Smiling John: The forgotten Tunney: Gary Will's TWH

Frank Tunney was Toronto's greatest wrestling promoter and one of the most successful and respected promoters in the world.

But if it hadn't been for a fluke illness, he may never have had the chance to rise to that level. When Tunney took over the wrestling operations of the Queensbury Athletic Club -- the main Toronto booking office -- from Jack Corcoran in 1939, he was the junior member of the new promoting team. The head matchmaker was his older brother, John Tunney.

It isn't clear exactly when the Tunneys started to work for Corcoran. Frank would say in later interviews that he was working in the office as a teenager at the time of the first Maple Leaf Gardens show in 1931. A story in the Star at the time said the Tunneys became involved in 1933. But whatever the date was, John and Frank spent years helping Corcoran behind the scenes.

Corcoran was reported to have caught pneumonia in March 1939, and Toots Mondt -- who was or had been a partner in the Toronto office (more about that another time) -- came up to run the Gardens show on March 16, which featured a world title bout between Jim Londos and local star Vic Christie.

 The following week, it was announced that John Tunney had become the head matchmaker. Attendance through the rest of 1939 averaged 3,000-4,000 per show, and John brought in Wild Bill Longson (an immediate hit), Bronko Nagurski, Frank Sexton, and Lou Thesz for their Toronto debuts in the fall of that year.

According to the attendance figures in the Globe, John Tunney's biggest show was on Thursday January 12, 1940. The main event was Longson vs Jumping Joe Savoldi with Gus Sonnenberg on the undercard. It drew 6,000. It would also be John's final show at the Gardens.

He started feeling sick the next day, but -- against the advice of friends -- decided to work through what seemed to be a bad cold. On Monday, he made the drive to Ottawa to oversee a show there. "Upon his return, he was ordered to bed by the family physician and his condition was not considered even remotely serious," reported the Globe.

Tunney remained at home -- his house was near Danforth and Woodbine -- but things took a sharp turn for the worse on Thursdsay, the day of his next scheduled Gardens show. He died early that morning at age 32. The Star said it was influenza and the Globe added that he had suffered a heart attack. The Gardens show that night was cancelled.

"The entire sports community is prostrated by this blow which took away one of its youngest, most pleasant and most promising promoters," wrote the Star.

Tunney's wife had given birth two weeks earlier to their fourth child and was herself in the hospital suffering from complications. Among the couple's other three children was their oldest son, Jackie.

John Tunney was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery. Frank immediately became Toronto's head promoter. John's son, Jack Tunney, would go on to work for his uncle Frank starting in the early 1950s and took over the business with Frank's son Eddie Tunney after Frank's death in 1983.

-by Gary Will

Canada's most notorious criminal gets in the ring: 1935: Gary Will's TWH

"Much of what Ryan said and did will be forgotten, and it cannot be too soon."

Toronto Daily Star editorial, January 11, 1924

What Norman "Red" Ryan said and did are, indeed, now being forgotten. But for many years after the Star's editorial, Ryan was perhaps the best-known criminal in Canada. And his notoriety -- ironically, aided greatly by the Star -- only grew through the 1920s and 1930s.

Ryan became well-known as a bank robber whose exploits were romanticised, in a Bonnie & Clyde kind of way, by the newspapers of the day (a young Ernest Hemingway even wrote a story about him). We won't review Ryan's criminal career here—Peter McSherry's 1999 book The Big Red Fox goes into such details and is probably available from most public libraries in Canada—but after serving 11 years of a life sentence, Ryan was paroled from Kingston Penitentiary in July 1935 with the support of the prison chaplain and even Prime Minister Richard B. Bennett, among many others.

He was considered to be the model of a reformed prisoner. Shortly after his release, he wrote a series of stories for the Toronto Daily Star and when news got out that letters his wife had written to him had been confiscated by prison staff and sat in the warden's cupboard for 14 years—while Ryan was allowed to believe that she had died—he even became a symbol for prison reform. A car dealership in Toronto hired him as a salesman and invited people to buy a vehicle from the famous Red Ryan.

Just a few weeks before he'd been paroled, Ryan was allowed out of prison to attend his sister's funeral in Toronto -- something that was almost never done in that era. According to McSherry, Toronto wrestling promoter Jack Corcoran met with Ryan after the funeral:

Afterwards, Jack "Corky" Corcoran, a prominent Toronto wrestling promoter, who [penitentiary chaplain] Father Kingsley had involved on Ryan's behalf, came by in his new 1935 Chrysler sedan and took Ryan, [Ryan's brother] Russ, and the guard on a drive about a much-changed city.

Two weeks after he was freed, Ryan was spotted attending Corcoran's wrestling show at Maple Leaf Gardens.

There's a new wrestling fan in Toronto and he says it won't be his fault if he ever misses a show. The newcomer to the ranks of the mat addicts is Norman "Red" Ryan and he admits that he was positively amazed when he saw the mastodons of sport turn on the heat at Maple Leaf Gardens last Thursday. ... The "rasslin" bug must have bitten Ryan for the next night he motored over to Hamilton to see Sammy Sobel's show and he was the first in to Jack Corcoran for tickets for the Meyers-Cantonwine brawl of tomorrow night. — Lou Marsh, sports editor, Toronto Daily Star, August 14, 1935

Not only did Corcoran bring Ryan to the shows, he hired him as night manager for his Nealon House hotel on King Street East. Ryan greeted guests and booked entertainment, along with running errands to Maple Leaf Gardens and other places. Writes McSherry:

Ryan's employment with Corcoran also involved him in the activities of the Queensbury Athletic Club, for he was, after all, a huge celebrity in Toronto and his currency could be exploited in more than one way. On one occasion, Red Ryan was introduced into the ring at a Maple Leaf Gardens wrestling card while a multi-coloured spotlight bathed him in light.

Corcoran also let the 40-year-old Ryan work out with Freddy Meyers two days before Meyers' main event match against Howard Cantonwine (Ryan is the one facing the camera in the photo at top).

Ryan weighs 210 pounds and Meyers tried to sell him the idea that he should turn to wrestling as a profession. "Red" didn't hesitate a second. He said, "Nay, nay" in the most emphatic tones he could muster.— Lou Marsh, sports editor, Toronto Daily Star, August 14, 1935

As events would unfold, both Marsh and Ryan would be dead within 10 months of the date that story was written. Marsh died unexpectedly in March 1936. Ryan was one of many who attended the funeral -- as was Corcoran, Marsh's good friend.

According to McSherry, Ryan -- who still worked at the Nealon House -- attended a Corcoran wrestling show in Oshawa on May 21 and was planning on moving out west. Three days later, and just 10 months after his release from the penitentiary, Ryan was shot to death by police as he and an accomplice tried to rob a liquor store in Sarnia.

Before he was killed, Ryan coolly shot and killed 33-year-old Constable John Lewis, the first policeman to arrive on the scene. Following Ryan's death, there were rumours that he had recently committed other robberies and two murders. It was one of the biggest news stories of the year and led to a severe tightening of the parole system in Canada's prisons.

