BoxRec

Stumbled across an old picture of Walcott and Thesz fighting what looked like a mixed match of some sort. Walcott has gloves on. I have never heard anything about this . Anyone have any info?

Thanks, I figured it was some kind of work . Im sure there were more of these types back in that era.

Watch out for the Lou Thesz press...that was hell.

I believe Walcott lost to Natureboy Buddy Rogers in a mixed match that was also a work. Speaking of Thesz, if you can find his book Hooker he had nothing good to say about boxers in regards to boxers vs wrestlers. He claimed that a boxer was just not any kind of competition for a good wrestler. He also ranted about how much he disliked Primo Carnera.

Decagon wrote:Some people will tell you that professional wrestling used to be real, back in the days of Gotch and Hackenschmidt. It never was. Even the Greco-Roman wrestling championships of the 19th century were fixed.

greco roman is awesome, i wrestled that out in nationals last year. got the shit kicked out of me haha :P

Im reading Gene Lebells autobiography . He says Thesz was the best grappler ever.

Professional wrestling was a LEGIT contest up until the early 1930's where crowds got bored with hours and hours of long matches---and they introduced time limits and added slams as well as illegal holds.

The show business aspect didn't really start until the late 30's to mid 40's, and even then a good 40% of the matches were legit contests.

Lou Thesz was already an accomplished Graeco-Roman wrestler and won recognition of the WORLD title, when there was just one title, after he was trained by arguably the greatest wrestler of all time Ed Lewis (who had 6,200 matches losing 33 of them, and only a handful of those loses were legit).

Even if it was a legit match up Walcott wouldn't have been able to defeat Thesz. Thesz was a master wrestler, and hell he competed up until his 70's even though by that time it was already more show-business than anything else.

Thesz would have made mine meat out of Walcott and Carnera, who later became a huge wrestling attraction on his name alone as a former Heavyweight champion---and was, as he was in boxing, exaggerated to be 6'8" and taller.

Boxers are limited to punches---a wrestler can grab you anywhere, especially if it is an accomplished athlete like Thesz was---and wouldnt be going anywhere but on ur back for the pin.

First off....

Hackenschmidt-Gotch matches were what made people less respect wrestling because GOTCH had hired a shooter/ringer to go into Hackenschmidt's training camp and injure the "Russian Lion".

When this broke out the public were disguated with professional wrestling.

Hell most sports were rigged and fixed back then, hell alot of em still are today. Professional football was full of ringers and predetermined winners, and new rules added so it was more interesting.

So was boxing. Look at what the mob did to LaMotta when he faced Billy Fox. Look even further back when football player/professional wrestler "Big" Wayne Munn faced Frank Moran----the promoters, not Munn, wanted Moran, who was well known to take dives to take a fall for Munn.

Moran changed his mind once he got in the ring and blew away Munn. Hell look at baseball and many pros using corked bats---when back in Babe Ruth's time the Babe swung gigantic ball bats that even Mark McGwire and a few other major leaguers today couldnt swing good with.

It wasn't so much about bets...but the Depression came about and most sports suffered for it, especially wrestling---cus as a legit contest with hours and hours of long matches---nobody wanted to pay to see a boring show.

How the hell you think Jack Dempsey got so popular? Cus he knocked people out. Babe Ruth was famous too, cus he hit homeruns. Red Grange was famous cus he scored touch downs.

Nobody wanted to pay to see someone get somebody in a half nelson for 20 mins at a time---so they added time limits and added new moves.

Sure the concept of a character wrestler goes back to the 1800's, as foreign wrestlers came to work in traveling circuses and would wear Viking costumes---and YES carnivals was the start of fake wrestling---as YES there was bets on who could last 10 mins or w/e with the wrestler.

And if the "hometown boy" was getting over on the wrestler, yes a man behind the tent would prolly hit the man with a two by four---but up until the early 1940's---a good 40% of the matches were legit.

Now there is rarely ever a "shoot", because wrestling, at least the entertainment part, has become the ART rather than the wrestling.

Lou Thesz was the LAST of the true wrestling champions...but even in his time, yes there was scripted matches. But Thez was a very skilled wrestler, and he did win his title legit.

Such as the case of Ed "Strangler" Lewis, whose wrestling ability was so great, that promoters literally had to beg him to lose---cus fans were tired of watching Lewis, cus he was undefeated for many years. So the first fake loss in his career was to none other than "Big" Wayne Munn, who I mentioned earlier.

Lewis would "lose" from time to time, 33 losses in all in a 6,200 bout career, losing legit only a handful of times to other real athletes skilled in graeco-roman and catch-as-catch-can style.

And as far as wrestling being like religion....your analogy sucks. Sports and theology is two different things all together.