Historische Wrestling Stories/Artikel

[Nefercheperur]

Dallas, Texas
Dallas Morning News
25 April 1954

Fish Eating Prince, Big Game Hunter on Dallas Mat Programs

Antone Leone, a retired legislator from New York State, and Prince Maiava, a fish-eating member of the Samoan nobility, have one or two things in common. Both are proponents of the evil or no-holds-barred school of wrestling and both of them are highly emotional.

They will probably never meet in the ring, since Maiava performs his Samoan sword dance for Norman Clark, the Pappy’s Showland impressario, while Leone emotes for Ed McLemore at the Sportatorium. This is an unfortunate circumstance since the two of them might wreak havoc such as has seldom been seen outside of Elugelab.

Maiava is a temperamental, inarticulate savage with a penchant for stomping on bonfires and sharp nails and eating raw fish. Leone is a suave sophisticated man of the world who has a vast storehouse of words available on nearly any conceiveable subject. He has never stepped on so much as a match, although a time or two he has been victimized by other wrestlers via the hot foot. He hasn’t stepped on a sharp nail since his childhood in Oyster Bay, New York, and, except when he appears in the ring, he wears shoes. Maivia doesn’t wear shoes in or out of the ring.

Leone discovered Leone while attending Brown University and wrestling on the side. Maiava was discovered by a gentleman from Long Beach, Calif., named Coconut Willie, who heard of the prince via grapevine and journeyed all the way to Samoa to sign him to a wrestling conract.

Since Maiava’s English vocabulary is confined to three words – “eat, sleep, girls” – Coconut Willie must have used sign language to sign him. He directs Maiava in the ring via a Samoan war drum, beating a tattoo on it with his palms which means something to the prince and Willie but leaves their opponent bewitched, bothered and in the fierce clutches of Maiava.

On the few occasions when a mere human has triumphed over the untutored savage, it was because of foul play. The victors invariably deserted the ring to snatch the drum away from Willie and hide it. With no drum beat to advise him on the niceties of the strategy and tactics of the wrestling ring, Maiava was at the mercy of his ruthless foe and lost in a welter of confusion.

Since part of Maiava’s act is a sword dance performed either immediately preceding or following his engagement with another wrestler, ringside seats to his battles have become hard to sell. He performs the sword dance with two razor-sharp swords which he juggles with a rare insouciance and a perfect disregard for the customers. Once he adminstered a crew-cut to a row of seven customers with one fell swoop of a sword, but he has never injured a paying fan.

Maiava has an affinity for fresh fish as an item of diet. Recently, he journeyed with Coconut Willie to The Dallas News for an interview. While Willie went inside to locate a sports writer, Maiava remained in the car, dreaming of fresh fish. A wrestling fan began chivvying him – presumably via his own personal drum – producing a vast emotional upheaval in the savage breast. Although Maiava’s three-word vocabulary makes an interview simple, he became so upset he could not bring himself to face this writer and had to be shepherded to his hotel room by Coconut Willie. Three hours and several dozen fresh fish later, Willie called to say he had put out the fires and Maiava was calm enough to interview.

The interview was carried out in Maiava’s hotel room. The prince said, “Eat, sleep, girls,” stomped out a bonfire thoughtfully prepared by Willie on a slab of wood in the middle of the hotel room, and trod daintily on another slab of wod full of nails. It was an obvious effort for him to control his emotions.

Leone has never wrestled so savage a savage, although he once fought his way across the length and breadth of Africa. During this safari, he met and defeated Willie Liebenburg, the South African champion, and Gert Danhauser, champion of North Africa.

After these polar successes, he also met and defeated a leopard, which he first looked boldly in the eye, then shot. According to Antone, the lion is not really the king of beasts – he just has a good publicity man. The leopard, elephant and Cape buffalo are the most dangerous animals, not counting Samoan wrestlers or a chap named Jolly Midget Fisher.