Corcoran and John Tunney attended Ryan's funeral at Mount Hope Cemetery.

-by Gary Will

Ivan Mickailoff: "The man who made wrestling in Toronto": Gary Will's TWH

Frank Tunney is remembered -- and rightly so -- as Toronto's greatest wrestling promoter, but the man who established Toronto as a wrestling city and paved the way for Tunney has been largely forgotten.

There was a lot of skepticism when Ivan Mickailoff announced in 1929 that he would be running weekly shows at Arena Gardens. While top-name pro wrestlers had made occasional stops in Toronto -- and there was even an effort made to stage the Gotch-Hackenschmidt rematch in the city (more about that another time), no one had ever run regularly-scheduled shows with top wrestling stars. "Wrestling has never been a popular sport in the Queen City," wrote the Globe (see separate story on the first show for the clipping).

Mickailoff -- called "Mike" in Toronto -- was a former wrestler who claimed to have been born in Siberia and spoke English with a thick accent. Many of the biographical details I've come across are suspect. He was said to have been an Olympic champion in 1908, which is false. He was also said to have worked as some kind of secret agent in WWI and to have served in the Russian Imperial Guard for nearly four years, attaining the rank of colonel. He was a tall man who ejoyed cigars and reportedly liked playing card games, particularly pinochle and hearts.

His name occasionally comes up in match results from the 1910s. For example, he opened the 1915 wrestling season in Montreal losing to John (Giovanni) Perelli on November 5 ("there was little excitement," said a report in the Toronto Star). Just over a year later, on November 27, 1916, Mickailoff lost in straight falls to Dr. B.F. Roller in Springfield, Mass.

I don't have any details for the years before he launched his Toronto shows -- he later claimed to have promoted wrestling in Miami -- but somewhere along the line he hooked up with Boston promoter Paul Bowser, who was one of the dominant forces behind pro wrestling at the time. He apparently also had some ties initially to Toots Mondt, who wrestled on four of Mickailoff's first five shows. Mondt would later be allied with Mickailoff's opposition in Toronto and would even own a piece of Jack Corcoran's office.

After a slow start, Mickailoff's shows grew from attracting hundreds to drawing thousands, leading to an appearance in October of Bowser's world champion, Gus Sonnenberg.

"Taking loss after loss without a murmur, he built the game up within a short space of time." -- GLOBE, October 31, 1929

"By staging bouts that were highly satisfactory, matchmaker Michailoff gained a large following for wrestling here." -- GLOBE, January 17, 1930

"When Ivan Mickailoff commenced promoting wrestling shows in Toronto the attendance figures were around the 200 mark. He has built the game to the stage where it is now numbered among Toronto's major sports." -- GLOBE, May 30, 1930

"He came to Toronto a year ago last spring, and astounded an amazed public when he announced that he would stage wrestling shows at Arena Gardens. Old-timers smiled. They had seen this venture tried before, and didn't think that Mickailoff would make headway. It did require considerable time to convince Toronto that here was a sport worth while supporting, and there were lean days, but Mickailoff and his associates shouldered their losses, and refused to be dismayed. The money eventually began to roll in, and now others would emulate Mickailoff." -- GLOBE, October 20, 1930

Mickailoff was soon popular enough to be used as a spokesman for Buckingham Cigarettes from Philip Morris & Co. Ltd. (see ad at right). The ad used a photo of what was said to be Mickailoff in his Russian Guard uniform.

After having the city to himself for a year-and-a-half, Mickailoff faced his first competiton when Jack Corcoran and his Queensbury Athletic Club were granted a wrestling license in 1930. They held their first show in November and it was a colossal flop, but Corcoran quickly learned the tricks of the trade and rebounded strongly. After about a year, Corcoran had taken over as the top promoter in town, and that position was cemented when he arranged to be the matchmaker for shows at the new Maple Leaf Gardens, which opened in November 1931.

After competing head-to-head with Corcoran for two years, Mickailoff was put out of business by the Ontario Athletic Commission, which decided not to renew his wrestling promoters license when it lapsed at the end of October 1932. Commission secretary James Fitzgerald told the Star that the decision was made "for the good of the sport." Instead, it granted a license to the Shamrock Athletic Club, which had previously promoted boxing.

Mickailoff immediately made plans to relocate to Winnipeg and booked what was billed as his farewell show for October 26, 1932. It was to feature Bowser's world champion, Henri Deglane defending his title against Bibber McCoy, another of Bowser's boys. The show drew 9,000 fans, but neither of the wrestlers booked in the main event appeared that night.

Deglane claimed that Bowser never told him that the show was on a Wednesday and not Thursday as was the custom in Toronto. McCoy was sent on his way to Toronto at a time that guaranteed that he wouldn't be able to make it for the official weigh-in, and he ended up not getting to town until the show had already started.

There was speculation at the time that Bowser -- for whatever reason -- had deliberately sabotaged Mickailoff's final show.

Mickailoff followed through on his plans to go west and in 1933 promoted shows in Winnipeg, Calgary, Regina, and probably other towns. He wasn't very successful. Mickailoff was said to have lived in the Ivan Apartments on River Ave. in Winnipeg where he shared his apartment with wrestlers who would drive in for shows.

Mickailoff was again turned down for a licence by the Ontario Athletic Commission in 1933, but the following year he reappeared in Toronto as the matchmaker for the Metropolitan Racing Association -- the horse racing people -- which decided that its federal charter enabled it to run wrestling shows without a license from the province (a long story, and one that had significant repercussions, that will have to wait for another time).

The MRA quickly found out that pro wrestling was a dirty business. Unable to book the wrestlers they wanted, they made their first show a free event at the Exhibition Coliseum on December 13, 1934. It drew a reported 10,000 people (see ad at right -- featuring a photo of Mickailoff), but it was the only show they ran. The president of the MRA later said that he learned through this experience not to mess around in other people's areas of business.

Mickailoff did make a comeback in 1935 as the matchmaker for the Arena Athletic Club -- one of three groups awarded a license that year, and the only one that didn't operate out of Maple Leaf Gardens. They ran their first show at the Mutual Street Arena on November 22 with names that were well below the standards being delivered at the Gardens.

It was pretty slow going for Mickailoff until May when he booked the Toronto debut of world title claimant Ali Baba, which drew an impressive 5,000 fans. A similar crowd came to see Baba's next match in June, and Mickailoff was suddenly outdrawing Corcoran's Gardens shows. A main event in October between Baba and new world champion Everett Marshall drew 5,100 to the Mutual Street Arena. It was right around that time that Mickailoff learned that his license was again being threatened.

According to figures provided by Corcoran, the gate receipts from pro wrestling through the 1935-36 season were almost half of that from the previous year: $75,374 vs $144,585. The number of shows declined from 42 to 29 (there were actually more than that, but these are the numbers he provided). He blamed that outcome on the existence of three wrestling promoters in the city.

The OAC decided to renew all three licenses in 1936, but Corcoran threatened to appeal the decision to Ontario premier Mitch Hepburn. Hepburn said he had no interest in hearing an appeal, and Corcoran dropped his complaint. Mickailoff told the Star that the wrestling interests controlled in the U.S. were putting on the pressure to try to force him out of business.

