Wrestling Life, May 1957 and April 1960

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Wrestling Life v03n03 (1957-05.WAYLI)(D vs M).cbr
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Wrestling Life v05n12 (1960-04.WAYLI)(D vs M).cbr
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In a continued tour of the golden age of Wrestling, I've picked to post today two issues of Wrestling Life which began as a sister publication to Wrestling As You Like It, a magazine I've previously posted two issues of on blog posts on Gorgeous George (Wrestling As You Like It 1950-11-04 and Wrestling As You Like It 1954-07-10). Wrestling Life is monthly and 36 pages long, whereas Wrestling As You Like It, which I believe ceased publication at some point in 1955, was a mere 16 pages long and published weekly. The 1957 issue is approximately golden age comic-sized at 7 1/4 inches wide by 10 inches tall, and the 1960 issue has shrunk to digest-type size of 6 inches wide by 9 inches tall. The stock on both is a nice slick paper, and the dot matrix photos are a bit grainy, but well printed. Continued thanks to madman McCoy for both of tonight's edits. He's done a fantastic job with these, and the images closely represent the feel of the magazines.

I very much enjoy Wrestling Life, a classy production out of Chicago (with mostly local advertisements that give a nice portrait of Chicago-land restaurants/hotel/commerce in the 50s) with well-written articles on matches from the Chicago area and on the wrestling stars of the day. I'm going to go ahead and mix up my commentary on the two issues, because there is lots of overlap in subject matter.

Tonight's two issues have a number of articles that point to an aspect of wrestling that is none-too-PC but that's been central to much of the drama in wrestling since there has been wrestling (and indeed much of sport in general) and that is the centrality of racial and national identity in the stories that propel the sport. Ron Hall's most-excellent recent book on wrestling in Memphis, Sputnik, Masked Men, and Midgets (which I'll give more time to in my next post), points to what I'm talking about with his chapter title, "Krauts, Japs, Indians & Arabs." That is, that racial and national types have (and do) play a large role in wrestling soap operas. All varieties of stereotypes are used by both heroes and heels to incite fans to root for and against wrestlers and pack the stands. Farmer or Hillbilly types might swig on the moonshine, go barefoot, and sport overalls or bring a leashed-pig into the ring with them, while the proud Scottish wrestler might wear a kilt and be accompanied by bagpipes. Luchador types might wave the flag of La Raza in front of cheering Latinos and jeering rednecks while black wrestlers like Booker T might up the street-talk factor or put up a black fist. After World War II sneaky Japanese characters would chop the heroes while the ref wasn't looking, or Germanic types might gouge and punish beyond the limits of decency. While the high-minded might see all sorts of negative in the use of types, I think there might also be an honesty or at least a dialogue somewhere in this farce that is wholly refreshing or at the very least entertaining. And there is also some play with ethnicity and nationality that might confound or not be so easily categorized - like the Dudley Boyz, perhaps the most highly decorated tag team in pro wrestling, sharing the same traveling salesman father, though Bubba Ray is a pasty white and Devon is a dark shade of black. Or like Chavo Guerrero's turn in whiteface as golf cart-driving Kerwin White (which I thought was pretty funny).

Certainly, though, despite all the attention given to race and creed, if you go into a wrestling event's locker room, you will find a camaraderie among wrestlers perhaps unique in sport that speaks to how much of this show is kayfabe for the rubes, and, on some level, most of us rubes know it too. But on to some of these dirty, foreign villians, eh? In the current atmosphere of Islamaphobia, this first article might be a little hard to laugh at, but let's take a look at the lead story in the 1960 issue on The Sheik, the original cruel and underhanded Arab, who others like Abdullah the Butcher or the Iron Sheik (who I remember vividly from my childhood days of wrestling, tagging with Nikolai Volkoff - another imitator heel, I'll get to the original Nicoli in a minute) would copy in later years. Darren Aronofsky even uses an Ayatollah character as Mickey Rourke's foil in the great 2008 film, The Wrestler (which opens with spreads of wrestling magazines after my own heart)

Here's the article, guaranteed to rile the honor of the red-blooded American male. Why - that dirty dog would hit a woman!!! The Sheik sure looks lean and mean as a young man.


