Frank Gotch - Legacy

Legacy

"The story of American Wrestling at its greatest," Nat Fleischer wrote in 1936, "is the story of the career of its most illustrious champion -- Frank Gotch... Gotch was to wrestling history in this country what John L. Sullivan was to boxing. He dominated the field. Through his extraordinary ability, he gained for wrestling many converts and brought the sport into such favor that it became as big in the promotorial field as boxing."

As Mark Palmer pointed out, “For starters, George Hackenschmidt and Frank Gotch were major sports superstars of the early 20th century. Fans of all ages collected cabinet cards and postcards with their images, read their books, and devoured articles about them in newspapers. Their epic matches were front-page news around the world -- akin to today's Super Bowl or soccer's World Cup in terms of garnering global attention -- and helped to launch organized amateur wrestling in the United States in the early part of the 20th century. In fact, a large number of high school and college wrestling programs can trace their roots back to the 1910s and 1920s -- the era when Hackenschmidt and Gotch were still household names, and highly respected athletes.”.

Most wrestling historians consider Frank Gotch to have been one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. The four men continually rated as history's greatest wrestlers are, in this order: the Great Gama, Gotch, George Hackenschmidt and Stanislaus Zbyszko. From the more modern age, many add Lou Thesz and Ed "Strangler" Lewis to that list. Gotch soundly defeated Hackenschmidt and Zbyszko, and Gama headed west in 1910 to challenge Gotch, but stopped off in England to wrestle Hackenschmidt. The Russian Lion refused, so Gama wrestled Zbyszko. Zbyszko was taken down in seconds and avoided defeat technically by hugging the mat for about 4 hours. Whether Gotch was scared of Gama or not, we will never know; but, he never accepted Gama's direct challenge to him.

Gotch was also a major sports superstar, often called the Hulk Hogan of his day, who lifted wrestling to new heights of popularity. When he became world champion, there were not many sports competing with wrestling for public attention. Horse racing remained a favorite sport and major league baseball was growing in popularity but was not yet the national pastime. Automobile racing was in its infancy; golf was still the province of the wealthy; basketball had just been invented and was vying for attention; boxing offered a man a chance at fame and fortune but was, at this time, riddled with scandals; the National Hockey League was formed the same year; and college football—the Ivy League game—was on the verge of being outlawed because it was too rough and too dangerous. Wrestling at the higher professional levels was still a legitimate sport with the added bonus that it was popular on every continent of the globe. And a number of great wrestlers were competing for top honors. In India the Great Gama was already a legendary champion, and in Europe Georg Hackenschmidt had reigned supreme with Stanislaus Zbyszko coming along. Right there you have three of the four greatest wrestlers who ever lived. But in America Tom Jenkins had been rather easily beaten by Hackenschmidt, so there was no American to capture the nation’s fancy until Gotch; and none of the other great wrestlers had either the amazing physical attributes or the gift for self-promotion that Gotch possessed.

Furthermore, the United States was beginning to dominate some of the world's major sports. Americans already dominated boxing and within a decade would begin to dominate golf. When Gotch defeated Hackenschmidt, the domination of professional wrestling passed to the Americans. In addition, many matches had still been conducted under Greco-Roman rules, but this match caused Greco-Roman to be forever replaced by the more exciting catch-as-catch-can style.

Because of both his superior ability and his gift for self-promotion, Gotch became one of America’s greatest sports idols. He achieved a level of popularity similar to that formerly held by boxer John L. Sullivan and harness racehorse Dan Patch, and enjoyed later by such sports heroes of the Golden Age of Sports as boxing's Jack Dempsey, baseball's Babe Ruth, tennis's Bill Tilden and golf's Bobby Jones. This in turn made wrestling mainstream. Mac Davis wrote in 100 Greatest Sports Heroes, "As the idol of millions in the United States, Canada and Mexico, Gotch made wrestling a big-time sport in his day. He drew larger audiences than did the heavyweight champion of boxing when defending his title."

Gotch's first match against Hackenschmidt also remains perhaps the most famous wrestling encounter of all time.

There is a park named the Frank A. Gotch County Park, three miles south of Humboldt near his childhood farm, in homage to Gotch. The Humboldt Community School District also sponsors the annual Frank Gotch Wrestling Tournament as well. Because of Gotch's legacy, Iowa remains a wrestling stronghold at the high school and collegiate levels to this day.

There is an extensive Frank Gotch collection in the Dan Gable Wrestling Museum in Waterloo, Iowa. On display are the wrestling shoes he wore into the ring in 1911 against Hackenschmidt, his Mason’s sword and leather scabbard, the roll-top desk that sat in his living room in Humboldt and many other rare items.

In addition, a film company currently holds the rights to the book Gotch: An American Hero, by Mike Chapman, and is actively in the process of making a movie based on the book.