He remembered the times years earlier when he had helped Corcoran. "I telephoned Boston for permission to let the men work for Corcoran. Now he doesn't want me to have a license."

The 1936-37 season got off to a very slow start, and in December, Mickailoff and Corcoran both only attracted 1,300 fans for their shows.

Corcoran bounced back to become the clear winner in the promotional battles in 1937, but Mickailoff would occasionally draw some stong gates himself, including a reported 8,000 who turned up to see the Masked Marvel take on Strangler Wagner in March 1938, with 6,500 returning to see Marvel wrestle Lou Plummer in April and 6,000 on hand for Marvel against Ed Don George on May 12 (see ad at right).

But that would turn out to be Mickailoff's last show in Toronto. He received a license to operate in 1938, but decided not to run any more shows and asked for the return of his $5,000 license fee from the OAC.

"I'm sorry to see Mike go," said Corcoran to the Globe. "I like competition. While he and I had our differences some years ago I have found him quite ready to cooperate during the past two years."

He was reported to be moving to Florida, but almost ten years later, there was a report in the Globe that Mickailoff was promoting shows in Providence, Rhode Island.

-by Gary Will

The OAC, Jack Corcoran, and the bribery scandal of 1934: Gary Will's TWH

Pro wrestling in Toronto was front-page news in the fall of 1934 when it became the focal point of scandal and controversy at the Ontario Athletic Commission. Before it was over, the chairman of the OAC had resigned and his predecessor was disgraced. In an attempt to avenge his embarrassment, the previous chairman testified under oath that pro wrestling matches were fixed.
There were two separate issues that played out simultaneously. We'll just look at the one involving the previous commissioner here and save the story of his successor for another time.

The Liberals under 38-year-old Mitchell Hepburn had won the provincial election in July, defeating the reigning Conservatives. With the new government came new political appointments and -- some things never change -- accusations of financial mismanagement under the previous government. New appointments to the OAC were made in September while an audit was ordered of the commission's financial operations under previous chairman Thomas Murphy, a Conservative MPP representing the Beaches area in Toronto.

The auditor's report released in October was scathing in its findings. The commission was said to have a deficit of $11,000 (about $150,000 in today's dollars) while chairman Murphy was found to have made expense claims averaging what would today be $50-80 every day for years. The commission was spending about 40% of the revenue it collected on travel expenses, almost double what it was spending on amateur sport in the province. "It was never contemplated that members of the Commission should constitute themselves a body of tourists," wrote The Globe in an editorial.

The audit triggered a full investigation into the OAC in November, and wrestling promoter Jack Corcoran was subpoenaed to appear. He was a no-show at two scheduled hearings and his lawyer, P. Beverly Matthews, made a formal objection to the subpoena, but Corcoran finally did appear before the inquiry on November 15.

Corcoran dropped a bombshell on the proceedings when he testified that he had made two cash payments of $500 to Murphy in 1932 (in today's dollars that's over $14,000 in total). The payments, Corcoran said, had been demanded by Murphy. Corcoran said that Murphy had become a partner in the promotion of wrestling shows in Ottawa and he hoped the payment would make the commission go a bit easier on the fines it levied against his club and his wrestlers.

Corcoran had also organized 21 free shows within Murphy's riding and paid for them out of his own pocket. He said that he once refused to put on a free show in the Beaches area and was fined by the OAC later the same day.

The testimony from Corcoran provided an insight into the operations of his Toronto wrestling office. In 1932, the OAC had granted wrestling licenses to three groups: Corcoran's Queensbury Athletic Club, the Shamrock Athletic Club, operated by Walter Beauchamp, and a third group run by Fred Hambly called the Crescent Athletic Club.

Not long after Hambly received the license -- and before he ran any shows -- he offered to sell it to Corcoran. Corcoran talked to Beauchamp and they agreed that there wasn't room for three promotions operating in Toronto. They offered to pay Hambly $1,000 for his license, but -- according to Corcoran -- that was rejected as being too low a price after Hambly consulted with Murphy.

Corcoran testified that he discussed the matter with his partners -- Paul Bowser and Toots Mondt -- and then he and Beauchamp agreed to pay Hambly $40 a week for a year plus an additional $75 for a total of $2,155. Whether any of that money ended up in Murphy's pocket was never determined.

Hambly and his son, W.A. Hambly, testified that they had been planning to book wrestlers from Bowser for their shows, but Bowser was working with Mondt, who owned a piece of Corcoran's office, and so they agreed to sell their license back to Mondt-Bowser-Corcoran.

Murphy was recalled before the inquiry the day after Corcoran's appearance and flatly denied taking any money. "I never received any money from Mr. Corcoran in my life," he testified.

Murphy went on to say that wrestling was just like vaudeville -- "just a show" -- with the wrestlers travelling together from town to town. He said Corcoran was able to tell him the results of all the matches before the shows had taken place but Murphy said he didn't know how much the referees were told. (Star sports editor Lou Marsh pointed out that the first show after Murphy "blew his squealing bazoo" attracted more than four times as many spectators as the previous card. "What's the use of raving?," asked Marsh. "Ten thousand people had a hysterical and thrilling evening.")
Corcoran denied that the wrestling matches weren't legitimate contests and offered to pay $1,000 to charity if anyone could prove a single instance where the best man didn't win.

Referee Jack Forbes told the inquiry that, as far as he knew, "the best wrestlers were on top through merit. I absolutely believe that. Of course, I've heard street gossip to the contrary."

Timekeeper Willie Marr -- a commission appointee -- testified that he would give time signals to the referee and wrestlers so that they could "have a rousing finish to the bout." He said he sometimes knew in advance when there was to be a fall. "I considered it was only an act and I was part of the act." Marr later admitted that he was related to Murphy's wife (Marr is the "official" referred to in the headline at the top of this page).

Even Lou Marsh was called to give his opinion on pro wrestling. "I think modern wrestling is just as it is advertised -- an exhibition," he told the inquiry. (The inquiry is "not telling us anything new" about wrestling, wrote Marsh in his column.)

John Thomas, who had promoted some shows in St. Catharines with Corcoran before the two had a falling out, testified that Corcoran presented himself as "the Mussolini of the wrestling racket and that his word was law." He called Corcoran's assistant, G.W. Harris "most repulsive ... always chiselling."

Thomas said that Corcoran had ripped him off by over-reporting the expenses of the shows, thereby understating the profits the two were to split. He tried to sue Corcoran, but the matter was dismissed because Thomas couldn't submit the records of the OAC. He claimed they showed a discrepancy between the expenses Corcoran reported to the commission and what he told Thomas. Thomas said he got some of his money back from Corcoran after taking his case to the OAC. Corcoran would later testify that Murphy told him that if he didn't settle with Thomas he would lose his St Catharines license.