Jolly Midget Fisher no longer wrestles, but his memory is green in the mind of Leone.

Fisher, according to Leone’s hospital records, is the roughest adversary he ever faced.

“He broke my left leg and subjected me to unimaginable tortures,” says Leone, simply. “He didn’t put me out of my misery fast enough.”

Leone’s brief tenure as a member of the New York State Legislature came as a strong protest against the governorship of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

“I campaigned on an anti-Governor platforma nd was elected,” he says. “I made a ringing speech denouncing the Governor and his policies and resigned forthwith to return to wrestling.”

When he retires from the ring, Leone would like to run for Congress from Dallas. His platform is simple.

“I’m for McCarthy and against income tax,” he says. “I’m going to run as a representative of the Constitution party.”

TH: The sophistication of Leone is somewhat hard to believe, especially if you are privy to the letters written by Antone to Department of Justice officials and the Judge of the 1956 Antitrust case. In my opinion, the letters were written by a borderline psychotic - wishing death upon many people in the wrestling business. I guess he had a personal right to be angry and was fueled by the assumption of blacklisting, but he was WAY out there

[Adrian Adonis]

Kann ich mal fragen was es mit diesem "Bump" auf sich hat, das sehe schon zum dritten Mal in diesem Forum.

[Nefercheperur]

Original von Adrian Adonis
Kann ich mal fragen was es mit diesem "Bump" auf sich hat, das sehe schon zum dritten Mal in diesem Forum.

“Bump” bedeutet das man ein Topic nach laengerer Zeit nach oben bringt.

In diesem Fall ist es aber so das das Peoplesboard manchmal nicht richtig funktioniert wenn man eine Antwort erstellt. Soll heissen man klickt auf den Button “Antwort erstellen“, und dann bricht der Browser ab beim erstellen der Antwort. Die folge davon ist, das die Antwort zwar gepostet wurde, und im Thread steht, aber das das Topic nicht nach oben gehollt wird, und die Antwort nicht in der Thread Uebersicht im Forum erscheint. Soll heissen, ausser mir haette niemand gesehen das die Antwort erstellt wurde, weil im Thread die letzte Antwort vom 25 November angezeigt wurde, und nicht die aktuelle Antwort die ich gepostet habe. Das Problem gibt es auf dem ganzen Forum abundzu, und es scheint immer ein paar Minuten aufzutretten, und dann wieder zu verschwinden. Jetzt kann ich zum Beispiel wieder das Bump Posting loeschen, weil jetzt zeigt es ja deine Antwort an.

[Nefercheperur]

Minneapolis Tribune
Minneapolis, Minnesota
30 December 1934
George Barton Column

Shades of Frank Gotch! - the names of some of the holds used by our modern acrobatic wrestlers are strange to be sure. The late Wayne Munn used the slam hold to pin his opponents; Gus Sonnenberg conceived the flying tackle; Jim Londos the airplane spin; Ed Don George the backdrop; Joe Savoldi the dropkick; Abe Kashey the hit-kick-and-gouge; Joe Cox the Japanese cradle hold; and Man Mountain Dean the Blimp.

[Nefercheperur]

Marshfield News
21 September 1905

Mob After Beell

Fred Beell and Harvey Parker, who are making a tour with a theatrical company, narrowly escaped violence at the hands of an infuriated mob one night last week. The outbreak occured at Cleveland at the close of a bout in which the local enthusiasts believed their favorite did not get fair play.

The crowd had started to beat down the theater door when the police arrived and escorted the wrestlers to their hotel.

It was a new and exciting experiance for Fred and friends here will await with interest his version of the affair.

The following is the dispatch from Cleveland dated Sept. 15:

"The police reserves were called out tonight to rescue Harvey Parker and Fred Beell with "Miss Ne wYork Jr," burlesque company. They have been meeting all comers at the Star this week, offering $25 o anyone they could not throw in 15 minutes.

