling federations that were broadly governed under the National Wrestling Alliance (N.W.A.). The territory system thrived until the early 1980s when Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation (WWF now the WWE) started to spend heavily, drawing top wrestlers away from other promotions. In 1985 McMahon launched Wrestlemania, a massive closed circuit television extravaganza that featured a mix of nationally known wrestlers like Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, and Tito Santana and celebrities like Mr. T who wrestled with Hulk Hogan against Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff and Cindi Lauper who served as a cornerwoman for Wendi Richter in her fight for the WWF Woman's Championship. The event proved to be a major success and became a cornerstone in WWE's sustained dominance of professional wrestling.
Given professional wrestling's long history in America, of which I've only sketched a brief outline, it is unsurprising that Buffalo had an enthusiastic wrestling scene. During the 1910s and 1920s East Side residents packed the Broadway Auditorium to watch Polish grapplers like Wladek Zbyszko square off against wrestlers like George Sanders the Bavarian Tiger.
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| Wladek Zbyszko from Wikipedia.com |
Polish wrestlers unsurprisingly drew heavy crowds in the Broadway Auditorium and ethnic champions dominated many professional wrestling territories. In one show from 1929 two-thousand people watched Wladek Zbyszko battle Nino Darnoldi who was reputed as a former Italian cavalry officer. In the thirty minute match Zbyszko twice pinned Darnoldi utilizing a pair of flying snapmares to win the bout (read the full match breakdown below).
Other matches on the card featured Cowboy Jack Rodgers of Powder River, Montana battling Ned McGuire of Ireland and Renato Gardini, Champion of Italy against Karol Zahorski of Poland. The ethnic nature of many of these names reflects the period as each wrestler's mysterious origins were masterfully hyped before the show.
Wladek Zbyszko and his brother Stanislaus were both particularly beloved in Buffalo and their appearances packed houses. In addition to the Zbyszko brothers, wrestler Ed Don George dominated Buffalo in the 1930s and 1940s, proving to be the city's most popular draw as he battled the likes of Bulgarian Don Koloff, and Joe Malcewicz.
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| Stanislaus Zbyszko from Wikipedia.com |
The most interesting wrestling event I ran across in my search for Buffalo's professional wrestling history is a match between Gene Dubois and Terrible Ted. Gene Dubois was a French Canadian wrestler and Terrible Ted was a 600 pound black bear that Dubois had trained to wrestle. The match, as well as some useful commentary by wrestling experts Dave Meltzer and Jim Cornette is linked below and is worth watching.
The history of bears in wrestling is its own interesting topic, though wrestling bears were a sideshow attraction and never a regular part of the shows in Buffalo, the bout between Dubois and Terrible Ted shows the size of the crowds in Buffalo, though the audio is muted due to the commentary. Still you can see and hear enough to realize the popularity of professional wrestling in Buffalo.
https://youtu.be/3EH-fV9szTs
Though professional wrestling has lost much of the mainstream appeal it had in the 1980s and late 1990s it remains a fascinating historical subject matter for me. While Buffalo doesn't have the wrestling history of cities like Detroit, Memphis, or New York City, the Queen City did have a vibrant wrestling scene dominated by Polish strongmen and the occasional hardworking bear.
If you have any wrestling stories that you'd like to share, feel free to leave a comment on our Facebook page and thanks for reading.
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| Account of the Match between Zbyszko and Darnoldi |
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