Whatever reluctance Corcoran had initially shown in his testimony vanished after Murphy's denial that he had ever taken money. He voluntarily came forward with the charge that Murphy had asked him to pay $225 for musical entertainers, liquor, and gifts for a meeting of Ontario and Quebec athletic bodies. "I paid the bill and he had the nerve to call me a chiseller," said Corcoran of Murphy. He also said that wrestler Jack Kogut was a witness to one of the payments made to Murphy. Kogut confirmed that Corcoran had handed something to Murphy, but he couldn't say what it was.

The findings of the inquiry were reported in January 1935. Commissioner Chester Walters accepted Corcoran's evidence that he had paid $500 to Murphy, provided free shows in Murphy's riding, and had paid entertainment expenses for an OAC meeting. The commissioner said evidence of a second payment of $500 was not conclusive and he made no ruling on Corcoran's accusation that Murphy had been a partner in the wrestling promotion in Ottawa.

Walters provided a list of recommendations, which included making OAC officials personally liable for spending outside of the organization's mandate, not allowing the commission to run a deficit, and limiting the terms of commission members to three years at a time.

-by Gary Will

Dan O'Mahony headlocks King Clancy before Toronto debut, February 21, 1935: Gary Will's TWH

Future world champion Dan O'Mahony -- billed in the U.S. as Danno O'Mahoney -- made his Maple Leaf Gardens debut on February 21, 1935 to much fanfare. The wrestler was brought to North America by Boston-based promoter Paul Bowser to add some fresh blood to the wrestling scene ... and attract the huge Irish crowds in Beantown. Toronto also had a thriving Irish community, which included promoter Jack Corcoran.

The community also included Toronto Maple Leafs' all-star defenceman King Clancy, who was in the waning years of his hall-of-fame playing career. Clancy gave his support to O'Mahony as a legitimate Irishman, and posed with the wrestler -- billed as 6'2" -- for this picture in the Toronto Star.

In his column the day of O'Mahony's Toronto debut, Star sports editor Lou Marsh described pro wrestling as "sportive entertainment," foreshadowing the term that would be popularized decades later by Vince McMahon and the WWF.

-by Gary Will

PHOTOS: Dory Funk Jr. defends NWA title: 1973; Gary Will's TWH

PHOTOS: Dory Funk Jr. defends NWA title: 1973 On February 11, 1973, Dory Funk Jr. successfully defended the NWA world heavyweight title at Maple Leaf Gardens against challenger Johnny Valentine. A good portion of the match consisted of Valentine holding Funk in a front face-lock, but February 11 would turn out not to be Valentine's day, as Funk would come back to win the match in 28:12. Reported attendance was 14,000. The referee is Tiger Tasker. You can see in the photos how the crowd lights would go out during the matches, leaving only the lights above the ring. You can also see the famous Gardens ramp in the background. -by Gary Will

Unmasked! -- Wrestlers who lost their masks in Toronto : Gary Will's TWH

Masked wrestlers in Toronto date back to the first appearance of the area's first Masked Marvel in 1932. More than 20 wrestlers lost their masks in the ring in Toronto:

DATE	NAME	UNMASKED AS	UNMASKED BY
36/06/18	The Unknown	Hal Rumberg	Jim McMillen
38/09/29	Masked Marvel	Ted Cox	Mayes McLain
41/11/27	Masked Wolf	John Grandovich	The Angel
43/08/12	Red Shadow	Leo Numa	Wild Bill Longson
44/01/05	The Czar	Dick Lever	Bobby Managoff
48/01/08	The Mummy	Pedro Martinez	Masked Marvel
49/01/27	Mr. X	Earl McCready	Masked Marvel & tag partners
49/02/17	Masked Marvel	Lew Reynheer	Whipper Billy Watson
51/02/22	Masked Manager	Mayes McLain	Whipper Billy Watson
51/08/30	Masked Marvel	Lou Newman	The Zebra
51/11/29	The Zebra	George Bollas	Whipper Billy Watson
52/12/26	Masked Marvel	Frank Valois	Red Mask
53/06/11	Red Mask	Dutch Hefner	Lou Thesz
59/06/04	Great Bolo	Al Lovelock	Whipper Billy Watson
61/05/25	Black Terror	Laverne Baxter	Whipper Billy Watson
64/01/16	The Destroyer	Joe Christie	Johnny Valentine
64/05/06	Mighty Hercules	not identified	Johnny Valentine
66/07/10	Masked Yankee Dandy	Bob Stanlee	Whipper Watson/Bulldog Brower
66/07/10	Masked Yankee Doodle	Moose Evans	Whipper Watson/Bulldog Brower
71/07/11	Masked Assassin	Guy Mitchell	The Sheik
74/04/07	The Crusader	Dewey Robertson	The Sheik
80/05/25	Masked Superstar #2	John Studd	Blackjack Mulligan
84/04/15	Assassin	Ray Hernandez	Jimmy Valiant

Four Masked Marvels were unmasked in Toronto, but the first one -- the one from 1932 -- never was. It was said to be Al Getzewich, who was unmasked later that year in Ottawa by Strangler Lewis.

The later versions of the Masked Marvel were sometimes called The Mask, as in the ad at right. That's for the August 30, 1951 show where Zebra unmasked The Mask and revealed him to be Vancouver's Lou Newman.

The Mighty Hercules from 1964 was said to be Bobby Graham in the papers, but he was the only one who was not formally identified after having his mask removed.

-by Gary Will 

Toronto's Longest Runs -- The 25-Year Club: Gary Will's TWH

These are the wrestlers with the longest gap between their first Toronto appearance for a major promotion and their last: NAME YEARS Lou Thesz 36.6 Lee Henning 35.3 Ivan Kalmikoff 33.2 Sky Low Low 32.4 Whipper Billy Watson 31.1 Little Beaver 30.7 Joe "Killer" Christie 30.0 Ric Flair 28.6 Dick Beyer / The Destroyer 28.0 Billy Red Lyons 27.4 Pat Flanagan 27.2 Wee Willie Davis 27.0 Killer Kowalski 26.7 Gene Kiniski 26.5 Al Costello 26.3 Nanjo Singh 26.2 Lord Athol Layton 26.0 Don Jardine / The Spoiler 25.8 Mike Mazurki 25.8 Bobo Brazil 25.3 Bruno Sammartino 25.2 Paul "Butcher" Vachon 25.2 This is different from a list of wrestlers with the most matches in Toronto, since several of these guys had lengthy gaps where they made no appearances here. For example, Dick Beyer didn't wrestle in Toronto after 1961, until returning 18 years later as The Destroyer. Don Jardine didn't wrestle in Toronto for over 20 years after starting in the area in the late 1950s, but he came back for a few matches as The Spoiler in the mid-1980s. Nanjo Singh served a prison sentence for killing his wife before his final run in Toronto.  -by Gary Will

Whipper Billy Watson vs Gorgeous George, March 12, 1959: Gary Will's TWH

It may be the most famous match in Toronto that didn't involve a world title switch. On March 12, 1959 Whipper Billy Watson defeated Gorgeous George in a match where the stipulations were that Watson would retire if he lost and George would have his head shaved if he was defeated. It was a no-curfew, there-must-be-a-winner match, so promoter Frank Tunney had just about guaranteed the fans that one of the stipulations would be carried out. And it was.

