Due to restrictions on available footage, the "all-time" aspect of this project has somewhat of a defined beginning of around 1950 or so when the amount of footage exploded thanks to the advent of television in the US. Even more so with the Chicago archive going up recently.

 

This brings me to my two-part question: a) Are you going to bother to watch anything pre-1950's and Which wrestler(s) do you think are the earliest/oldest era guys you are willing to vote for based on the watching.

 

I began yesterday watching everything I could find pre-1950 starting with the Stecher/Caddock 1920 match. Since I really only bothered to watch clips that were at least 5 minutes+, I was able to finish this time period in one day. I've seen maybe six matches/sets of clips that I felt were long enough to make some sort of critique. The downside of that is really one one match of each guy was available so it still wasn't enough to be worth it in my opinion.

 

Then, I started watching the 1950's and and 60's, happening to start with a Buddy Rogers match and just followed the YouTube tunnel of his matches from there. Currently, I'm up to about 10 or 12 watched and he's really the first guy I've felt I've seen enough of to rank. Whether or not he'll make my list is yet to be determined, but he is nominated and a possibility.

 

I think Rogers and his contemporaries are the first group I would consider ranking: Thesz, Carpentier, Schmidt, Gagne, etc.

 

So after all of that it got me to thinking what PWO would think about this topic, so please share!

I'll probably watch some pre-1950s footage, depending on the wrestler. I'll definitely be checking out the Rogers, Thesz, O'Conner, and Gagne I can find from the 50s-70s.

If you're interested there are quite a few matches from the 1930s knocking around from when they'd show matches before motion pictures in the cinemas (a bit like when they'd show cartoons in the same slot).

 

Look up Ali Baba vs. Red Brannigan as a starting point, but there's probably more from the 1930s than there is from the 1960s. The 60s are a real dark period for wrestling on TV.

 

A month or so back I was talking about this with Kelly on a Titans recording during a break. He gave about a 20-minute lecture on the history of wrestling on TV which was amazing. I wish it had been recording! Maybe he can fill in some of that stuff here, because it's fascinating.

Parv,

 

Where is the 1930's stuff? I've looked on Youtube and found only a handful of matches. I mean, there were many