BoxRec

Awesome!

Would've liked those rules for FMJ's last debacle. Would've been fairer.

I know for a time Rocky Marciano and Lou Thesz were in talks to fight---but wiser heads prevailed. As for this match, since Lewis was the last legitimate shooter to be world's champion--- I tend to believe he'd of beaten Dempsey fairly easy.

HomicideHenry wrote: ↑08 Jan 2019, 01:34 I know for a time Rocky Marciano and Lou Thesz were in talks to fight---but wiser heads prevailed. As for this match, since Lewis was the last legitimate shooter to be world's champion--- I tend to believe he'd of beaten Dempsey fairly easy.

Other than Ali, I wonder if anyone else actually did it?

If these rules had been employed in Ali's mixed fight with Onoki it might have been an interesting go.

I suspect that any good wrestler can get by the first few punches and then pin most prize fighters.

The Strangler was at one time a shoot wrestler but wasn't (legit) by the time he won) ("claimed the championship") by then he and the company he formed (The Gold Dust Trio) had already created the wrestling we know today (or at least were in the process of creating it.).

The Golden Age of Sport

Boxing: Jack Dempsey
Baseball: Babe Ruth
Football: Red Grange
Tennis: Bill Tilden
Golf: Bobby Jones

Lewis was never able to become a 'legend in his own time' (like the above mentioned); wrestling never had a 'great' champion and never made the big money that other sports of the 1920s did. I believe this bothered Lewis to no end.

He would challenge Dempsey once every two years or so just to keep his name in the papers and Dempsey and Kearns would be mensches about it and go along, pretending that they were considering taking the fight.

The post below shows Lewis making Dempsey a 5k guarantee (1922) with Kearns supposedly thinking it over. -- Dempsey would in the next year make $550,000 for the Firpo fight and a weak $250,000 for the Gibbons fight, so it's hard to believe they (Dempsey and Kearns) would really be considering taking such a match for a lousy 5k guarantee. It seems Kearns had an affection for The Strangler, (probably respected his promotional capabilities.)

The reason for that was simply because Lewis had been dominate for nearly twenty years and the novelty of an undefeated champion was more than worn thin--- for the first decade of his dominating career he was such a huge star and brought in ridiculous money and attention to the wrestling business.

But by the time of the Dempsey's and Ruth's, etc his star power faded because nobody believed he could be beaten. Hence WHY the Gold Dust Trio 99 years ago did the first (known) pre-determined Championship Wrestling match, losing to "Big" Wayne Munn.

The thought process was, have Munn win and go on a whirlwind tour and defend the title against Zybysko, who told the Gold Dust Trio he was willing to lose (in exchange for a shot at Lewis later on), and then Munn would lose the title to Lewis--- and there'd be all these subsequent rematches making big money for all involved.

Unfortunately, Zybysko pulled a double cross and easily defeated Munn--- which made people, for the first time ever, truly question the validity of the business. From that point on Wrestling was always in doubt.

Up until the 1930s it was thought that Wrestling "everywhere else but America" was on the up-and-up, but by the 1940s the business was now entirely scripted, with the exception of maybe South America because of the Gracie's feuding with Pro Wrestlers who still competed for real. The 20s was the last time real shooters held titles. Lewis's popularity in the 20s was only dwindling because he had been dominate for so long.

Hence the $5K offers to Dempsey, in relation to Dempsey's other purses. Then again, Dempsey as champion made a very comfortable living fighting exhibitions for $2,500-7,500 a week so if you think about it--- one match for $5K instead of a week of exhibitions--- wasn't too awful bad, even in 2019. I know many regional title holders, etc who wouldn't mind fighting a MMA guy for $5K just for craps and giggles.

HomicideHenry wrote: ↑09 Jan 2019, 04:10 The reason for that was simply because Lewis had been dominate for nearly twenty years and the novelty of an undefeated champion was more than worn thin--- for the first decade of his dominating career he was such a huge star and brought in ridiculous money and attention to the wrestling business.

But by the time of the Dempsey's and Ruth's, etc his star power faded because nobody believed he could be beaten. Hence WHY the Gold Dust Trio 99 years ago did the first (known) pre-determined Championship Wrestling match, losing to "Big" Wayne Munn.

The thought process was, have Munn win and go on a whirlwind tour and defend the title against Zybysko, who told the Gold Dust Trio he was willing to lose (in exchange for a shot at Lewis later on), and then Munn would lose the title to Lewis--- and there'd be all these subsequent rematches making big money for all involved.

Unfortunately, Zybysko pulled a double cross and easily defeated Munn--- which made people, for the first time ever, truly question the validity of the business. From that point on Wrestling was always in doubt.

