Dear Friends,
few weeks ago I made a post on Heritage about the original rules of Lancashire catch-as-catch-can wrestling. In that post I provided the credible evidences of that style being a fair back fall (both shoulders touch the ground, or mat) only style of wrestling and in addition to that any kind of back falls (i.e. flying, rolling and pinning) to count, which meant that to win the match you could give a throw from the standing position and if the man lands on his both shoulders he loses, or if in his attempt to escape from a hold he rolled on his back or he was intentionally rolled on his back by his opponent he loses. No matter how quick all those falls happened they all were accepted as the back falls that is why the referee's word was final in order to prevent and eliminate the possibility of disputed falls (when match stops and both parties argue whether there was a fall or wasn't). This Fair Back Fall system I call it FRP (Flying, Rolling, Pinning) is exactly the same as the one used in East Lancashire in the 1800s.
After that my post I have received quite a few emails on this subject. The main concern of those inquiries was - when and where the last time (to the best of my knowledge of course) the old rules were used in pro wrestling. In this post I am going to answer this question.
In 1921 the New York State Athletics Commission (NYSAC) under the chairman William Muldoon who was a famous 1880s wrestling champ introduced the "new" (in fact the old) rules of catch wrestling. All pro wrestling matches in the State of New York during that time were governed by the original Lancashire catch wrestling rules. The most famous match from 1921 was of course the world's pro wrestling championship the 'Mighy Pole' Stanislaus Zbyszko defeated Ed 'Strangler' Lewis. I am attaching some references to the match. Lewis won first fall on 'headlock into cross-buttock' (classy Lancashire flying fall, or as I would say - Adam Ridings' Favorite Throw), then Zby equalized with 'half-nelson and crutch' (rolling fall), in the third decisive fall Stan used a 'double arm forward roll' (also a rolling fall) to secure his victory and was awarded the world's championship diamond belt (photo attached).
I highly recommend to everyone read my article-summary on the history of Lancashire Catch-as-catch-can. That article is dedicated to my dear friend Mr. Ron Historyo.
Amazing that ladies wrestling began as early as 1899