1948 in professional wrestling

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1948 in professional wrestling describes the year's events in the world of professional wrestling.

Video 1948 in professional wrestling

Champions

As of January 1, 1948.

National Wrestling Association

• NWA World Heavyweight Championship: Bill Longson
• NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship: Leroy McGuirk
• NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship: Jack Curtis
• NWA World Middleweight Championship: Gory Guerrero
• NWA World Welterweight Championship: Jack O'Brien

Other champions

Canada

• Foothills Athletic Club
  • NWA Canadian Heavyweight Championship (Calgary version): Al Mills
• Maple Leaf Wrestling
  • NWA British Empire Heavyweight Championship (Toronto version): Vacant
• Montreal Athletic Commission
  • MAC World Heavyweight Championship: Yvon Robert

Mexico

• Empresa Mexicana de la Lucha Libre
  • Mexican National Heavyweight Championship: Firpo Segura
  • Mexican National Lightweight Championship: Emilio Charles
  • Mexican National Middleweight Championship: N/A
  • Mexican National Welterweight Championship: Vacant

United States

• American Wrestling Association
  • AWA World Heavyweight Championship (Boston version): Frank Sexton
• Gulas-Welch Wrestling Enterprises Inc.
  • NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship (Mid-America version): Herb Welch
  • NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship (Mid-America version): Mike Chacoma
  • NWA Mexican Junior Heavyweight Championship (Mid-America version): Don Cortez
  • NWA Southern Tag Team Championship (Mid-America version): Paul Stanlee and Jack Welch
• John J. Doyle Enterprises
  • NWA World Heavyweight Championship (Los Angeles version): Enrique Torres
• Midwest Wrestling Association
  • MWA World Heavyweight Championship: Orville Brown
  • MWA Junior Heavyweight Championship: Johnny Demchuck
• Minneapolis Boxing & Wrestling Club
  • NWA World Heavyweight Championship (Minneapolis version): Sandor Szabo
• Mid-Pacific Promotions
  • NWA Hawaii Heavyweight Championship: Ted Travis
• NWA San Francisco
  • NWA Pacific Coast Heavyweight Championship (San Francisco version): Billy Hanson
• Pacific Coast Wrestling
  • Pacific Coast Light Heavyweight Championship: Billy Hickson
  • Pacific Coast Junior Heavyweight Championship: Frank Stojack
• Southwest Sports, Inc.
  • NWA Texas Heavyweight Championship: Miguel Guzmán

Other

• British Wrestling Association
  • British Heavyweight Championship: Bert Assirati
• Dominion Wrestling Union
  • New Zealand Heavyweight Championship: Lofty Blomfield

Maps 1948 in professional wrestling

Awards and honors

• Luchador of the Year
  • Tarzán López (Mexico)

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Supercards and tournaments

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Events

January-April

• January 22 - Dory Funk, Sr. makes his first appearance in Amarillo, Texas defeating George Lopez at the Fairgrounds Arena. The young wrestler became a major star in the area and eventually established the NWA's Amarillo territory with Doc Sarpolis in 1955.
• January 13 - Ray Eckert defeats Billy Hanson for the NWA Pacific Coast Heavyweight Championship in San Francisco. Eckert's first title reign lasts only seven weeks before losing the belt back to Hanson. Eckert would go on to hold the title eight times between 1948 and 1953.
• January 20 - Gypsy Joe Dorsetti wins the Pacific Coast Light Heavyweight Championship from Billy Hickson in Eugene, Oregon.
• January 28 - Ed "Strangler" Lewis wrestles his final match in Honolulu, Hawaii against Butch Levy, which Lewis won. Lewis was originally scheduled to face Jack Sherry, a one-time claimant for the Original World Heavyweight Championship, but the match was cancelled at the last minute when his opponent failed to appear. Lewis had defeated Sherry fifteen years earlier at Madison Square Garden for the New York State Athletic Commission World Heavyweight Championship cementing Lewis' claim to the World Championship.
• January 30 - Yukon Eric wins his first singles title by defeating Sonny Myers for the NWA Texas Heavyweight Championship.
• March 12 - Blue Demon, trained by Rolando Vera, makes his pro debut against Chema Lopez, which he won.
• March 19 - The 1948 NCAA Wrestling Tournament is held at Lehigh University. Dick Hutton (Oklahoma) won the heavyweight division title while Verne Gagne (Minnesota) and Bob Geigel (Iowa), in the 191 pounds (87 kg) weight division, finished first and third place respectively. Michael DiBiase (Oklahoma) also competed as a heavyweight but was eliminated in the first round.
• March 23
  • Bronko Nagurski wins the Minneapolis Boxing & Wrestling Club's version of the NWA World Heavyweight Championship from Sandor Szabo. Nagurski drops the belt back to Szabo ten weeks later.
  • Gordon Hessel defeats Gypsy Joe Dorsetti for the Pacific Coast Light Heavyweight Championship. Hessel's first and only title reign comes to an end by Tex Hager later that year.
• April:
  • Calgary wrestling promoter Darby Melnick is bought out by Larry Tillman and Jerry Meeker's Foothills Athletic Club. Melnick, who taken control of the city from Josef Zabaw in 1944, was facing a possible jail sentence and desperate to sell his wrestling operation.
  • Roy McClarty makes his pro debut in Minneapolis.
• April 21 - In his last-recorded match, Danno O'Mahony is defeated by Lou Thesz at the Montreal Forum. The former world champion subsequently goes into retirement and returns to his native Ireland a year later.

