Jeffo Historical and Cultural Corner, Jeffo for UOTY 2017

[The Prizefighter]

Grazie mille per la risposta Jeff

[deadman3:16]

Jeff, chiedo anche se non so se c'entra del tutto.

Ma la storia di Lincoln che vince un incontro, ovviamente prima di diventare presidente, è una bufala creata per aumentare l'"epicità" del personaggio o è un fatto che si sa essere realmente accaduto?

[Jeff Hardy 18]

La storia di Lincoln è vera.
Devi tenere conto che fino al 1865 non esisteva il concetto di pro-wrestler, il wrestling era un intrattenimento durante le varie feste in determinati stati, quelli con una forte presenza di immigrati provenienti soprattutto da Irlanda o Inghilterra, dove questo tipo di divertimento era parecchio comune (tanto che il primo pro-wrestler è inglese, nel senso di persona che viveva solo lottando, William Richardson).
Lincoln era del Kentucky e in questo territorio era comune. Lincoln aveva la reputazione di essere un ottimo combattente, si parla di pochi incontri persi.

Presumo che te ti riferisca a quello che è il suo match più famoso, quello contro Jack Armostrong a New Salem, il match ci fu, le fonti più accredidate considerano quel match finito per pareggio, dovuta a un fallo di Armstrong.

Un altro incontro famoso fu quello con Lorenzo Dow Thompson, durante una guerra indiana attorno al 1840, Lincoln era il campione del suo regimento, ci fu un torneo lui vinse la sua porzione del torneo e affronto Thompson nella finale, dove perse.

In uno dei discorsi fatti per le sue elezioni viene citato questo suo passato, proprio per sottolineare come fosse la persona adatta a guidare il paese.
Una volta eletto per promuovere lo sport e il benessere fisico fece una dimostrazione di wrestling, un giornalista lo avvicinò per chiedergli se fosse finto. Di recente è stato trovato un articolo di giornale che parla di come il wrestling fosse "fake" risalente al 1840.

Anche George Washington era un wrestler.

Ovvio che fino appunto al 1865, quindi a personaggi come Col. James McLaughlin o William Muldoon il wrestling fosse appunto un passatempo e non una reale professione, fu in seguito alla guerra civile che tramite la New York Police Gazette, sponsorizzata da Richard K. Fox, si iniziò a considerare il wrestling più ad ampio respiro, quindi con cinture (la prima per come la consideriamo noi risale al 1870) e grandi incontri nelle arene/teatri.
Mentre in altri paese già in precedenza c'era questo concetto, sebbene in Europa si svolgevano vari tornei che assegnavano le cinture ai vincitori (per esempio a Londra si svolgeva ogni anno dal 1815 un torneo annuale, alcuni anni anche più di una volta all'anno in cui veniva appunto messa in palio una cintura per il vincitore, da cui risale il ruolo di William Richardson che ho citato prima), la tradizione dei tornei rimase soprattutto in Germania e Austria fino al 1970.
Una curiosità, anche in Italia si svolsero nell'era pre-fascista differenti tornei, uno dei più famosi si svolse il 16 febbraio 1909 a Milano, al teatro Dal Verme, evento sponsorizzato dalla Gazzetta dello Sport che incoronò come campione Giovanni Raichevich, il triestino che divenne l'icona di questo sport (andò anche negli US a sfidare Frank Gotch per il titolo del mondo).

[Nicolasblaze]

Diciamo che fino a Teddy Roosevelt era quasi usuale che i presidenti facessero un po' di grappling, oltre alla boxe. Roosevelt si allenava con i migliori wrestler del paese. Poi un po' i cambiamenti con il Gold-Dust Trio, un po' FDRoosevelt che era in carrozzella ed è stato commander in chief per vent'anni, e sono finiti i presidenti lottatori.

[Jeff Hardy 18]

Diciamo che da un lato sono un paio i fattori che vanno a incidere su questo, se il wrestling a cavallo tra '800 e '900 risulta essere lo sport nazionale, tanto che William Muldoon, finita la carriera diventa poliziotto e crea una palestra usando il wrestling (e il bodybuilding, visto che Muldoon è anche considerato uno dei pionieri di quest'altra disciplina, il che creerebbe un parallelo interessante sul rapporto wrestling/bodybuilding) per sponsorizzare il valore dell'attività fisica.