Up until the 1930s it was thought that Wrestling "everywhere else but America" was on the up-and-up, but by the 1940s the business was now entirely scripted, with the exception of maybe South America because of the Gracie's feuding with Pro Wrestlers who still competed for real. The 20s was the last time real shooters held titles. Lewis's popularity in the 20s was only dwindling because he had been dominate for so long.

Hence the $5K offers to Dempsey, in relation to Dempsey's other purses. Then again, Dempsey as champion made a very comfortable living fighting exhibitions for $2,500-7,500 a week so if you think about it--- one match for $5K instead of a week of exhibitions--- wasn't too awful bad, even in 2019. I know many regional title holders, etc who wouldn't mind fighting a MMA guy for $5K just for craps and giggles.

Starting at the end, yea I can see your point picking up 5K for an easy exhibition would be temping, but I doubt The Strangler saw this as an exhibition.

The middle section regarding Munn I concur with, The Strangler walked away with egg on his face and wrestling took quite a hit in the newspapers. Stanislaus Zbyszko bragged about his double cross and exposed the whole racket as fake.

But I don't agree with your opening that Lewis was making big money and that his unbeatable prowess was why the fans stayed away. (He was very good and very hard to beat.)

Shoot wrestling (high school and college wrestling) can be boring to watch if you aren't emotionally invested in the competitors. It is actually a slow moving sport.

As Lewis and the other shoot wrestlers watched the 1920s role in they began to see the big gates baseball, football and especially boxing were bringing in and they wanted some.

They got so desperate for the big gates that by the early 1920s wrestling cards became three fold events. They would start with a body beautiful exhibition (a forerunner to the Mr. Universe body-building events) where the wrestlers (wearing briefs) would come out and pose (flex) for the audience. This was attempt to tap into the growing female attendance sports were occurring (especially boxing and tennis); it was sort of a soft male porn for the ladies. (The 1920s was full of porn and nudity.)

The body beautiful exhibitions were followed by "wrestling exhibitions" where the wrestlers would come out and display their best moves (and the fans understood they were exhibitions). This proved the most popular part of the evening with the fans. (If two wrestlers cooperate they can put on quite a display with some impressive action.) Then the night would finally end with the shoot wrestling.

Right from the start shoot wrestlers complained and resisted doing the exhibitions and promoters would only hire wrestlers willing to participate in the exhibitions (both the body beautiful and wrestling.) This caused a split in the sport and shoot wrestlers banded together refusing to wrestle for promoters that insisted on exhibitions. It was out of this split that Ed Lewis and Joe Stecher formed their revival promotional companies.

When did the shoots give way to an evening of all exhibitions (sold as wrestling) is impossible to say but by the time you get to the end of the 1920s I doubt there is any shoot wrestling left, that's making any serious money.

In short , it was The Gold Dust Trio along with a rival company run by Joe Stecher, that were the first to go all in with the wrestling exhibitions. They would never get their million dollar gate but Hulk Hogan would, they just needed to wait 60 years, but the product eventually did sell big.

What we don't know is: when Stanislaus Zbyszko double crossed Lewis was he trying to send a message from all shoot wrestlers; was he trying to exposed the fake to the public, or was he just working with rival Joe Stecher and just trying to undermine Ed Lewis; we don't know if Zbyszko was crooked or a purist. (He sold himself to the newspapers as a purist but he may have been taking from both sides.)

Stecher and Lewis would eventually make peace and work together trading the championship back and forth.

Ed Lewis was one of the great wrestlers of all time but he also gets a big part of the blame for making wrestling the "sport" it is today. But I understan, its got to hurt when you can pull in is 5,000 and Dempsey seats 126,000.

I think Zybysko, was sending a message. I think the message was, "Everyone else can be bought but not me." In the 50s he did a film called NIGHT AND THE CITY about the wrestling business, in part, and he gives this mournful speech in it about how the sport he loved became a circus sideshow with no integrity or genuineness.

As for Lewis--- and the amount of money he was making--- one would have to look at an inflation calculator and compare the yearly rates of current WWE performers to the amount of money he was getting per match.

From what I can tell, at the peak of his fame he needed a guaranteed $125,000 or else he wasn't competing--- sources say that he made a little over $3 million dollars by the time he retired, but then again he had 6,200 matches losing 33 of them in the course of 44 years.

Three million divided by 6,200 equates to an average purse of $48,387 so if we use an inflation calculator... $48K (1920) in 2018 money equates to $626,830.26 so Lewis was really racking up the cash.

Considering that WWE performers make six figures a YEAR... Lewis was making a killing as a wrestler when matches were more legitimate (match to match instead of promotional netting's).

Now, just for craps and giggles, $5K (1920) in today's world equates to $65,294.82 so that's pretty incredible, in retrospect, that Lewis was just throwing around fight offers with that kind of dough just laying around.

Interesting, I remember hearing about Sam McVea fighting in a mixed match. However in McVea's case the rules were not well thought out, and he just let the wrestler keep pinning until he tired, then won by KO.