May-August

• May 2 - Lee Grable defeats Ted Travis for the NWA Hawaii Heavyweight Championship in Honolulu.
• May 6 - Killer Kowalski makes his pro debut against Dean Rockwell in Windsor, Ontario.
• May 7 - Danny McShain wins the NWA Texas Heavyweight Championship from Miguel Guzmán in Houston, Texas. Though his first championship reign lasts only a month, McShain would hold the title ten times between in 1948 and 1960.
• June - Ray Gunkel makes his professional debut in Indianapolis. A two-time Amateur Athletic Union national champion, he had narrowly missed a spot on the 1948 U.S. Olympic Wrestling team.
• June 4 - Longtime St. Louis promoter Tom Packs holds his final show at the Kiel Auditorium. He subsequently sells his interests in the world title to Lou Thesz, Bill Longson, Eddie Quinn and Frank Tunney. Thesz is able to make peace with rival promoter Sam Muchnick the following year officially ending a decade long promotional war.
• June 22 - Cliff Gustafson regains the Minneapolis Boxing & Wrestling Club's version of the NWA World Heavyweight Championship from Sandor Szabo in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Gustafson remains champion until his retirement a year later.
• July 10 - Lou Thesz defeats Bill Longson in Indianapolis, Indiana to win the World Heavyweight Championship. He is the National Wrestling Association's final champion as the title is unified with the newly formed National Wrestling Alliance's version the following year.
• July 18 - Pinky George (Des Moines), Wally Karbo (Minneapolis), Sam Muchnick (St. Louis), Orville Brown (Kansas City), Max Clayton (Omaha), and Al Haft (Columbus) meet at the President Hotel in Waterloo, Iowa to form the National Wrestling Alliance. George was named the organization's first president while Orville Brown was subsequently recognized as the first NWA World Heavyweight Champion. Billy Goelz was named the first NWA World Junior Heavyweight Champion.
• July 29
  • The 1948 Summer Olympics is held in London, United Kingdom. A number of future wrestling stars take part in the event including Karl Gotch (Belgium), Bronko Lubich and Maurice Vachon (Canada), Edouard Carpentier (France), and Harold Sakata (US). NCAA champions Dick Hutton and Verne Gagne were also at the event but only Hutton competed. Pat O'Connor represented New Zealand in the Pan American Games.
  • Antonino Rocca is brought the United States by Nick Elitch, making his official U.S. debut in Galveston, Texas, where he becomes a major star in Southwest Sports, Inc.. He feuds with Danny McShain over the NWA Texas Heavyweight Championship, twice winning the title that year, before leaving the territory to work for New York City promoter Toots Mondt.
• July 30 - Professional wrestling is aired on prime-time television for the first time by the DuMont Network. Dumont Wrestling was hosted by Dennis James at various New York arenas on Mondays and Jack Brickhaus from Marigold Gardens in Chicago on Friday nights. By the end of the year, pro wrestling was a weekly feature on three of the four national television networks. This first "Golden Age of Wrestling" in the U.S. would last from until 1955.
• August 8 - After a three-month reign, Lee Grable loses the NWA Hawaii Heavyweight Championship to Hisao Tanaka.
• August 13 - George Hackenschmidt serves as a judge at the 1948 Mr. Universe competition in London.