A inizio '900 l'ascesa di altri sport, come il baseball, il calo d'interesse verso il wrestling (con la nascita ufficiale del work tramite la Gold-Dust Trio) e la netta divisione tra la parte competitiva quindi l'uso della French Greco Roman per le Olimpiadi e la FILA e la parte staged, quindi il pro-wrestling, per fare una distinzione tra amateur e professional, porta a spostare questo sport al di fuori dei riflettori.
Infatti si tende spesso a considerare il wrestling fino agli anni '80 come il culto più nascosto degli US. Nel senso che per quanto muovesse enormi masse di persone, i grandi eventi muovevano sull'ordine delle 10.000 persone, non avevano attenzione mediatica, se non nei giornali locali o nelle riviste di settore.
Sebbene ci fu un'altra era d'oro, che coincide con l'arrivo delle TV, soprattutto la scena di Chicago divenne chiave negli anni '50 per la diffusione del pro-wrestling.

[Jeff Hardy 18]

Con questa prima pagina la Gazzetta superò per la prima volta le 100.000 copie di tiratura.

[deadman3:16]

Grazie mille, a Jeff come a Nicolas.
Non sapevo proprio niente del wrestling di quegli anni, che mi hanno sempre affascinato. Vedo di recuperarmi anche qualcosina di articoli di giornale e simili, che sono ancora più curioso.

[Jeff Hardy 18]

in quel caso ti consiglio questo sito che inserisce articoli vari suddivisi per anno:
https://classicwrestlingarticles.wordpress.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[deadman3:16]

Wow, è una miniera d'oro questo sito

Ancora grazie mille Jeff

[Joy Black]

Topic interessantissimo, complimenti! Aggiunto subito ai preferiti!

[Nicolasblaze]

Dagli archivi del New York Times, un pezzo del 1999 sulla crisi della musica rock. Che c'entra? C'entra, perché l'autore, Neil Strauss, dice che la soluzione è fare come la WWF - all'epoca fenomeno culturale assoluto.

What Rock Could Learn From the W.W.F.
By NEIL STRAUSSMARCH 28, 1999

ONE of the most telling moments in modern professional wrestling came during Wrestlemania XIV, last year's World Wrestling Federation event that featured not only Mike Tyson in the ring but also Gennifer Flowers. (''Everyone likes Gennifer Flowers,'' commented the announcer on her role as a timekeeper.)

During one match, Chyna -- a raven-haired woman with arms the size of barstools -- was handcuffed to a W.W.F. commissioner, forced to watch helplessly as her partner, Hunter Hearst Helmsley (known as H. H. H.), lay unconscious in the ring, being punched silly by Owen Hart. Out of nowhere, a handful of lye appeared in Chyna's gargantuan hand. She threw it in the eyes of the commissioner, blinding him, and dragged him to the ring, where she proceeded to crack Mr. Hart in the groin, thus winning the match for H. H. H.

In the slow-motion replay afterward, viewers watched the lye gradually, grain by grain, enter the eyes of the commissioner. Commenting on the blinding, the ringside announcers didn't see any rules being broken. ''This is a brilliant, brilliant maneuver!'' they exclaimed. Later in that same Wrestlemania, when Pete Rose (yes, the baseball player) was slammed head first onto the mat and hauled away on a stretcher, the commentators were just as glib. ''Watch Rose's head,'' they instructed gleefully during the slow-motion replay.

Some 19,000 people feasted on the carnage in the Fleet Center in Boston. Tickets sold out in about 90 seconds, making it the highest-grossing indoor show ever held in Boston. Another 700,000 people were watching on pay-per-view, landing the match on the service's list of the top five events and bringing total Wrestlemania XIV revenue to $24 million.

A music fan watching from the sidelines might wonder why rock bands aren't doing this well. After all, professional wrestling may be a macho soap opera incorporating pieces of Japanese anime, P. T. Barnum circus, cold war politics, ''Rocky'' movie, vaudeville, Shakespeare and lucha libre (masked Mexican wrestling). But at its heart it's a heavy-metal arena show. It's got the flash pots, the testosterone, the portentous music, the violent invective, the satanic mythology, the crotch grabs and the self-invented characters who speak in monosyllables. Before Vince McMahon turned wrestling into a theatrical spectacle, there was Kiss with its makeup, rocket-launching guitars and blood spitting. And the main thing professional wrestling has that Kiss doesn't is the illusion of violence and danger.

