The Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) has a limited collection of issues of Wrestling Facts. Wrestling Facts was available at the Friday night fights, in the case of this issue, at the National Guard Armory on 6th and Exchange. Today, I want to look at the “card” function of Wrestling Facts — the portion of the newsletter that promoted the event which the fans settled in to see.
The Card:
I don’t know most of these people, but I know Reggie Lisowski, from Milwaukee — “Da Crusher.”
But the card takes a small array of space — it is surrounded on all sides by the advertisements.
The Advertisements:
The advertisements give us a window into the idealized audience for these armory wrestling shows — they were willing to drive from Wisconsin [at minimum, a half an . hour’s drive] into St. Paul, MN for the shows. And they might have been the types to attend shows after the wrestling event.
The Flame was a Jazz Club, for example, hosting acts like
- Charlie Parker, April 26, 1951
- Stan Getz, May 7, 1951
- Billie Holiday, August 24, 1951
This page is document genius; every twenty minutes or so, as the wrestling audience member turned to their card to see “who is next,” they would see the advertisements.