50 years ago this former pro-wrestler invented the ladder match in Calgary
During his early days as a pro-wrestler, (Dan) Kroffat pitched legendary promoter Stu Hart on the idea of a ladder match. The idea is wrestlers compete to climb to the top of a folding ladder, and whoever gets there first and grabs the prize dangling above the ring wins.
So this is where the idea of the ladder match began!
One Friday night in September 1972, Kroffat gave the match a test run against his rival, Tor Kamata, in the Victoria Pavilion on the Stampede grounds.
At a certain point in the match, Dan realized he was onto something special.
“I had erected the ladder, and Tor Kamata was on the outside of the ring and I was slowly climbing up. The crowd was deafening. I knew we had control of the evening, and as I reached for the bag of money … it was a noise that I had not heard before,” he said.
“The people were going crazy, and then when Tor came in and pushed the ladder over and then he hit me over the head, and he put the ladder up and started climbing up the ladder, the crowd went crazy again. And right there and then, I knew we had something that could be successful.”
This month marks the 50th anniversary of Kroffat’s creation. Over the past five decades, the match has been performed in wrestling competitions across the world, including in WWE championships.
It was something people never saw before.
It was new and unique.
Something modern wrestling has lost.
Heath McCoy, a wrestling historian and author of the book Pain and Passion: The History of Stampede Wrestling, says there’s a direct line from the ladder match’s days with Stampede Wrestling to its garnering of worldwide fame.
McCoy says former professional wrestler Bret Hart was one of many recruits from Stampede Wrestling into the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, which is now WWE) who went on to become big names in the sport. Bret performed in WWF’s first ladder match, McCoy said, leading to the match format gaining wide popularity.
Now with so few places to try new things, new ideas, things has been too stale.
Same wrestlers doing the same things, to the same people, over and over again.
It is like once a wrester gets a “finishing move”, they are not allowed to win a match without using it.
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