Both men have been using tactic and tonight Beell threw his man with one shoulder off the mat. The crowd began to shout when Beell was given the decision and Mark Lamb, manager of Tom Jenkin's training quarters, punched Parker on the jaw and a great fight ensued on the stage. Peace was finally restored and then the audience swarmed around the stage door waiting for Parker and Beell

A riot call was sent in and a dozen policemen responded and scattered the crowd of 500 and escorted the wrestlers to their hotel. Doc Payne, trainer for the Cleveland baseball team, and himself a wrestler, went to Parker's rescue on the stage and was floored.

[Nefercheperur]

Im Fruehling 1931 schrieb William Braucher einen sechs teiligen Artikel ueber den Wrestling Boom des Pro Wrestling damals. Es scheint das er viele der Zahlen von NY Promoter Jack Curley hat, aber viele davon sind anzuzweifeln oder falsch. Der Artikel fing an mit den Worten:”After years of unpopularity.” Und dann ging es weiter mit:”wrestling is undergoing a tremendous revival. These will be six articles revealing the scope of the modern mat game, studying the causes of its regeneration and investigating the conduct of matches as they are staged today.”

WHY PRO WRESTLING ATTRACTS RECORD-BREAKING CROWDS
1931
Newspaper Enterprise Association
William Braucher
Service Sports Editor

PART ONE

NEW YORK CITY -- From Cape Cod to the Golden Gate is a long way lined with rich cities filled with sports fans hungry for the thrills of violent action.

That is the golden highway wrestlers are riding today. And the reason is showmanship as fine as ever provided in a Belasco third act.

Meanwhile, boxing suffers in the throes of a self-inflicted depression -- and, while wrestlers ride, glove-wielders are walking on well-worn heels. Lackadaisical mitt programs have done much to kill that sport, but the grunt, creep and grimace of wrestling's unhappier day have been replaced by a headlong attack which has captured the public imagination. Into the new pattern of wrestling have been blended slapstick and sober-sided melodrama in an appealing and moving measure.

The only showmanship that seems to be omitted in the modern mat melee is perhaps the wearing of a Chaplin costume, the singing of a mammy song or the gunfire of road agents attacking the coach to Fargo. The rest of it seems to be all there.

The revival, gaining headway slowly all winter, burst into blossom shortly after the first of the year when thousands were turned away from Madison Square Garden, where one of the several world champions, Jim Londos, defended his title against Jim McMillen, square-shouldered plunger who used to run interference for Red Grange at the University of Illinois. More than 23,000 customers packed every cranny of the Garden, setting a new all-time attendance record for sporting events and bringing in a gate of $67,000.

The colorful Londos, ticketed with "the Greek God," "the Apollo," "the Adonis of the Arena," and various other catch-names, has gone up and down the country since then, defending his championship almost nightly in one city or another.

Some sort of world record was established by the Adonis recently when he was the main attraction at 10 shows in 10 different cities in 12 nights. The cities were Atlanta, Richmond, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis and Memphis. [Dates of these shows fell within the March 2-13, 1931, period.]

And in each of these cities the show was a sellout, the box office being closed before the show started!

Between January, 1930, and January, 1931, Londos alone will earn more than $300,000 at his present scale of wages. Already he has profited more than $100,000, and big outdoor matches are near.

In the few months that Don George held the title after winning it from Gus the Goat Sonnenberg, he collected $100,000 before losing recently to Strangler Lewis in a bout at Los Angeles.

With Londos earning $300,000 a year, how much is the public paying annually for the wrestling of other "champions," near champions, semi-finalists and preliminary puffers?

Figuring on gates in such cities as Los Angeles, Chicdago, Boston, New York, Denver, Kansas City, St. Louis, Cleveland, Buffalo, Montreal and Toronto ranging all the way from $10,000 to $75,000, it would not be hard for even a baseball umpire to see that the racket is pretty good pay.

