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[1920-01-30-New York, NY] Earl Caddock vs Joe Stetcher


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While clips of older matches certainly exist, I am fairly certain that this is the oldest match that exists on videotape where we get a significant portion of the match instead of a minute or less of highlights. It’s difficult to provide too much critique of this match not only because I have no grasp of the normal working style at the time, but also because the footage is grainy and shot from a distance. The match pre-dates the National Wrestling Alliance as we know it just as it predates the television-fueled wrestling boom of the 1950s, where the template was created for what pro wrestling looks like today. Like much older footage, it also appears to have been slightly sped up, and distinguishing the wrestlers from each other would be virtually impossible. I realize this isn’t really a review, but it’s difficult to review a match like this. I think the mere preservation of the footage is an accomplishment on its own, and it has immense value as a historical clip. How cool is it that we have footage of a match that is nearly 100 years old? I found a few brief clips of President Woodrow Wilson during this time period when searching YouTube, but nothing approaching 25 minutes of film. Hopefully, 100 years from now, it’s much easier for our wrestling fan successors to watch footage from this era.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 6 months later...

Now, that's what I call a classic!

 

In all seriousness though, this was tough to watch. I needed 4 or 5 attempts to motivate me to watching this beyond the first 2 or 3 minutes. There isn't really anything I can say about the match, despite it resembling classic amateur wrestling a good bit, naturally, and having no idea who won and who lost. The picture quality is what it is, I don't think one can critisize it, it IS almost 100 years old after all.

 

But yeah, it's really neat to just have something like this and beeing able to access it so easily. Would I recommend watching it? No, definitely not, except you're a super wrestling nerd who has the desire to suck up everything like a sponge.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for the better quality, but I'm not gonna sit through that one again.

 

It looks pretty shoot-y, but often times when you read about these times it seems that everything was shoot, so I'm just gonna attribute that to the general feeling of realism that existed back then.

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  • GSR changed the title to [1920-01-30-New York, NY] Earl Caddock vs Joe Stetcher
  • 3 years later...

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