As you all know I am the foremost historian covering The Russian Lion, The first World Champion of professional wrestling, George Hackenschmidt, well, at least here at Violent People. My piece on his trip to Australia is without a doubt the writing I’ve worked the hardest on for this site. It also may be my least read thing I’ve written. Despite that, I have always been fascinated by Hackenschmidt, so it’s not surprising Twitter’s algorithm made sure I saw Phil Lions tweet:

Up until this point there was no existing footage of George Hackenschmidt wrestling. Somehow footage was found, shown in Estonia, posted about on Twitter, and somehow that was the end of it. The rest of the world seemed to move on.

I saw a few jokes made about going to Estonia, but no real public clamoring or attempts to secure the footage. 

That’s when I began my search. I discovered the footage was played as part of a film festival at The Estonian Sports and Olympic Museum. I reached out to Siim Randoja the director of the museum. He informed me they have no rights to the footage and it was shown in collaboration with the New Zealand Embassy in Estonia. 

I reached out to the embassy, but before I could get a reply Mr. Randoja helped me out and gave me the contact information for the film archive in New Zealand that had the actual footage, Steve Russell at the Nga Taonga film archive. After several phone calls and emails with different people at Nga Taonga I can tell you that they are extremely diligent at their jobs and beyond patient. 

The Discovery of the Footage

Ngā Taonga has known for some time that they held the Hackenschmidt footage. However, the exact origin of the 35mm nitrate print is unclear. It was part of a larger collection deposited with the New Zealand Film Archive by the National Library when Ngā Taonga was founded in 1981. Hackenschmidt himself toured New Zealand in 1910, and a screening of the footage accompanied his visit, as recorded by the Wairarapa Daily Times:

“Among the Bioscope films shown the most interesting were those showing the fight for the boxing championship of England between Gunner Moir and Tommy Burns, and the world’s wrestling championship between George Hackenschmidt and Joe Rogers, the twenty-one stone American champion.” – Wairarapa Daily Times, 5th February 1910

Interesting a Gunner Moir fight was mentioned as he was a member of the troupe that accompanied Hackenshimdt on his first voyage to Australia. 

Who Filmed the Match?

The footage was produced in 1908 by the Charles Urban Trading Company, a key player in early film history. Unfortunately, little else is known about the film’s production.

The Condition and Restoration

The print was generally in good condition, though not without its challenges. Scratches, tears, and damaged perforations had to be addressed by the Ngā Taonga team. The restoration process was painstaking, beginning with Film Conservator Kurt Otzen’s careful inspection of the reel. Repairs were made before the footage was digitized on an Arriscan XT film scanner. Then came digital stabilization, dirt removal, color correction, and cropping to reflect how it would have been originally viewed. Restoring the film took about a month, and involved several members of the Ngā Taonga team. This included archivists who had monitored the nitrate reel for years to prevent decomposition. This resulted in a previously unseen piece of wrestling history brought back to life after more than a century.

THE MATCH

https://www.ngataonga.org.nz/search-use-collection/search/F18094