After all, the reason professional wrestling continues to grow since its reinvention in the 1980's is that it constantly finds new ways to up the violence and danger ante. Why just hit someone in the face when you can grab a folding chair from the audience and bash your opponent with that? Why simply body-slam someone when you can grab a ladder from under the stage and perform a flying drop from 10 feet in the air? Why stop at knocking out your opponent when you can bury him alive or stuff him in a coffin and set him on fire? All of these events took place -- and many times -- during wrestling matches last year.

Sure, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, the voodoo-loving New Orleans rhythm-and-blues singer (and a former boxing champion), used to appear on stage in a flaming coffin. But that was decades ago. Today, rock is having problems. Promoters say there are no new bands with members under 40 that can sell out stadiums the way wrestling can. Monster truck shows, on the other hand, have no problem selling out stadiums night after night. And monster truck shows don't even have real celebrities, as wrestling does: just unseen drivers like Gravedigger, who is basically loved because he takes his turns too fast and too tight and likes to drive through stadiums destroying props. There's that violence and danger again. And maybe that's what rock-and-roll needs.

Sports once had the problem rock did. Like rock-and-roll, sports events demand credibility: the game has to be real, the outcome just. Nobody likes a fixed game. Wrestling was once credible: even Abraham (Honest Abe) Lincoln served his time in several hundred wrestling matches in the mid-19th century. But then came Classy Freddie Blassie and Killer Kowalski in the 1950's, with larger-than-life personas, overblown moves like spinning airplane body slams and a love of cheating -- pulling hair, beating up referees, using canes and two-by-fours. Suddenly wrestling became the most popular sport on television.

Like traditional sports fans, music audiences like their stars to be real. Concepts of credibility and authenticity are important. Music fans create an intimate bond with a singer, who is somehow able to voice their feelings in song and make them feel that they are not alone in the world anymore. At a concert, all these loners and small cliques of friends come together and magically, for one night, they are a community. But maybe rock should take a tip from Vince McMahon and stop pretending to be so real all the time.

TODAY, rock-and-roll is in a huge decline; rap music, full of wrestling-type personas like Ol' Dirty Bastard and Big Punisher, is dominating the market. Many put the blame for this on alternative rock, and on its performers' insistence on keeping the music real by eschewing spectacle and performing concerts in which they stand still and wear everyday clothes.

But it's not all alternative rock's fault: in forming such deep personal relationships, music has fragmented into hundreds of sub-genres in order to satisfy every personality type. Those who worship violence must choose to identify with either heavy metal or hardcore rap, and if you choose heavy metal, then there is speed metal, black metal, hair metal, Christian metal and dozens of other spinoffs to choose from. Can't we just come together and share in something we all love, like violence and danger? By banking on the generation gap instead, rock only divides and limits its audience, while professional wrestling and monster truck shows rake in the cash because they are, believe it or not, family events.

What follows is a proposal to make music concerts big again, to take a tip from professional wrestling and monster truck shows and sell out stadiums. After all, professional wrestling stole its thunder from arena rock, so maybe it's time for rock to steal it back. A new tour, a battle of the bands, must be created. At every performance, there would be a routine of competitive contests interspersed with rock and rap theater. At these events, established performers would have to change their names slightly to become Mick (the Lip) Jagger, Dave (Madman) Matthews and the Great Big Punisher. On tour, they would join a new breed of battling rockers, guitarists like the Mad Axman and rappers like M. C. Kick-You-in-the-Head. Managers would become important characters, representing forces of evil who manipulate musicians to rock or rap harder and destroy one another.

Each monster rock show would open slowly, with local bands performing on either side of the theater in a contest to see who could play at the loudest volume and blast the other out of the stadium. Cheating tactics, like sabotaging each other's equipment, would be encouraged. For the second event, a Kenny G or Vanilla Ice impersonator would come on stage to perform, only to be crushed by a falling lighting rig or beaten up by a marauding rock band. Following that, there could be rap battles in which rhyming insults spur violent reactions from opponents. In another event, the stage would be set up with enough gear for one rock band. Yet three or four rock bands would be sent on stage to fight one another to get to the instruments. In the meantime, rappers would drive through the arena in monster trucks, firing guns at one another.

Music concerts already have their own built-in battles between good and evil, with concert security guards, police officers and picketing fundamentalists representing the dark side. Events could be choreographed in which security guards rush the stage and try to keep a band from playing, resulting in plenty of guitar bashing and microphone stand fencing. After all, every instrument on stage is a potential weapon: bands need to do more than just smash them after a concert. In the same way the wrestler Undertaker can summon lightning bolts from the sky to strike down innocent bystanders, lead singers need magical powers besides charisma. They need to be able to fly, see through people's clothes and shoot lasers through their gold teeth; this way they can come to the superheroic aid of an audience member being roughed up by a security guard.

