Georg Hackenschmidt - Legacy

Legacy

The years spanning Hackenschmidt’s professional career are called the Golden Age of Wrestling. Not only were professional wrestling matches mostly honestly contested, but wrestling was the most popular sport on every continent. But it was Hackenschmidt who brought wrestling its great popularity in the United Kingdom, and it was he and Gotch together who brought it to entirely new heights around the world. "The Hackenshmidt-Gotch matches were the pinnacle of professional wrestling during the time period and received much attention from media, fans, and celebrities," Andrew Malnoske observed. "They were even described in the 1937 book Fall Guys-The Barnums of Bounce by famed writer Marcus Griffen. To this day, the Chicago Public Library receives requests to view the newspaper accounts and files on the bouts.

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.”.

Having already made his mark in bodybuilding, Hackenschmidt caused the major surge in the popularity of wrestling in England, and he was considered unbeatable. But Hackenschmidt probably would not be so well remembered today were it not for two things: 1) His enormous standing in the world of physical culture, and 2) his two defeats at the hands of Frank Gotch.

Hackenschmidt’s name remained in the public eye because he had become an icon in the world of physical culture, a legendary bodybuilder as well as health addict, and a world champion wrestler central to a movement that was now increasingly popular. He spoke and published widely on a wide range of subjects, but most notably on health and fitness. His most popular book was the classic The Way To Live, the last words of which befit this warrior: "Throughout my whole career I have never bothered as to whether I was a Champion or not a Champion; The only title I have desired to be known by is simply my name - George Hackenschmidt.”

But it was his matches with Gotch that ensured the growing popularity of catch-as-catch-can wrestling over the more laborious Greco-Roman that had previously dominated, and this is the style that enjoys popularity at all scholastic levels, private clubs and the Olympics to this day. Hackenschmidt was a major reason for this.

The H. J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports at the Todd-McLean Library and Special Collections in Austin, Texas, has a digitized version of a nearly 600-page scrapbook owned for decades by Hackenschmidt and bequeathed to them by his widow, Rachel.

The international Georg Hackenschmidt Memorial in Greco-Roman wrestling is held in Tartu from 1969.