The under-champions and semi-finalists, by dint of plugging, can earn all the way from $10,000 to $20,000 a year. Fifty to 60 per cent of the gates is divided among the performers, with the principals' share between 25 and 30 per cent of the gross, the semi-finalists drawing a 5 per cent end and the apprentices getting all the way from $50 to $300.

The frequency of the shows, indicated by Londos' successive one-night stands in various cities around one of the big wheels, and the showings of Strangler Lewis, the other champion, on the other circuit, prove that without doubt wrestling is "up in the bucks" -- and then some.

Meantime, events are moving toward an outdoor show on a scale undreamed of since the $100,000 Gotch-Hackenschmidt affair at White Sox Park in Chicago 20 years ago.
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PART TWO

NEW YORK CITY -- The prosperity of wrestling may be traced directly to the collapse of boxing that resulted from an epidemic of fouls and unsatisfactory fights.

But there is another source further back than that, traced to a squatty Dartmouth tackle, Gus Sonnenberg, who brought to the mat a new kind of onslaught in the flying tackle.

Three years ago, before a $70,000 house in Boston, Gus and his flying tackle rendered champion Strangler Lewis hors de combat. The young athlete from the Michigan iron and lumber country "carried the ball" across the country and back again on an end run that netted hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Sonnenberg was accused of faking practices. It was charged he wrestled Dan Koloff half a dozen times in different cities, with Koloff advertised under different names. Gus did not deny it, but told newspaper men that he had not known promoters were changing Koloff's name.

Sonnenberg, understand, was champion of what might be called the "American League" of wrestling, the Bowser-Sandow group with strongholds in Boston, Kansas City and along the Pacific coast. Meanwhile, in National League of wrestling, centered in New York and controlled by Jack Curley, a promoter for 40 years, was advancing the claims alternately of Hans Steinke, Richard Shikat and Jim Londos.

Curley, insisting that Sonnenberg "couldn't wrestle a lick," challenged him to meet any one of a dozen of his pachyderms, offering $50,000 if the man Gus chose should not be able to throw him twice in three minutes.

The challenge was not answered. Sonnenberg, working the charm of his flying tackle upon crowds from coast to coast, was reaping rich rewards. Other collegians began to follow his lead. It was but a short time until wrestling was crowded with young men from the colleges who brought to the mat gifts of swift, fierce action learned on the gridiron.

Wrestlers of all the "leagues" -- and the independents, such as Al Haft's man at Columbus, O., John Pesek -- copied the furious tactics of Gus the Goat. This stirring action went over big with the crowds. The "airplane slam," consisting of whirling the victim over one's head and flinging him with a crash to the canvas, was added to the repertoire and soon became a favorite stunt of the grunters.

The influx of college men continued until, today, there are more than 30 collegians on the big circuits, many of them wrestling three and four nights a week.

The latest recruits are Joe Savoldi, the former Notre Dame fullback, who has been "playing" for the Bowser-Sandow booking firm, and Len Macaluso, the Colgate All-America choice. Upon these college men such old wrestling entrepreneurs as Monsieur Curley look with a jaundiced eye, and with the comment, "they can't wrestle, but it is getting so that any 200-pounder from a college football field can pack a house."

The big college shot of the Curley herd at the moment is Ray Steele, from the University of California. Another on the Curley circuit is Billy Bartush, the former University of Illinois lineman.

Other collegians who now hold lucrative positions in the big leagues of wrestling are: Tiny Roebuck, Haskell; Jim McMillen, University of Illinois; Don George, Michigan; Hank Bruder, Northwestern; Ray Richards, Nebraska; Bibber McCoy, Holy Cross; Sun Jennings, Haskell; Joe Boyle, Columbia; Firpo Wilcox, Oklahoma; George Zaharias, Colorado and Ohio State; Herb Freeman, City College of New York; Earl McCready, Oklahoma A&M; Everett Marshall, Denver University; Father Lumpkin, Georgia Tech; Paul Harper, Southern Methodist; Lloyd Burdick, University of Illinois; Al Morelli, Boston College; Jack Williams, University of Pittsburgh; Willie Davis, University of Virginia; Paul Jones, Rice Institute; Bill Middlekauf, University of Florida; Dr. Ralph Wilson, University of Pennsylvania, and Al Pierotti, Boston College.

