A Wladek Zbyszko vs. Dan Koloff Match Draws Big in Antwerp, But Doesn't Take Place

12,000 people show up for the big match in 1937, and the wrestlers are nowhere to be found. 

Pro wrestling (catch) had a good amount of popularity in Belgium in the 1930s with veteran Belgian wrestlers Constant le Marin and Laurent Gerstmans being the top stars. In Antwerp, the biggest Belgian city, there were two main wrestling promoters - Pete Brackeniers (who had a very long run as a wrestling promoter, 1930s-1970s) and Jos De Stobbeleire. At the time (November 1936) Brackeniers had working a relationship with promoter Raoul Paoli from France and was using talent from Paoli's booking office while De Stobbeleire was working with Wladek Zbyszko's troupe of wrestlers. One of the top names working for Brackeniers was the Bulgarian Dan Koloff (the reigning European Heavyweight champion, French version). Earlier in the year Wladek Zbyszko had picked up victories over the top Belgian stars le Marin and Gerstmans (a European Heavyweight Title claimant at one point, Belgian version), and had won a tournament in Brussels, which was billed as a European Championship. In short, in November 1936 in Belgium there were two main European Heavyweight Title claimants, each with a valid claim to the honors, and they were working for rival promoters. I've seen the acronyms E.W.B. and A.W.B. being used in the Belgian press when talking about which wrestling organizations backed Koloff and Zbyszko's claims, respectively.

As best as I can tell, the talk of Zbyszko and Koloff wrestling in Antwerp started on 19 November 1936, when Zbyszko issued a challenge to Koloff through the press. Zbyszko claimed to have been to Paris several times to meet Koloff, but Koloff had been avoiding him so now Zbyszko was challenging him in Belgium to settle the matter of who the real European champion was. A few days later at one of De Stobbeleire's shows Zbyszko did an in-ring speech challenging Koloff again. Wladek said he had defeated Koloff a hundred times in the Unites States and later Koloff became his sparring partner [note: I have record of 9 wins for Zbyszko and 2 draws]. After Zbyszko's speech Brackeniers, who was in the crowd, stepped up on behalf of Koloff and accepted. Brackeniers wanted Zbyszko to wrestle Koloff at his next show in a few days. Brackeniers and De Stobbeleire had some back and forth words and challenges, and that's how things ended that night.

Then there was more back and forth talk in the press, each promoter wanting the match to happen on their own show and each having an open invite to the other promoter's wrestler to show up, but neither Zbyszko, nor Koloff showed up at the rival promoter's show. The monetary terms of the match were also an issue - each promoter had their own ideas what the terms should be (winner take all, 60/40 split, different guarantees, etc.). A private match, no fans allowed, was suggested too. At one point Koloff guaranteed Zbyszko a purse of 5,000 francs. Later on that went up to 10,000. Raoul Paoli briefly got involved in the story to back Koloff up. Another aspect to all of this was Zbyszko claiming that Brackeniers owed him money and that's why he didn't want anything to do with Brackeniers and his shows. Earlier in the year Zbyszko had wrestled Gerstmans on a Brackeniers show and Zbyszko was now saying that Brackeniers had wanted him to lose to Gerstmans, but Zbyszko didn't do it so Brackeniers didn't pay him. Ultimately, the Zbyszko vs. Koloff match didn't take place at that point.

Fast-forward a few weeks. The Zbyszko vs. Koloff match was finally booked. It was to take place on 30 January 1937 at the big Sportpaleis arena in Antwerp. It was the headline attraction of a wrestling and cycling charity event. I don't believe either of the two promoters mentioned above was involved. I think the promoter was Leon van Gastel (the director of Sportpalais), but I could be wrong. 12,000 fans turned out to see the big match for the European Heavyweight Championship... and the match never happened.

Wladek Zbyszko and Dan Koloff

Right at the start of the show it was announced that at the last minute Wladek Zbyszko had demanded that he be paid a 50,000 franc guarantee or he would not wrestle. The organizers of the event couldn't pay out such a large sum (nor did they want to) so Zbyszko didn't come to the arena at all. It was also said that according to the contract Zbyszko was to get 12% of the gate with a guarantee of 8,000 francs. The crowd was really unhappy about the big match not happening. Refunds were demanded and the organizers did give out refunds to the people that wanted them. As for Koloff, it was announced that his new opponent would be confirmed later on in the show, but then when they went to look for Koloff he was nowhere to be found so he didn't wrestle on the show either. A couple of reports mention that he had refused to meet anyone but Zbyszko, but most reports simply say he wasn't there. Abe Kaplan, who was part of Zbyszko's troupe and was supposed to wrestle on the show too, no-showed as well. This ended up being the card:

30 January 1937
Antwerp, Belgium
Sportpaleis
12,000 fans
1. Bernhard de Ferm def. Bert van der Auwera (20:37)
2. Rik de Groot def. Jose Pons (7:35)
3. Jef van Opstal drew Emil Bognar (30:00)
4. Jack Zarnas drew Bernhard De Ferm (9:36 Zarnas, 13:46 de Ferm, no one won the 3rd fall)

The match not taking place received a lot of negative press and made both wrestlers look really bad in the eyes of the Belgian public. A couple of days after the show a story ran in the press where a doctor was claiming Wladek had injured his knee during a match on the 25 January and was to be out of action for another week or so, and that's why he couldn't wrestle on 30 January.

One article made some particularly interesting claims. It claimed that despite the injured knee Wladek was actually at the arena that night and he was willing to wrestle, but he wanted that 50,000 guarantee as a way of insuring that the match would be wrestled on the ground and that Koloff would keep his word for them to wrestle to a draw. Furthermore, the article claimed that Wladek's brother Stanislaus Zbyszko (who had wrestled in Antwerp a few days earlier) was also at the arena that night and the 50,000 was to be given to him (as opposed to Wladek directly). Another claim was that after the show the event organizers had went to look for Koloff at his hotel, his room was locked so they forced it open, but he wasn't there and seemed to have left Antwerp. To me it kind of reads like this particular article may have been the promoter of the event blowing the whistle on the whole situation, but either way we'll never know exactly what happened. 

Overall, prior to this fiasco Koloff and especially Zbyszko had had good runs in Belgium, but after this Koloff never wrestled in Belgium again and I don't think Wladek did either.

Sidenote: On the day of the Zbyszko/Koloff match Joe "Bull" Komar issued a challenge in the press for the winner of the match to wrestle him and he said he was putting up 10,000 francs as a side bet. This is notable because as of May 1937 Komar was being managed by Stanislaus Zbyszko, who took him to Turkey, but perhaps, based on Komar trying to get involved here, Stanislaus may have been his manager as early as January 1937.