George had just turned 44 the previous month, but he was an old 44 and his hall-of-fame career was clearly on the downswing. He had made his first appearance in Toronto in 1948 and wrestled Watson at Maple Leaf Gardens that year and again in 1956. Watson had won both of the previous matches and this would be their third meeting in Toronto.

The stipulations were only announced five days before the match. On February 26, George had made his first appearance in Toronto in three years, defeating a clean-cut youngster named Wally Sieber who was being groomed as the next Whipper Billy Watson (it didn't last long; he soon left town and went back to his earlier evil German gimmick and became known world-wide as Waldo Von Erich). Watson himself had been away for nearly three months, and came back on the same show to wrestle Gene Kiniski in the main event. The show drew 12,000 fans.

Neither Watson nor George appeared on the next Toronto show on March 5, but a couple of days after that card, it was announced that they would meet each other in a hair vs career match on the 12th.

It drew 14,000 fans, which was the largest attendance for any Toronto show that year. The end came with George in Watson's sleeper, the Canuck Commando Unconscious, and Kiniski running into the ring to attack Watson, earning Whipper a DQ win. A parade of babyfaces -- Sieber, Pat Flanagan, Ilio DiPaolo and Mike Valentino (the future Baron Mikel Scicluna) -- raced in from the dressing room to save Watson and after chasing off Kiniski, they helped referee Joe Gollob keep George still while Gardens barber George Hansen did the honours. George's valet (and real-life wife), Cherie, caught the hair in a towel as it was shaved off.

A shorn George was back two weeks later for a rematch against Watson, which Whipper again won. Watson had put up his hair in that match, which drew 12,000. George then wrestled in a couple of main event tag matches partnered with Kiniski.

George came back to Toronto two years later and drew 5,000 fans for a main event against Watson, which was a good number at that time. In May 1961, George lost again to Watson in a match where Cherie's hair was at stake. It drew 8,000. A few pieces of hair were cut off, but then the chivalrous Watson told the barber to stop. There was one rematch between the two the following week, and that was the last time George wrestled in Toronto.

In November 1962, George lost his hair again -- this time to The Destroyer in Los Angeles.

-by Gary Will

Title Histories: Canadian Heavyweight Title: Gary Will's TWH

 

TORONTO: CANADIAN TITLE
22/07	George Walker
		Billed as champion on arrival; still billed as champion, 24/02
	----------
29/05	Jack Taylor
		Billed as champion on arrival
	----------
31/05	Earl McCready
		Billed as champion on arrival; still billed as champion, 34/10
	----------
38/06	Yvon Robert
		Billed as champion on arrival
	----------
41/06	Earl McCready
		Billed as champion on arrival; Whipper Billy Watson claims the title after defeating McCready in the second fall of a best-of-three match, that went to a draw, 41/06/05, Toronto, ON; Watson claims the Canadian title was on the line in each fall; McCready defeats Watson, 41/06/12, Toronto, ON, to end the dispute; a scheduled match between McCready and Yvon Robert on 41/11/06, Toronto, ON, is billed as a battle between Canadian title claimants; Robert is a no-show for the match and neither wrestler's claim to the title is mentioned again
	----------
54/06	Al Mills
		Billed as champion on arrival for one match
	----------
78/12/17	Dino Bravo		Toronto, ON
		Defeats Gene Kiniski
79/04/08	Greg Valentine		Toronto, ON
79/06/03	Dino Bravo [2]		Toronto, ON
79/09	VACANT
		Bravo leaves the area
79/09/09	Dewey Robertson		Toronto, ON
		Defeats Greg Valentine in tournament final
80/05/25	Great Hossein Arab (Iron Sheik)		Toronto, ON
80/07/20	Angelo Mosca		Toronto, ON
80/08/10	Great Hossein Arab [2]		Toronto, ON
80/12/28	Angelo Mosca [2]		Toronto, ON
81/07/12	Mr. Fuji		Toronto, ON
81/07/26	Angelo Mosca [3]		Toronto, ON
81/09/20	Big John Studd		Toronto, ON
82/01/17	Angelo Mosca [4]		Toronto, ON
83/07/24	Sergeant Slaughter		Toronto, ON
84/01/22	Angelo Mosca [5]		Toronto, ON
84	VACANT
84/04/29	Ivan Koloff		Toronto, ON
		Defeats Brian Adidas in tournament final
84/06/10	Angelo Mosca Jr.		Toronto, ON
84/06	ABANDONED

-By Gary Will 

Arena Gardens: Toronto's original wrestling palace (1922-1938) : Gary Will's TWH

Maple Leaf Gardens is Toronto's most storied wrestling venue and is one of a handful of sites that can credibly be called a pro wrestling mecca. For 64 years, the Gardens was host to top level pro wrestling matches, including four NWA world title changes.

But before there was Maple Leaf Gardens, there was another Gardens that was Toronto's primary wrestling venue -- the site where major league pro wrestling became established in the city. That was Arena Gardens -- later known as Mutual Street Arena.

Arena Gardens was where Ivan Mickailoff began promoting weekly shows in 1929. It was also where he presented his final Toronto show in 1938 -- the last time the building was used for pro wrestling.

Even before Mickailoff came to town, Arena Gardens had been the site of two matches between Stanislaus Zbyszko and Canadian champion George Walker in 1922 and 1924 (see ad at right).

Some of the names that Michailoff presented at the Arena included Strangler Lewis and Toots Mondt, as well as reigning world champions Gus Sonnenberg, Ed Don George, Henri Deglane, Jim Londos, Ali Baba, and Everett Marshall, who all defended their title in the building (as did light heavyweight champion Billy Weidner). Toronto-made world champion Vic Christie defended his title there once as well.

Rival promoter Jack Corcoran also promoted some shows at the Arena in 1931 before moving over to Maple Leaf Gardens when it opened in November of that year.

Arena Gardens was built in 1912 for $500,000 and was at the time the largest indoor arena in the country. It was located east of Yonge on Mutual Street between Dundas and Shuter, not far from Massey Hall, which was also used at times for pro wrestling shows, particularly when the Arena was closed for repairs. Sir Henry Pellatt, the man behind Casa Loma, was one of the Arena's primary backers.

The NHL's first Stanley Cup winners, the Toronto Arenas (1917-18), were named after the building and played their home games there, as would the Toronto St. Pats and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

In 1938, the Arena was leased to William Dickson who turned it into a recreation facility offering ice skating in winter and roller skating in summer. Dickson bought the building in 1945 and it remained in the family for the next 43 years. Curling sheets -- 18 of them -- were added in a 1962 renovation, and the building was renamed The Terrace, a name it kept until it was sold in 1988 to become the site of a condominium complex. It closed its doors on April 30, 1989 and was demolished a few months later.