Sonnenberg's title passed to another collegian, Don George, in a bout at Los Angeles. Understand, this was the Sandow-Bowser title, not recognized by the Pennsylvania and New York athletic commissions. Challenges from Curley, couched in terms cajoling, failed to win a match for the Curley champion, Jim Londos, with Don George.

Then the title passed back to where it came from -- to Strangler Lewis. And the shouting from Monsieur Curley's crowd ceased abruptly. The Strangler was old -- but that headlock was just as young as ever.
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PART THREE

NEW YORK CITY -- College men have helped to revive wrestling. The decline of boxing interest also has been a factor. But there is another cause perhaps as great as either of these. It is showmanship.

Part of this showmanship is expressed in such rough-houise tactics as the flying tackle, flying mare and airplane spin, which have largely supplanted the immobile pulling and tugging of the tiresome past. Part of it is expressed in straight slapstick comedy. A great deal of the quality that Barnum worshiped is in the cast of characters of the act itself, which provides that one man must be a conniving, unscrupulous villain and his adversary the righeous, gracious, triumphant hero.

Take the fellow George Zaharias, Denver collegian. He is one of the villains of the east. One minute he is cringing in a corner against the ropes, his face expressing abject terror of his opponent. Then, suddenly, he is lashing out with a vicious blow that resounds through the hall as it bounces from our hero's manly bosom.

Villains also take every possible advantage of a situation, crawling along the floor to the ropes so the referee will break a painful hold once the villain's head is outside the ropes, as the rules specify.

At one time or another during the conduct of a match, the villain has the upper hand and the hall resounds with boos and jeers as he goes about his seemingly sinister business.

At another time the sneering rascal is being foiled at his own game. Thus, one night I watched Zaharias make seven slashing flying tackles aimed generally in the direction of Jim Londos. Londos nimbly sidestepped each crude plunge, and the rafters trembled with applause.

Again, the evil one, obtaining a cruel hold upon your hero, exhibits almost superhuman wickedness in pressing his torture to the utmost while Handsome Harry bravely and stoically submits to the punishment without a whisper.

It is the sheerest sort of silliness -- but it brings a crowd to its feet like no display of dispassionate scientific skill on the mat ever could. In fact, skill in wrestling today, the wrestlers themselves will admit, is almost entirely unappreciated.

The credo of the wrestling people seems to be that the public likes to be fooled, a belief not denied by the generous patronage the mat game is receiving from people in all walks of life, including the so-called intelligentsia.

"Exposure?" Jack Curley, master of a herd of pachyderms told me recently. "You can't expose anything nowadays. Rather, I mean you can expose and expose and expose and what does it get you?

"Chicago writers called the turn exactly on the recent Lewis-George matdch in Los Angeles in which the championship changed hands. Lewis was going to win back his title as a matter of expediency. The match turned out exactly as they prophesied."

You understand, of course, that Mr. Curley was referring to the Bowser-Sandow wrestling enterprises when he thus scathingly spoke. Mr. Curley, who presents Jim Londos as his world champoion, would not want to throw cold water on Mr. Bowser or Mr. Sandor or the Bowser-Sandow champion, "Strangler" Lewis. Of course not!

Added to the showmanship of villain vs. hero, there appear at nearly every wrestling show, in the preliminaries at least, a couple of monumental mountebanks whose playful absurdities roll dear old Gus Phann right out of his seat.

Stars of this branch of the trade are such men as Sergei Kalmikoff, the bearded Siberian. The present stunt is for his adversary to pull his whiskers. Another is Ferenc Holuban, who has no neck but manages to support in the style to which they have become accustomed seven separate and distinct stomachs. One of the villainous clown types (and a sure crowd pleaser, boys) is Rudy Dusek, the rough and rapacious roughneck rascal.

