20 Pro Wrestling Firsts You Need To Know
19. First Wrestling Match To Be Recorded
There may one day surface an earlier example than this, but as of right now the first professional wrestling match to be recorded onto video featured Gustav Frištensky taking on Josef Smejkal. In many ways this entire idea is up for debate, as claiming it as the first requires a clear definition of when simple grappling became what we know today as professional wrestling. Still, I'm going with this.
As you can see, this is a different world to what was known as professional wrestling even as soon as a decade later. There are no ropes, and the crowd is entirely made up of people wearing hats for some reason. The match is all grappling, and it is clear that the eventual introduction of theatrics was vital for the art-form to survive.
Frištensky was a Czech strongman, who supposedly won over 10,000 matches in a career that spanned more than 50 years. He would meet a somewhat tragic end, as he sided with the Czech resistance in World War II only to have his land collectivised by the Communists following the war. Frištensky had to sell his wrestling trophies to survive, and died in 1957. Unfortunately, my Czech isn't good enough to tell you too much about Smejkal.