In the Toronto Star, Jim Proudfoot wrote:

The birthplace of professional hockey in Toronto is about to disappear - torn down and replaced by, yes, yet another picturesque pile of residential condominiums. Before long, people will dwell at Cathedral Square and they'll have no idea, most of them, that their homes sit precisely where so much of this city's history took place. A Stanley Cup was won there and the Maple Leafs started out there. Sammy Luftspring fought there and Frank Sinatra sang there. The Harlem Globetrotters entertained there and Torchy Peden rode his bike there. Foster Hewitt broadcast his first hockey game there.

Soon it'll be gone and shortly after that, forgotten.

And so it's goodbye forever to another chunk of what's made Toronto what it is today, about to join Sunnyside [amusement park], Thorncliffe [racetrack], Dufferin [racetrack], Icelandia [skating rink/arena], Ravina [Gardens -- one-time practice rink for the Leafs] and Long Branch [racetrack] in a dim and distant past - just a trivia question of the 21st century.

- by Gary Will

Al "Bunny" Dunlop: wrestler, referee, promoter: Gary Will's TWH

  Al "Bunny" Dunlop was a fixture on the Toronto wrestling scene for 40 years, working as a wrestler and referee. And, for a few months in 1947, Dunlop promoted his own shows under the banner of the Atlas Athletic Club.

The first appearance I've found for Dunlop as a pro wrestler in Toronto is a 1932 match organized by Jack Corcoran at Oakwood Stadium (near Oakwood and St. Clair) as part of a YMCA fundraiser. Fifteen years later, Oakwood Stadium would become an important venue for Dunlop.

He wouldn't make it to Maple Leaf Gardens until 1934, losing to Bert Rubi in the first match on the first card presented by Maple Leaf Gardens (not the first show at MLG, but the first one that was promoted by Maple Leaf Gardens itself and not by Corcoran).

Dunlop was invariably described as fat but strong. In a 1943 profile, it was said that he had been a weightlifter before becoming a wrestler. During the day, he was a truck driver for the York Township parks department -- a job he held for many years.

 He was strictly a prelim wrestler for Corcoran, and then for Frank Tunney, until 1942 when Dunlop wrestled Whipper Billy Watson in two semi-final bouts and was featured in Toronto's first ever team match -- partnered with John Katan to take on Watson and Earl McCready.

Dunlop was also in a high profile match against Joe Kayorie (who would go on to be better known as Joe "Killer" Christie), who made his Maple Leaf Gardens debut billed as a boxer with an open challenge to all wrestlers. Dunlop accepted the challenge and defeated Kayorie in under four minutes. Along with Watson and McCready, wrestlers who defeated Dunlop in Toronto included Frank Sexton and Danno O'Mahony. Dunlop and Pat Flanagan, who would also go on to become a referee, wrestled each other many times on the undercard at the Gardens.

In 1943, Dunlop got his first singles main event in Toronto, wrestling Watson (see ad at right). For the most part, however, he was still wrestling in prelims. His final regular appearance as a wrestler at Maple Leaf Gardens was in 1946.

The following year, Dunlop became a promoter, in partnership with long-time friend Dave Johnston, identified as an ex-garage operator. Dunlop and Johnston created the Atlas Athletic Club and ran shows under that banner at Oakwood Stadium.

Dunlop was originally told by Ontario Athletic Commissioner Syl Apps -- the Leaf hall-of-famer -- that he couldn't have a wrestling license, but when he argued that Oakwood Stadium was just outside the boundary of the city of Toronto in York Township, Apps relented.

The Atlas Athletic Club ran shows through the summer of 1947, featuring Kayorie, Joe Maich, Frank Hewitt, Sandor Kovacs, Bill Stack, and Dunlop himself. They were not a financial success. According to Dunlop, for one show in September that attracted 800 fans paying a $700 gate, $155 was spent on advertising and tickets, $140 went to the federal government, $105 was paid to the stadium, $85 went for police and other contract services, $60 was paid to the Diamond Athletic Club for use of the ring, $55 was spent to rent chairs, and $14 went to the Ontario Athletic Commission, leaving $86 to split between eight wrestlers and a referee. Dunlop said he lost $600 on his first four show -- that would be over $6,000 in today's dollars.

Dunlop went back to work for Tunney as a referee in April 1948. An incident involving Dunlop which is retold to this day occurred at some point in the last half of the 1950s. He was working as a referee on a show that included former amateur standout (3-time NCAA heavyweight champion) and future pro world champion Dick Hutton. Backstage, someone played a rib on Hutton -- possibly giving him a hot foot. Incensed, Hutton stormed off to get revenge on the prankster and confronted Dunlop. According to the stories, Hutton tried a leg takedown on Dunlop, who had the size and strength to fight it off, grab Hutton in a front headlock, and choke him out. It significantly damaged Hutton's reputation as a shooter.

 Dunlop stepped out of retirement to don the tights for two Gardens main events against Watson in 1958 and 1959. In both cases, Watson was seeking revenge for decisions Dunlop had made in previous bouts as a referee. Dunlop's final appearance as a wrestler was in 1960, taking on Terrible Ted the Bear, over whom Dunlop had scored a count-out victory in 1959.

Dunlop continued to work as a referee into the 1970s. He was the official who disqualified Tiger Jeet Singh in his February 1971 main event against the Sheik which was the first Maple Leaf Gardens wrestling show to sell over 18,000 tickets. Dunlop retired later that year.

-by Gary Will

A Brief History of Pro Wrestling in Toronto: Gary Will's TWH

Originally written for the program for the "Titans In Toronto" Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame Dinner 
-held September 18, 2004.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the launch of weekly professional wrestling shows in Toronto in 1929, and the city's wrestling heritage extends many years earlier.

The most famous wrestler of the 19th century, William Muldoon, made a stop in Toronto in 1883 and in the years immediately following the turn of the century, some of the biggest names in the business made appearances in the city. Frank Gotch, George Hackenschmidt, Stanislaus Zbyszko, and women's champion Cora Livingstone all wrestled more than once in Toronto.

Mickailoff turns Toronto into a wrestling city
But while modern era fans know Toronto as one of the world's top cities for professional wrestling, it wasn't always that way. Despite these occasional visits by all-time legends, the sport had largely been a minor attraction in the city until promoter Ivan Mickailoff boldly moved -- in the face of a lot of skepticism -- to bring world-class wrestling to Toronto on a weekly basis in 1929.

He ran shows at Arena Gardens, the original home of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and from a slow start built the sport within a few months to the point where Toronto became a regular Thursday night stop for top-flight professionals. Strangler Lewis, Jim Londos, and Gus Sonnenberg were some of the names Mickailoff brought to town in his first year.

Jack Corcoran takes control
After Mickailoff had paved the way with his success, competition followed in Jack Corcoran, who had promoted boxing in the city. Corcoran started running pro wrestling shows on a regular basis in November 1930. His first show -- at Massey Hall -- was a disaster, but Corcoran aligned himself with the right people and by the time he won the right to promote wrestling at the new Maple Leaf Gardens in 1931, he had surpassed Mickailoff to become the city's top promoter.

In 1939, Corcoran passed the reins to his assistants, the brother combination of John and Frank Tunney. Older brother John Tunney was the head matchmaker, and quickly signed Wild Bill Longson, Lou Thesz, and Bronko Nagurski to make their first Toronto appearances.