Even in a so-advertised championship match, there is a great deal of whoop-te-do about nothing before the serious business of throwing begins. There is much leaping and heaving of bodies -- often a wrestler is pitched through the ropes into the press box, or to the floor outside the ring.

When the men really get down to business, one of the favorite falls is the airplane spin. Your champion seizes his man, hoists him high over his head, whirls rapidly a couple of times and bangs the old boy to the mat with a resounding crash. Hooray!
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[Nefercheperur]

PART FOUR

NEW YORK CITY -- There are two "big leagues" of wrestling, similar to the National and American Leagues in organized baseball. There is a third league, also, composed of independent promoters, managers and wrestlers. Mostly, the two big leagues grab the gravy.

The big man in what we shall call the National League is Jack Curley. There are two big men in the American League -- Paul Bowser and Billy Sandow. Sandow's former name is Billy Bauman, and he is one of the Bauman brothers of Rochester, where Jules Bauman is a promoter.

The alignments of the wrestlers themselves and their managers change swiftly from time to time, often so swiftly they are hard to follow. Thus, Ed White for years was a lieutenant of Billy Sandow, head of the western circuit. Now Ed White is manager of Jim Londos, the Curley champion.

There is mutual hatred between the two big leagues. Each at present has its champion. Strangler Lewis, though he lost to Henri Deglane when the Montreal commission allowed Deglane's claim that he had been bitten on the wrist, is the big shot of the Bowser-Sandow league. Jim Londos is the protagonist of the Curley organization. A story of recent events may help to illustrate the workings of the two cliques.

In January, 1929, Gus Sonnenberg won the world's heavyweight wrestling championship (except for New York and Pennsylvania) from Ed Lewis in Boston. Jack Curley always has insisted that Lewis deliberately let Sonnenberg win, that Sonnenberg can't wrestle a lick and that the proof lies in Gus' constant refusal of remunerative offers from Curley to meet any one of his men. Sonnenberg, avoiding Curley's wrestlers, reaped a rich harvest in Boston, Kansas City, Los Angeles and other cities while holding the championship. He was pursued by offers from Curley, but so long as he could play to gross gates of more than $3,000,000 by dint of wrestling the men of his own league, why should he harken to an outsider's proposition?

Wrestling champions, however, are subject to change. They work hard every night, play in many cities, and soon the fans begin to tire of this or that "champion's" style. It was only natural that recently Gus should lose his title to a slashing young collegian from Michigan, Don George -- of the Bowser-Sandow league, of course.

George held the title for a while, wrestled profitably in 100 cities and was beset by offers from Curley who offered his good men -- Londos, Steinke, Shikat, Szabo, Steele, Dusek, Freeman, Pojello or any other of a dozen wrestlers -- without avail, though an attractive bonus was offered.

It was not long until another changed seemed necessary in the Sandow-Bowser league. Lewis wrestled George in a match at Los Angeles and won his title back for the fourth or fifth time before a tremendous crowd at Wrigley Field.

Suddenly the challenges from Curley to the Bowser-Sandow group ceased. The reason may have been that Lewis had thrown the present Curley championship incumbent, Jim Londos, something like a dozen times. With the old Strangler walking the beat, danger and annoyance from Curley challenges were quickly done away with.

Curley's own explanation of his unwillingness to challenge Lewis was that Lewis is a crooked wrestler and he wants nothing to do with him. At any rate, prior to the last Lewis-George bout, in which the championship changed hands, the very thing that happened was predicted by several sports writers who have made a close study of wrestling alignments.