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This ornate pre-match ceremony very much reminds me of Gorgeous George's antics wherein his valet would spray the mat and George would make the crowd wait. I just recently came across a youtube clip of Ali talking about what he'd learned from George, and I think The Sheik might have emulated him a little, too.



But unlike George or Ali, The Sheik (real-name Ed Farhat, born in Michigan and WWII veteran) was not a talker, he would only yell (mock?) Arabic phrases in the ring and let his managers do the talking for him, he was a foreign menace, and his central contribution to wrestling was not even this Arabic persona gimmick but the brutality he brought to the ring. He'd sneak objects into the ring that often ended up being used on himself, and he'd push the limits as far as self-mutilation and punishment so much so that he's widely acknowledged as the forefather of what we now call "hardcore" wrestling. Many fans remember his fireball (some sulfurous substance stashed in his pants) that left more than one wrestler singed and fans coming back for more. His skills included promotion as well, and he ran a profitable NWA circuit out of Detroit with the "Big Time Wrestling" TV program from 1964-1980. After his popularity had waned in the states, The Sheik had great success in Canada and Japan as well where he wrestled his last match in 1998 after almost 50 years in the ring. My favorite story about Farhat comes from his page at obsessedwithwrestling.com where David Whiteis writes:

I always loved The Sheik as a kid, for the same reason I loved horror movies -- he was scary enough to be thrilling, yet just cartoon-ish enough to not cross the line into nightmare-inducing.

In more recent years, I've discovered a new reason to respect him. The following anecdote comes from a tribute to The Sheik that was posted on the website devoted to him:

"In a Texas arena, during those pre-civil rights era days, black fans were seated in a balcony behind chicken wire. Farhat got to the ring, and saw this seating setup. A very real-life Edward Farhat got very upset, and in full Sheik gimmick, he climbed up 15 feet and ripped down the wire.

"He got back in the ring and locked up with a shocked Brazil, who asked Farhat, 'What the hell did you do?' Sheik told Brazil that the local promoters were racist @$#$@$#s, and to hell with them. So the 'hated enemies' were in a clinch in the corner laughing at what a real-life Edward Farhat had done, and could get away with in the segregated South...simply because he did it as 'The Sheik.'

A few links for more on Farhat:

A great article by Steve Slagle at wrestlingmuseum.com on The Shiek and his legacy

A nice obit from the NYT on The Sheik

The Shiek's WWE Hall of Fame page

But if The Sheik might be the perfect heel in today's atmosphere of Islamaphobia, the cold war offered another set of likely villains, those dirty rooskies! The 1957 issue has a feature with Nicoli Volkoff and the 1960 issue has an article on the new tag team that Nicoli has formed with his brother, Boris. It's amazing how masterfully these guys play on cold war feelings. I'll post both articles, starting with the first. The editor's caution here that Wrestling Life doesn't want to provoke is a hoot, and I love the article title - sure to have the red-haters fuming:


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I'm tempted to try out the table back exercise as a move I've never tried before, but it does look pretty crazy. The editor's caution in printing this article acknowledging the disdain coming from the fans for Nicoli is backed up by a paragraph from the 1960 issue in the article "Why Wrestling is the World's Most Dangerous Sport," as at least one fan was riled to violence by Nicoli's act:



Indeed, baiting the fans was great box office but absolutely dangerous at the same time. I've seen many stories like this where fans have actually attacked heel wrestlers, crazy.

There's not much I can find out about the original Nicoli (real name Steve Gobrovovich) but he wrestled for a few years before striking it big with the idea of teaming with his "brother" Boris as an all-Russian tag team. Steve might have been Russian, maybe Croatian, and he came to team with Boris AKA Francis Zela, of Polish descent who was a Merchant Marine in WWII and who ran a bodybuilding gym where Bobo Brazil and Dick the Bruiser had trained. There's a bit more on Boris here at the Online World of Wrestling and more on both here on a Slam! Sports obituary for Zela. Here's the article from the 1960 issue that creates their back-story complete with denigrations of the state of U.S. society, fond remembrances of Russia, and purported ties to the Motherland. All especially funny in light of the bit on the Slam! page of how Nicoli would yell in Russian and Boris would respond in Polish, a profitable ruse all-around, heh heh, naive Amerikanskis


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One of the things I like about Wrestling Life are the ads for the Chicago eateries, this one in the 1957 issue instantly caught my eye.


