A black and white photo postcard of Frank Gotch, World Wrestling Champion of 1911. He was in Bisbee in 1907 participating in a match at the Orpheum Theater. The postcard is unused, and the publisher is unknown. John McAllister Collection.

A turn of the century wrestler who popularized wrestling in the United States. He spent five years from 1908 to until his retirement in 1913 as the World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion and considered the best of the 20th century. He was born April 27, 1877 on a farm in Humboldt, Iowa to a German couple, Frederick Rudolph and Amelia Gotch. Gotch never wrestled in high school or college matches; all his fights were done between amateur players. Over his wrestling career he won 154 of his 160 matches including two wings against the champion George Hackenschimidt in 1908 and 1911. He was five feet eleven inches tall and weighed in at 210 pounds. He was often smaller in size of the men he faced in the ring, but his strength and encyclopedic knowledge of holds gave him a winning edge over his opponents. No films of Frank Gotch’s matches survived into the modern day, as was common for films of the era only 25 percent of films survive from that time. Frank Gotch passed away in Humboldt, Iowa on December 16, 1917 at the age of forty from uremic poisoning. The National Wrestling Hall of Fame created the Frank Gotch award for professional wrestler engaged positive recognition of profession wresting for work outside the ring.

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