The promoter of the Los Angeles bouts in which title passed from hand to hand was Lou Daro. Like the other big shots in the big leagues of wrestling, Daro has had a colorful career. Eleven years ago he didn't have two dimes to rub against each other when, an ex-wrestler and vaudeville strong man, he went to Los Angeles. I think he hocked his shirt to promote his first wrestling match, an awful affair. In the last few years, this same Daro has grossed more than $3,000,000 in wrestling shows, using mostly the Bowser-Sandow pachyderms.
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PART FIVE

NEW YORK CITY -- The same men who shifted the puppets of the wrestling shows 20 years ago are behind the scenes today. The action and scenery are a little different, there is a bit more of comedy and a great deal more roughhouse -- but the theme is the same. That theme is hippodrome.

The only improvement I have found -- and the greatest factor in the present wave of wrestling popularity -- is that the modern wrestlers with their dash and go are better entertainers than the grunters and grimacers of a decade past.

The same routine is being followed today that was popular then. A wrestling champion doesn't last very long -- he can't last very long -- not only because the public constantly is demanding a new interest, but because the strain of constant travel and demands upon his physical self are too great to bear. Strangler Lewis has lost his title and regained it four times. A man just has to rest sometimes!

Rivival of a racket like wrestling depends upon new faces and changing styles. The lines of Punch and Judy must be changed once in a while. Jim Londos hasn't been the Curley champion very long now, but already fans in cities where he has shown half a dozen times are beginning to wonder how he manages to end all his matches with the same old airplane spin by which he whirls a brother pachyderm over his head a couple of times and slams him to the mat with a resounding crash. The first few times you see the airplane spin. It is thrilling -- all that flesh thudding to the floor in an inert mass and so on. But after you see it seven or eight times, worked with the same unvarying technique, ho hum! And a couple of well, wells!

When Lewis regained this title recently in Los Angeles from Don George, he really was only resuming his work where he left off when he lost to Sonnenberg early in 1929 before a $70,000 house in Boston. His vacation was over; he was back pounding the beat.


The fact is that Jim Londos, the Curley champion, recognized in New York and Pennsylvania, had been cutting seriously into the national wrestling surplus. Understand, Lewis had thrown Londos many, many times. With Lewis, the conqueror of Londos, champion again, the fans would scream for the Strangler. Besides, a rich field in New York City has been practically untouched by the Bowser-Sandow people. Now they are starting to go after the spoils here and in other Curley strongholds.

Thus, Illinois acted drastically after the Strangler had posted a forfeit and signified his willingness to meet this Londos champion. The substance of Illinois' action was that there can't be two wrestling champions defending their titles in that state. The problem was solved by declaring there is no wrestling champion at all, no not one.

You never know just what plan the men who control wrestling are hatching. From certain sources come tips to the effect that Ray Steele, the California collegian, is soon due to supplant Londos. There are other whisperings that Joe Savoldi is to become the Bowser-Sandow bell cow, since Lewis was so unfortunate as to lose his championship in Montreal to one Henri Deglane over the little matter of a bitten wrist.

As a rule, the lines of action of the big leagues of wrestling are fairly sharply defined, but I am told there have been some disagreements lately between Paul Bowser, manager of Don George, and Billy Sandow, the Strangler's head man. This dissension within the league may mean that the wrestlers of the Curley circuit will get more of a play on the Pacific Coast, up to this time a Boswer-Sandow shindig.

Lou Daro, the Los Angeles promoter who ran a shoestring into considerable hay putting on wrestling shows, recently visited New York and there is a possibility that he may change the cast at Los Angeles to include more of the Cutler herd. Los Angeles fans are beginning to catch on to the Bowser-Sandow curves.

In both the wrestling leagues, changes in the "championship" are soon due. It is not good policy to let a champion stay in there too long. That may help to explain why Mr. Lewis has won and lost the title four times. Can you imagine that sort of thing happening in boxing?

The story of Lewis' title the last few years is intriguing in more ways than one. You may remember that Lewis lost his title in Kansas City in 1925 to Wayne (Big) Munn. The mistake that Mr. Munn made was to wrestle Stan Zbyszko later in the same year. Jack Curley went to Zbyszko's corner, offered him a small fortune if he would throw Munn, and Zbyszko consented, making short work of Munn.