The Frank Tunney era begins
But just a few months after becoming promoter, John Tunney died suddenly at age 32. From that tragic beginning, the Frank Tunney era in Toronto was born. Taking over from his brother at age 27, Frank controlled pro wrestling in the city for the next 43 years and became one of the most successful and respected promoters in the world.

Whipper Billy Watson arrives
Tunney had been head promoter for less than a year when he brought in a 25-year-old East York native who had been wrestling in England for the last four years. When he left in 1936, he was known as Bill Potts. He returned in 1940 as Whipper Billy Watson and would go on to be the greatest star in Toronto wrestling history.

Within seven months of his Maple Leaf Gardens debut, Watson was being pushed as Tunney's top star, and for the next 30 years he would rarely be in any match in Toronto but the main event or the semi-main event. His most notable feuds were with Nanjo Singh and Gene Kiniski, and he had memorable matches against the two men he would beat for the world title, Longson and Thesz, and Gorgeous George, whose head would be shaved in the ring following a loss to Watson at the Gardens in 1959.

The 1950s: The golden era
The 1950s were a golden era for Toronto wrestling, as TV introduced Tunney's stars to a national audience, and Gardens fans witnessed two NWA title changes: Watson defeating Thesz in 1956 and Dick Hutton also taking the title from Thesz the following year. Toronto fans were treated to regular appearances by future world champions Hutton, Kiniski, Pat O'Connor, and Buddy Rogers.

Wrestlers from Southern Ontario and other parts of Canada were also developing rapidly. Along with Kiniski, the 1950s saw the Gardens debuts of Billy Red Lyons, Chris & John Tolos, Waldo Von Erich (who received a brief babyface push as Wally Sieber), Mike Valentino (the future Baron Mikel Scicluna), the bear-wrestling Jacques Dubois (later known as Wildman Dave McKigney), Don Jardine, and George Cannon.

The trend continued into the 1960s with the Gardens debuts of future stars Stan Stasiak and Rocky Johnson, among others. But while they all wrestled in Toronto early in their careers, many of these Canadians had to become stars in other territories before getting a push locally.

The 1960s: Looking for new stars
With age, Watson's star power was beginning to fade in the 1960s and Tunney pushed several new wrestlers into main events, including Bruno Sammartino, Johnny Valentine, and Bulldog Brower, along with Canadians Johnny Powers and Tiger Jeet Singh. Lou Thesz won the NWA title from Buddy Rogers at the Gardens in 1963 and followed it up a couple of months later with a victory over Sammartino in the only match the two legends ever had with each other. Kiniski's three-year run as NWA champion from 1966-69 saw him defend the title many times in Toronto. In 1965, Tunney moved the shows from Thursday nights, where they had been from the beginning in 1929, to Sundays, where they remained for the next 30 years.

The Sheik takes over
A major turning point for Toronto wrestling occurred in 1969. Tunney brought back The Sheik, one of the all-time great heels who had caused a stir in the city in 1964-65. Sheik, with his manager Abdullah Farouk, took over wrestling in Toronto and was the city's dominant star for the next eight years, regularly drawing over 10,000 fans to the Gardens, at least for the first few years.

After his first match back, Sheik only wrestled in main events (or co-main events if the NWA champion was booked on the show) and didn't lose a match for over five years, wrestling in Toronto about twice a month, compiling a record of 100-0-27 before losing by disqualification to Andre the Giant in 1974. No single wrestler has ever dominated Toronto wrestling the way The Sheik did in this period.

Tunney beats back challengers
Through the years, there were never any serious threats to Tunney's position as ruler of pro wrestling in Toronto. Several promoters ran shows at smaller venues in the area, often with Tunney's blessing or indifference. But in the 1970s, there were two notable attempts by other promoters to run big-venue shows in Toronto.

Dave McKigney, a successful promoter outside Toronto and at smaller sites within the city, tried running a show at Varsity Arena in September 1971 with Tony Parisi booked in the main event. Tunney quickly scheduled a Gardens show directly against it. Parisi was a no-show and began working for Tunney the following week. According to the newspapers, the McKigney show drew 700 fans while Tunney got 15,500 at the Gardens.

History repeated itself five years later. George Cannon and Milt Avruskin had built strong awareness of their promotion in Toronto through a TV show broadcast on Global and taped at the Global studios in Don Mills. They tried to parlay that visibility into running a big-venue show at the CNE Coliseum, but once again Tunney moved quickly to book a Gardens show on the same day. The Toronto Star reported that only 600 people showed up for Cannon's show. The promotion moved to Montreal not long after.

Farewell to the Sheik
Meanwhile, at the Gardens, Harley Race took the NWA title from Terry Funk in 1977 in the fourth and final time the belt would change hands in Toronto. The Sheik's act had grown stale after an amazing run and fans were ready for something new. The Tunney-Sheik partnership ended in 1977, and for the next year Toronto fans saw a mix of AWA and WWWF stars performing in the main events -- sometimes with both world titles defended on the same show.

Ric Flair revives Toronto wrestling
The stars of Jim Crockett's NWA-affiliated Mid-Atlantic promotion were added to the mix the following year, as Tunney went into partnership with Crockett and his booker, Hamilton native George Scott. The first Gardens card with Crockett's talent in 1978 featured a match between Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat, both making their Toronto debuts. For the first few years, AWA and WWWF stars also continued to perform in the city, including a historic meeting between AWA champ Nick Bockwinkel and WWWF titleholder Bob Backlund in 1979, with Flair vs Steamboat also on the card.

New local heroes
Along with presenting top wrestlers from the U.S., Tunney also launched the Canadian title in 1978 and used it to turn Dewey Robertson and Angelo Mosca into local babyface heroes and main event stars.

Death of Frank Tunney
By 1983, rivalries between the various promotions made it difficult to bring talent from different factions together. And it was right at this time that Frank Tunney passed away at age 70, leaving his piece of the Toronto promotion in the hands of his son Eddie Tunney and his nephew Jack Tunney -- the son of John Tunney.

Toronto joins the WWF

The next-generation Tunneys quickly moved to align themselves with Vince McMahon's WWF. Crockett had begun sending his B-team to Toronto and attendance at the Gardens was plummeting. Toronto became one of the first of the former NWA strongholds to jump to the WWF, starting a trend that would continue through the 1980s.

After a 34-year run, the NWA title -- which had made its Gardens debut in January 1950 --made its final appearance in the building in May 1984. Whatever nostalgic feelings long-time fans had for the old days, the McMahon-Tunney alliance and Hulkamania captured a whole new audience, attracting sell-out crowds to the Gardens and drawing over 65,000 people to Exhibition Stadium in 1986 and 68,000 to SkyDome for Wrestlemania VI in 1990 to see Hulk Hogan lose the WWF title to the Ultimate Warrior.

