On this episode of the DragonKingKarl Classic Wrestling Show, host Karl Stern continues his look at wrestling history at Madison Square Garden in New York in the year 1931. He also continues his look back at Dave Meltzer’s epic biography on the life
On this edition of the DragonKingKarl Classic Wrestling Show, I take a look at a great retro article from a 1972 wrestling magazine asking whether Ed “Strangler” Lewis was the greatest wrestler of all time. I then continue taking a look at Dave
The pioneer era (pre-1900) of pro wrestling flourished in the Great Lakes area of the United States. While initially the Northeast, and especially New York and Vermont were early hotspots, cities like Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, and the entire Great Lakes region became very
WWE Today, wrestling historian Karl Stern returns with another in-depth look at a month in pro wrestling history. Karl looks back at April 1984 — and a lot was going on. The WWF was accelerating its national expansion by stealing the AWA’s TV
AEW On this episode of the DragonKingKarl Classic Wrestling Show, we hit on several different topics and listener favorites. We take a look at the next match in the Greatest Kayfabe Tournament: Sting vs. The Rock. We begin a massive biography on the
On this episode of the DragonKingKarl Classic Wrestling Show, I continue my 1000 Hours research on the pioneer era of wrestling. A sponsor of the show requested some research on wrestling in Russia before George Hackenschmidt. Interestingly, wrestling in Russia came relatively late in
This week pro wrestling historian Karl Stern takes a look at more wrestling history from Madison Square Garden in New York with more on Jim Londos as the world champion, the remaining bracket for the Greatest Kayfabe Tournament (GKT) is discussed, a 1980’s
Strongmen and pro wrestling go hand in hand. Who can forget the muscled up 1980s? Yet, the more things change, the more they stay the same. In the pioneer era of wrestling, your prototypical strongmen and bodybuilders were also featured alongside and inside
Welcome to a revamped edition of the DragonKingKarl Classic Wrestling Show, perhaps version 2.0 or a reboot or whatever you might like to call it. On this episode, I present the next match in my Greatest Kayfabe Tournament (GKT): Antonio Inoki vs. Steve
I mean, Barney Smith was probably dead under the best of circumstances. He went to the finals of American pro wrestling’s first-ever major championship tournament in 1870. But, as we have been researching for a long time now, there seemed to be no
