Hans Schmidt

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[JerryvonKramer]

If we had just a few more matches on tape, I think Schmidt would be a shoo in. Was awesomely stiff, worked in a manner that is much more intense than is typical of his era, and understood how to work his gimmick.

 

He is good to great in just about every single match we have. There is probably enough there to make a case if people are willing to vote for guys like Pat O'Connor or Lou Thesz or Buddy Rogers, based on what we have (which is more than you might expect).

 

For me, the style of that era isn't something I enjoy, and it often bores the flying fuck out of me. But Schmidt is the one guy I dig a lot and I'm giving serious thought to rating him and seeing if he gets on.

[conker8]

I don't know if you watch his late work from 1971-1972 AWA.

 

I really like Hans Schmidt in those CFA footages. He has a few of heel vs heel matches where he garner heat with a vicious beating from the start of the match (the Kowalski match is a great example). I love his work on the back with those stiff irish whips and the backbreaker.

[ohtani's jacket]

Schmidt is the first guy to drop who's really piqued my interest. Of course it helps that he was a Tim Cooke pick and I've always been fascinated by Tim's takes on pro-wrestling. Watched Schmidt vs. Kowalski and really enjoyed it. Will definitely be watching more.

[Eegah]

His match against Baba from 64 on Youtube is a fun match from what we get to see.

[ohtani's jacket]

I've been watching as much Schmidt as I can find. I was starting to think he was a bit of a one-note brawler whose matches were all the same until I watched one of the Thesz bouts. Loved the early technical stuff and the way things escalated from there. Loved the step up in intensity from his other bouts and the "business is about to pick up/shit done got real" feel to it. The brawling felt more vicious than in other fights and Thesz' receipts were badass. Of course there was no way it was going to end cleanly, but who cares. This one was destined for a scmozz and was a great, great fight.

[ohtani's jacket]

Man, Schmidt vs. Thesz bouts are awesome. The receipts Lou gives him are out of this world. I was never into Thesz but it's starting to come together for me now. He looks a bit like Jack Kirby. He's the Godfather.

[Tim Cooke]

My takeaway from the Thesz matches were that the credit should go to Schmidt because most of the other Thesz I have seen has been very "meh"

 

Glad your enjoying them. Really have only seen jdw talk about Schmidt so that was part of the reason I felt compelled to put him on the list.

[ohtani's jacket]

The Gagne matches aren't nearly as cool as the Thesz ones. Not sure what that means in relation to Verne vs. Thesz, but I thought I'd throw that out there. Buffalo seemed like a wilder territory than Chicago, would I be right in saying that? Schmidt's matches seemed much rougher in Buffalo. Did he bulk up in the 60s? he looks bigger than in the 60s Buffalo footage. i'm still not sure how I feel about his work. There was a guy commentating over the top of some Buffalo film who said Schmidt never changes his style and I can't decide whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. I do think he worked neat squash matches. He'd kick the shit out of a guy for five minutes then hit the showers. That was cool. I wanna see another guy stand up to him like Lou did, though. That's when Schmidt gets real good.

[Rah]

Have you watched his bout against Lou Newman (15/04/1955)? I'm far from impressed with Newman in it, and felt him too caricatured, but Hans looked rather great in it. I thought the match suffered structurally, with too many simple resets and long-term selling being forgotten (even if Schmidt did a terrific job to begin with), BUT Hans brought enough spice to the dance to make it still a very worthwhile venture. His matwork and offence is neat, and all, but what I love most about his work is that he has the ability to work with/from any hold or move so seamlessly. The pin to headlock transition left me breathless.

 

It's the little things, like that, that make me wonder how good he really was. If there was more footage, I wouldn't doubt he'd rank a lot higher on a list of older wrestlers because what I've seen of him, when he's on, he's really on.

[ohtani's jacket]

Yeah, I've seen the Newman match. Felt kind of flat to me. My least favourite bout thus far has got to be the Yukon Eric match, tho. Long, slow opening fall where they work through Eric's strength holds then two quick falls to end it. (Sounds like some kind of reverse lucha criticism, I know.) The best thing you can say a bout it is that Schmidt's selling was consistent. Other than that it was Dullsville, USA.

 

There's something a bit iffy about Schmidt's back breaker too, but maybe it was due to Eric's size.

[jdw]

Man, Schmidt vs. Thesz bouts are awesome. The receipts Lou gives him are out of this world. I was never into Thesz but it's starting to come together for me now. He looks a bit like Jack Kirby. He's the Godfather.

 

 

The Gagne matches aren't nearly as cool as the Thesz ones. Not sure what that means in relation to Verne vs. Thesz, but I thought I'd throw that out there. Buffalo seemed like a wilder territory than Chicago, would I be right in saying that? Schmidt's matches seemed much rougher in Buffalo. Did he bulk up in the 60s? he looks bigger than in the 60s Buffalo footage. i'm still not sure how I feel about his work. There was a guy commentating over the top of some Buffalo film who said Schmidt never changes his style and I can't decide whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. I do think he worked neat squash matches. He'd kick the shit out of a guy for five minutes then hit the showers. That was cool. I wanna see another guy stand up to him like Lou did, though. That's when Schmidt gets real good.

 

The Thesz-Schmidt matches are really awesome.

 

I wouldn't take a ton away from Schmidt-Gagne not being at the same level. It's a bit like Lou-Verne vs Lou-Buddy. Lou-Verne worked really well as they were in their natural roles, while Lou-Buddy was pretty wildly disappointing as Buddy was kind of forced to work off-norm.

 

There's not a ton of Hans, but he's consistent enough in them against a variety of opponents in the 50s where you get the sense he's a terrific monster heel. Either Frank or Yohe called him the Hansen of the 50s, and that doesn't feel to far off. Fun guy to watch.

[ohtani's jacket]

The first bit of tag wrestling I saw from Schmidt was pretty awful. I wasn't sure whether it was because of the era or if it was just a bad match. Then I watched a super fun tag match with Pat O'Connor and Bob Konovsky against Schmidt and Angelo Poffo. Lots of great shtick between Poffo and Schmidt with O'Connor right there ready and willing to scrap. A shitload of fun.

[ohtani's jacket]

Saved the longest tag for last. Turns out it was Schmidt's debut match on Chicago TV -- Ivan Rasputin & Hans Schmidt vs. Rudy Kay and Farmer Don Marlin from 1952. Rasputin and Farmer Don Marlin were fun characters and Marlin tagging with regular heel Rudy Kay was also neat. Marlin had some interesting offfence based around his barefoot farmer gimmick. Match was long, and the falls didn't overlap enough for my liking, but not a bad bout.

[ohtani's jacket]

Watched the last bit of available Schmidt footage and it was a good 'un. Schmidt vs. Wilbur Snyder was my third favourite Schmidt match behind the two Thesz fights. Really gritty close-quarters grappling. Snyder was the perfect mix of a wrestling stud and a tough sonuvabitch who knew how to induce pain. I'm looking forward to seeing more of him to see whether it was Snyder or the Schmidt effect. I'm kind of sad to have seen the last Schmidt footage. I'm not sure how much more is out there, but I'm guessing that's pretty much it. He gave me an "in" to the Golden Age, and I'm ready to see more, so this trip down YouTube lane was a definite success.