September-December

• September - Chief Don Eagle returns to pro wrestling after a two-year boxing career under manager Jack Kearns. A regular fighter at the Marigold Arena, Eagle's popularity as a boxer led him become a major star in Chicago.
• September 2 - Chicago promoter Fred Kohler begins the Wrestling As You Like It (WAYLI) newsletter. Its popularity inspires a wave of similar publications continuing for several decades.
• September 11 - Klondike Wrestling holds its first show at the Sales Pavilion in Edmonton, Alberta.
• September 14 - George Bollas makes his debut as the masked wrestler The Zebra Kid in San Diego, California where he defeats Mike Mihalakis.
• September 18 - Bill Verna wrestled in the main event at a show at Happy World Stadium in Singapore. In the sixth round, he was knocked out by Dara Singh.
• September 25 - The first annual NWA Convention is hosted by Tony Stecher at the Dyckman Hotel in Minneapolis. Joining the attendees from the original Waterloo meeting are Frankie Talaber (representing Columbus promoter Al Haft) and Bert Ruby (representing Detroit promoter Harry Light).
• October 13 - After being trained by former Olympian Ed Don George, Johnny Barend makes his professional debut at the Edgerton Park Sports Arena for George's Upstate Athletic Club.
• October 26 - Billy Darnell defeats "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers, a childhood friend, in San Diego for promoter Jack Pfefer's version of the World Heavyweight Championship. He lost the belt to The Demon at the Hollywood Legion Stadium six weeks later.
• October 31 - Jack Claybourne, an NWA Negro Heavyweight and Light Heavyweight Champion, defeats Hisao Tanaka for the NWA Hawaii Heavyweight Championship.
• November 24 - Yvon Robert successfully defends MAC World Heavyweight Championship against Gorgeous George at the Montreal Forum. The event was attended by 15,223 fans which not only set a new record for the venue but was also one of the biggest shows held in North America that year.

Date unknown

• Toots Mondt establishes the Manhattan Booking Agency with Rudy Miller and Milo Steinborn. This was the first in a three-part plan to regain his status as a leading promoter along with acquiring the contract of Antonino Rocca and successfully reopening Madison Square Garden to pro wrestling events.
• Ida Mae Martinez, while working as a waitress in Houston, decides to enter pro wrestling after being approached by a wrestler. She begins training under Billy Wolfe, who headed a group of female wrestlers, and makes her debut three years later.
• Eddie Graham makes his pro debut for "Cowboy" Clarence Luttrall in Chattanooga, Tennessee for which the 18-year-old receives a turkey as payment.
• Bronko Lubich, George Harris, George Scott and Rip Hawk make their pro debuts.
• The first women's professional wrestling match was held in Japan at a U.S. military camp by the Igari brothers, a comedy duo, and their sister Sadako Igari. This bout precedes the first men's pro wrestling exhibition held by Rikidozan six years later.

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Arts and entertainment

• Angelo Poffo's world record for most consecutive sit-ups (6,033) is featured on the March 3 edition of Ripley's Believe It or Not! comic strip.

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Births

• January 8 - Bobby Jaggers, American professional wrestler (d. 2012)
• January 11 - Wajima Hiroshi, Japanese professional wrestler
• February 7 - Kim Duk, Japanese professional wrestler
• February 19 - Big John Studd, American professional wrestler (d. 1995)
• May 15 - Coloso Colosetti, Argentinian professional wrestler
• July 27 - Greg Gagne, American professional wrestler
• July 28 - Bobby Bold Eagle, American wrestler
• June 1 - Black Bart, American professional wrestler
• June 2 - Cynthia Peretti, American professional wrestler (d. 2009)
• June 23 - Earl Oliver, American wrestling columnist and historian
• June 29 - Leo Burke, Canadian professional wrestler
• July 18 - Carlos Colón Sr., Puerto Rican professional wrestler and wrestling promoter
• August 6 - Dino Bravo, Canadian professional wrestler (d. 1993)
• August 27 - Sgt. Slaughter, American professional wrestler
• September 8 - Great Kabuki, Japanese professional wrestler
• September 21 - Mitsuo Momota, Japanese professional wrestler
• September 26 - Kazuo Sakurada, Japanese professional wrestler
• September 29 - Jaque Mate, Mexican luchador
• November 28 - Smith Hart, Canadian professional wrestler (d. 2017)
• December 21 - Ron Bass, American professional wrestler (d. 2017)
• Unknown - Eduardo Miguel Perez, Mexican professional wrestler

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Deaths

• January 1 - Arthur Ackerman, German professional wrestler and promoter
• February 27 - Musty Musgrave, American wrestling promoter (b. 1899)
• August 18 - Don Carver, American professional wrestler (b. 1911)
• September 25 - Joe Lynam, American professional wrestler (b. 1916)
• December 18 - Ali Aliba, American professional wrestler (b. 1908)

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References

General

• Stern, Karl, ed. (2005). "The Time Line of Wrestling Part II" (PDF). DragonKing Wrestling. No. 83. Haleyville, Alabama: DragonKing Press. 

Specific

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See also

Source of article : Wikipedia