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I'd never heard of Paul Bunyan, and this little photo had me wondering about who this enormous wrestler might be. I was pleased to find some photos of him in a pictorial later on in the issue which I'll put up in its entirety here.


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Incredulous at the vital statistics given for Paul Bunyan here and curious about his career, I did a little sleuthing and turned up some very interesting bits of biography about the big man who prior to his wrestling career worked in Hollywood (in Invaders from Mars and Killer Ape) and would later become an Evangelist. His height and weight seem to vary according to different sources, but he was so big I can understand how there'd be so much variance - you just don't have any perspective looking at a guy like that, he just dwarfs any and everybody around him. Palmer was stepfather to Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer who played 20 years for the Orioles. A few photos culled from the web.


I saw somewhere that he quit basketball because his size just made things too unfair.


From thetallestman.com, I'll give a link in a second.


From sideshowworld.com.


From lpcoverlover.com. More on the recording here. He didn't mind using his size to spread the gospel.


Again from thetallestman.com, I find this photo very romantic. I always think there's something awfully sweet about a couple so varied in size.

You can find more information and many more photos and articles on Palmer here at the tallestman.com. There's a handful of wrestling clippings there including a bit about a tag match with Palmer teamed with Sputnik Monroe against the Corsica brothers in a 1960 match at Ellis Auditorium that Bunyan and Sputnik would lose, unfathomable. I'll have some material in my next post on Sputnik Monroe who was really quite a character who is remembered very fondly here in Memphis. You can also see some personal remembrances of Ray Palmer here on a thread for some site pertaining to Clarksdale, Mississippi (I keep meaning to take a weekend trip down there for some blues sightseeing - The Crossroads, Riverside Hotel, Delta Blues Museum (which supposedly has Muddy Waters' Stovall Plantation cabin within), Dockery's Plantation, etc). Lastly, there's a bit of information on Bunyan here at obsessedwithwrestling.com.

Whew, I've been typing for hours on this little post, but I'll keep going. It's amazing how much there is to explore in even a single vintage magazine and how I get off on unexpected tangents, but I learn so much each time I post and I post so seldom I should make the most of it. One last article, a fun/disturbing one, on teaching your child how to defend themselves from perverts. Female wrestler Ada (Ash) Szasz introduces her daughter Joyce's self-defense lesson. There are a couple nice self-defense moves here. If I ever can find an affordable copy of the issue after this I'll make sure and get the continuation up.


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And lastly various images from the two issues. From the 1957 issue, the contents page. There is no contents page in the 1960 ish:


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Dick the Bruiser, a bad, bad man. The Ron Hall book I mentioned earlier has an article from the day after a match between Pat O'Connor and The Bruiser during which Dick was thrown from the ring and beat on some Memphis cops during the ensuing fracas and was arrested for disorderly conduct and assault and battery. He certainly was a sensation.

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Edouard Carpentier, a French Canadian who stunned crowds with his acrobatics.

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And a few misc. images from the 1960 issue. Dr. X! Oftentimes wrestlers might revitalize their career by donning a mask. Sometimes wrestlers would even wrestle twice at small venues, once with a mask and once without. Unmaskings could be major events filled with intrigue. This Dr. X was Bill Miller! There's an article on a Miller Brothers tag team in the 1957 issue, but I don't think that ever went over. Bill would return to life as a veterinarian after his wrestling career. The most famous masked wrestler of all time, The Destroyer (Dick Beyer), would later wrestle as Dr. X as well.


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Bearcat Wright says he won't shave his mustache until he gets married. Somebody should tell the guy it's easier to get a girl with a clean shave.

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I've never heard of these guys, but every Hoosier deserves a good beating, and these guys look like they could use one, nyuk nyuk.


Next time! Some arena publications from Texas, Sputnik comes to town! A god-damned Memphis hero.