[In-Progress] Pro Wrestling Profile: Chris Jordan

Real Name:  Christope Gregory Jordan (according to his death certificate and obituary) or Christopher Gregory Jordan (according to his headstone)

Nicknames/Aliases: Young Prokos


Birth: 17 January 1886, Constantinople, Turkey (his gravestone incorrectly shows 1896)

Death: 18 April 1940, Fairfield Heights, Jefferson County, Alabama

Chris Jordan @ FindAGrave.com

Earliest appearance (so far): 27 December 1906, vs. Joe Hantorhas at the Columbia Theater, Boston Massachusetts.  Billed as "Christie Jordan" on a card with James Prokos vs Wilfred Barrett.

Latest appearance (so far): 29 June 1931 at Broad Ripple Pool Arena in Indianapolis, Indiana

     All of the following is based purely on information from newspaper articles spanning Jordan's career, and as such, all of it should be taken with a grain of salt, down to his name.
 
      According to multiple newspaper accounts, Chris Jordan was born in Turkey, to Greek parents, and it was always his Greekness that was played up by promoters and sports writers.  Sources conflict on when Chris first took an interest in wrestling.  One write-up says he was a wrestler in Turkey and when old enough to be faced with the choice between having to go to university or get a job, Chris chose wrestling and left Turkey for America.  Another article suggests his first experience wrestling was after arriving in the U.S. and after being taken to watch a wrestling show in Boston, he was encouraged to take a stab at the sport due to his size, quickness and strength.

     In either case, after crossing Europe, he arrived in America in mid-1906 and settled in the Boston area.  After being denied entry into the U.S. Navy, Chris took jobs in a shoe factory and with an electric company.  Jordan didn't initially take to the catch-as-catch-can style of the sport, his first match (reportedly with Peter James), leaving him exhausted and sore after 30 minutes, he gave it another try a few months later, under the name "Young Prokos".  It was common practice at the time for new wrestlers to enter the sport using the name of a more prominent wrestler and simply prefacing it with "Young".  In Jordan's case, he was borrowing the moniker of James Prokos, a well-known light heavyweight of the time.  Once Chris Jordan was well established, his own brother, Steve, would wrestle for several years as "Young Jordan".By all accounts, his brother only wrestled for a few years and left the sport. 

     Jordan quickly began establishing a reputation in the greater Boston area as a serious welterweight grappler.  After effectively throwing everyone in his weight class in the area, he headed west, settling in Pittsburgh for the better part of 1909-1910.

    

     From there he would move on to Cleveland, Detroit, Salt Lake City, Lincoln, El Paso.


    Jordan's promotional career seems to have begun in the late 1920s, as he was wrestling and promoting shows in Macon, Georgia, in 1929.  Prior to his final southern migration, he promoted shows in Evansville, Indiana in early 1931.

     By 1931, Chris had settled in Jasper, Alabama.  In 1932, the American Legion fired their current light heavyweight wrestling promoter, and Jordan was drafted into the role.  He quickly established and expanded the light heavyweight circuit around Birmingham, promoting regular shows in Fairfield (where he ultimately settled), Homewood, Tarrant and Bessemer, with spot shows in Leeds.  By the end of 1932, he was making forays into larger towns like Tuscaloosa and Anniston, acting as the central booking office for light heavyweight talent across Alabama.  From middle Alabama, he expanded to south to Montgomery, Dothan and Mobile, and northward into Florence, Sheffield, Decatur and Huntsville.

    In 1938-39, Jordan became ill, and began grooming Joe Gunther to help out on the promotion side.  By late 1939, he was incapacitated to the point of being forced to retire from promoting and hand the whole enterprise off to Gunther, and in April of 1940, Chris Jordan died at his home in Fairfield Heights, Alabama.  According to his death certificate, he died of heart failure due to rheumatic heart disease and mitral stenosis, so apparently due to damage caused by rheumatic fever.