Between events, the camera would take audience members backstage, where various bands could be seen feuding, fighting, doing drugs, destroying dressing rooms and entertaining groupies. This would culminate in a finale in which the headlining act went on stage to play, only to be continually attacked by the enemy it had been fighting with backstage. The enemy would come at the band, struggling to perform, with bulldozers, bombers and armies of right-wing Congressmen. Eventually, the enemy would be vanquished and the headlining band would perform a few victory songs full of pyrotechnics, leaving the audience exhilarated and the promoters millionaires.


EDIT: Pantalone non vuole che visitiate link sicuri. Ho corretto https in http.

[Jeff Hardy 18]

Ho da poco scoperto che esiste restaurato e con audio un match importante. 6 giugno 1930, Jim Londos conquista il primo titolo mondiale della sua carriera (arriverà a 7).

From "Atlanta Constitution" - June 7, 1930

One Fall Wins Match

20,000 ‘Gang’ Ring As Scrap Ends

PHILADELPHIA, June 6-(AP) Jim Londos, Greek grappler, defeated Dick Shikat, Philadelphia, in a one fall title match at the Phillies ball park tonight. Shikat, who had been recognized as worlds champion by the Pennsylvania and New York athletic commissions, weighed 217 pounds. Londos scaled 200.

Londos won the title with a body hold after they had tugged and hauled at each other for 1 hour and 23 minutes. The finish came suddenly and unexpectedly to many of the 20,000 who witnessed the bout, a moment after Shikat had sent Londos to the rain-soaked mat twice with body slams.

As the referee slapped Londos on the back indicating that the champion had been pinned, hundreds attempted to climb into the ring, and police rushed inside the ropes to keep the ring clear.

Up to the moment of the finish, there was little to choose between the grapplers. The tide of battle apparently changed from one to the other and after they started on the second hour there was nothing to indicate which way the match would end.

Both exhibited all the tricks of the wrestling game, and at times elbows, thumbs, feet and teeth were brought into play as well as the old rabbit punch.

In preliminary bouts, Tiny Roebuck, Indian grappler, threw Jack Washburn, Chicago, in 5 minutes, 44 seconds; Pat O’Shocker, Philadelphia, beat Ray Steele, California, in 16 minutes, 36 seconds with a back body hold, and Rudy Dusek, Omaha, won a 30-minute decision over Jim McMillen, Chicago.



Il match assegnava il primo NWA (Association non Alliance) World Title. Londos è una figura storica per il wrestling del periodo, dopo la morte di Frank Gotch nel 1917 il wrestling ebbe una lunga crisi che si risolverà solo con l'arrivo della TV, in questa fase intermedia Londos diventa uno dei pochi nomi a riuscire a spostare la gente, qui lo sentirete anche fare un promo post match.

Per capire la sua importanza, il 22 ottobre del 1933 ad Atene nel suo match contro Kola Kwariani fece registrare un record di pubblico di 110.000 persone (record annunciato, non si sanno i numeri reali), record che per intenderci è il terzo della storia del pro-wrestling le due date NJPW/WCW in Corea del Nord fecero rispettivamente 150.000 (la prima) e 190.000 (la seconda), ma possiamo dire il primo pubblico pagante e volontario ad assistere a un evento di pro-wrestling.

Qui un cinegiornale del match.



Parlando di attendance i numeri reali e i numeri annunciati spesso divergono, riporto le card annunciate come sopra 80.000:

NJPW/WCW Kollision In Korea Night 2, 29 aprile 1995: 190.000
NJPW/WCW Kollision In Korea Night 1, 28 aprile 1995: 150.000
Jim Londos/Kola Kwariani, 22 ottobre 1933: 110.000
WrestleMania 32, 3 aprile 2016: annunciato 101.763, numero reale 97.769
WrestleMania III, 29 marzo 1987: annunciato 93.173, numero reale tra 78 e 84 mila
WrestleMania 29, 7 aprile 2013: annunciato 80.676, numero reale ordine dei 76.000
SummerSlam 1992, 29 agosto 1992: annunciato 80.355, numero reale 78.927
WrestleMania 23, 1 aprile 2007: annunciato 80.103, numero reale 74.687

[jbl]

Jeff, posso postare la biografia di Colonel James H. McLaughlin da parte di Yohe?