Rivals take a run
With the Gardens locked up by the WWF, the AWA held a show at the CNE Coliseum in December 1989 that drew what remains the smallest crowd ever in the city for a show from major promotion -- just 200 people. WCW, which evolved out of Crockett's Mid-Atlantic promotion, ran three shows at the Coliseum in 1990 with better results, but not good enough to keep Toronto on their schedule. WCW came back in 1993 and drew about 4,000 to SkyDome, and then made a big return to Toronto with two well-attended shows at the Air Canada Centre in 1999 before the promotion fizzled out.

End of the Tunney era, and Maple Leaf Gardens
McMahon ended his relationship with Jack Tunney in 1995 and the 64-year affiliation of pro wrestling and Maple Leaf Gardens ended in September of that year. The WWF has continued to run shows in Toronto ever since. It drew another 68,000 back to SkyDome for Wrestlemania X8 in 2002, with Hulk Hogan vs The Rock in what was generally seen as the main event. That card made Hogan the main event performer in the top-drawing Toronto show of the 1980s, the 1990s, and (so far) the 2000s.

In 2003, Toronto was host to just three major-league pro wrestling shows, all from the sole surviving big-name promotion, Vince McMahon's WWE.

- by Gary Will

Top drawing matches, year-by-year, 1929-1977: Gary Will's TWH

These are the main events of the cards reported to have been the largest draw each year from 1929 to 1977. There are two problems with this list 1) not all cards had an attendance figure reported and 2) the reported numbers weren't always accurate.

I think it's likely that the biggest crowd of the year would be mentioned, so if there was no attendance reported, it was likely not the biggest draw of the year. But there's no guarantee of that, and after 1974 the attendance reports become highly infrequent. The inaccuracy of the numbers could be a bigger issue. Usually the figures in the papers made sense, but sometimes there would be a huge number out of the blue, and occasionally different papers would report completely different crowd sizes, sometimes separated by thousands. But this is the best information available.

Whipper Billy Watson was in the top drawing match 21 times. The Sheik is next with 10.

1929	Gus Sonnenberg vs Dan Koloff (9,000)
1930	Gus Sonnenberg vs Stanley Stasiak (9,600)
1931	Jim Londos vs Gino Garibaldi (15,800 - first Maple Leaf Gardens show)
1932	Jim Londos vs George Zaharias (14,350)
1933	Jim Browning vs Joe Savoldi (11,000)
1934	Jim Londos vs Joe Savoldi (11,000)
1935	Dan O'Mahony vs Jim Browning (16,000)
1936	Dan O'Mahony vs Ray Steele (9,000)
1937	Dan O'Mahony vs Dean Detton (7,000)
1938	Masked Marvel (Ted Cox) vs Vic Christie (10,000)
1939	Elimination Tournament, won by Vic Christie (6,000)
1940	The Angel vs Jerry Monahan (11,000)
1941	The Angel vs Masked Wolf (10,000-)
1942	The Angel vs Strangler Lewis (10,000)
	Whipper Billy Watson vs Wild Bill Longson (10,000)
1943	Whipper Billy Watson vs Jack Claybourne (11,000)
1944	Whipper Billy Watson vs Hard Boiled Hannigan (12,000)
1945	Whipper Billy Watson vs Frank Sexton (10,000-)
1946	Whipper Billy Watson vs Wladyslaw Talun (14,000)
1947	Whipper Billy Watson vs Wild Bill Longson (15,000)
1948	Whipper Billy Watson vs Nanjo Singh (13,000)
1949	Whipper Billy Watson vs Masked Marvel (14,000)
1950	Whipper Billy Watson vs Yukon Eric (13,000)
1951	Whipper Billy Watson vs Lord Athol Layton (14,000)
1952	Hans Hermann vs Yukon Eric (13,000)
1953	Al Mills/Tiny Mills vs Whipper Billy Watson/Yvon Robert (16,000)
1954	Al Mills/Tiny Mills vs Ernie Dusek/Emil Dusek (13,000)
1955	Whipper Billy Watson vs Antonino Rocca (13,000)
1956	Whipper Billy Watson vs Lou Thesz (15,000)
1957	Whipper Billy Watson/Yukon Eric vs Gene Kiniski/Dick Hutton (15,000)
1958	Whipper Billy Watson vs Al Bunny Dunlop (13,000)
1959	Whipper Billy Watson vs Gorgeous George (14,000)
1960	Whipper Billy Watson vs Gene Kiniski (10,000)
1961	Bulldog Brower vs Yukon Eric (10,000)
1962	Buddy Rogers vs Bruno Sammartino (14,000)
1963	Buddy Rogers vs Lou Thesz (11,000)
1964	Whipper Billy Watson vs The Beast/Martino Angelo (11,000)
1965	Johnny Valentine vs The Sheik (7,000)
1966	Masked Yankees vs Whipper Billy Watson/Lord Athol Layton (7,500)
1967	Tiger Jeet Singh/Fred Atkins vs Whipper Billy Watson/Mighty Igor (7,500)
1968	Ivan Koloff vs Edouard Carpentier (10,000)
1969	The Sheik vs Gene Kiniski (15,000)
1970	The Sheik vs Whipper Billy Watson (17,000)
1971	The Sheik vs Tiger Jeet Singh (18,000)
1972	The Sheik vs Carlos Rocha (18,000)
1973	The Sheik vs Andre the Giant (18,000)
1974	The Sheik vs Andre the Giant (16,000)
1975	The Sheik vs Abdullah the Butcher (12,000)
1976	The Sheik vs Mark Lewin (8,000)
1977	The Sheik vs Tiger Jeet Singh (7,000)

-by Gary Will 

Toronto debuts in main events: Gary Will's TWH

Starting From The Top: Wrestlers who made their Toronto debuts in main events, 1930-1989 Whipper Billy Watson didn't do it. Neither did Hulk Hogan, The Sheik, Buddy Rogers, Lou Thesz, Bruno Sammartino, Ric Flair, or even Andre the Giant. In fact, very few wrestlers did it after the 1930s -- made their big-venue Toronto wrestling debuts in a main event. It was easier to do in the 1930s because the weekly shows only began in 1929, so more wrestlers were making their debuts. And the undercards were much shorter, so a greater percentage of wrestlers on a card were in the main event. These lists are in chronological order. 1930s: (31) Cyclone Ress Bill Demetral Jack Winters Jim Browning Jack McCarthy John Pesek Glenn Wade Jack Sherry Joe Wagner Ed Don George Pinky Gardner Lee Wykoff Jim McMillen Jim Clinstock Dick Shikat Casey Berger Vanka Zelesniak Abe Kashey George Godfrey Lionel Conacher Sammy Stein Jack Brown Young Angelo Dan O'Mahony Ali Baba Frank Sexton Dave Levin Vincent Lopez George "Dazzler" Clarke Cliff Thiede Bronko Nagurski 1940s: (2) Golden Terror Gorgeous George 1950s: (5) Lord Athol Layton Lord James Blears Antonino "Argentina" Rocca Reggie Lisowski Art Neilson Nikita Kalmikoff 1960s: (1) Mighty Igor 1970s: (5) Harley Race Jack Brisco Abdullah Farouk Terry Funk Nick Bockwinkel 1980s: (3) Assassins Buzz Sawyer Tonga Kid - by Gary Will