It was then claimed by Lewis that he had been fouled in the Munn match. In the same year, Stecher lifted "the title" from Zbyszko, so it became necessary for Lewis to wrestle Mr. Stecher in order to get back that championship.

Mr. Lewis did wrestle Mr. Stecher and won.
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PART SIX

NEW YORK CITY -- Wrestling comes and goes. Revivals even greater than the current upturn have been seen in the past. And each chapter ends with a note of disgust.

Wrestling prosperity will last just so long. Eventually the wrestlers slay themselves by their own cleverness. When things reach the stage of being "too good" -- such as the Gotch-Hackenschmidt match in Chicago twenty years ago, a match that grossed a gate of $94,000, wrestling falls into a swift decline.

"This year is nothing to get excited about," Jack Curley, who books a set of pachyderms out of New York and who stages the big shows here, told me the other day. "It will pass. Wrestling always has been an in-and-out sport. These revivals come in cycles of every five or six years. Then come the lean seasons. It has been that way as long as I can remember, and I have been promoting for forty years."

The fan never knows when he is seeing a square wrestling match. The same condition recently came into boxing. Most of the fights not only have been "in the bag" during the last few years but have been poor exhibitions in the bargain. Wrestling, even if most of the matches are alleged hippodrome, has sped the renunciation of boxing by appealing with slashing drama, with big bodies spinning through the air in onslaughts crude and fierce enough to understand.

There is bound to be hippodroming while the wrestling world is divided among so few men. Jack Curley heads one league of grapplers. Paul Bowser and Billy Sandow are the chieftains of another set of champions. Too many men are working for the same employer to make any of the matches within the league do-or-die struggles. These men are maneuvered about as so many elephants building an ancient temple to some Egyptian deity.

Day after day now, the results of matches in the principal cities are being printed. The wrestling fan, after seeing a few of these, quickly learns what it is all about. He reads that Londos has just thrown Zaharias in St. Louis. Well, well, and just a week or two ago he saw Londos throw Zaharias in Cleveland.

Repetition of stunts within each of the big leagues soon palls upon the paying clientele. Even the most avid action loses its charm when tinged by the suspicion that it has been rehearsed.

Years ago when Paul Bowser, the big shot of New England wrestling, was getting his start in Boston, he was the hero of a vaudeville wrestling show in which the gladiator offered to throw anybody in the house. Sometimes a woman would come up out of the audience to do battle with him. The action was spirited and all that, the lady giving the gentleman all he could do to master her, but after the customers learned that Cora Livingston, the wrestlerette, was Mrs. Paul Bowser, enthusiasm for the skit lost much of its savor.

Recently Bowser was manager of Don George and had a finger in the till of many fat houses from coast to coast. His friend, Billy Sandow, manager of Strangler Lewis, has been a power in western wrestling for years.

It has been said before in these articles that changes are due in the championships of the big leagues. Ray Steele is being groomed for the crown in Jack Curley's organization. Joe Savoldi is expected to win the title to the Bowser-Sandow circuit.

Will these two men meet? Well, not just now.

That would be a "world series" between the two leagues and it would be staged only if a gate of at least $100,000 could be assured. The time is not yet ripe for such an enterprise.

[Nefercheperur]

Dixon Telegraph
Dixon, Illinois
9 November 1948

New Mat War “Superman” Rivals ‘Gorgeous George’

New York – (NEA) – George Wagner let his blond hair grow, had it marcelled, acquired a wardrobe and a valet, took the name Gorgeous George, and became the most magnetic attraction in wrestling by at least three to one.

Gorgeous George, the mat darling of the Hollywood picture colony, was such big business by the tim ehe come east for the first time that Toots Mondt, who obtained the rights on him walked out on his New York partners, Al Mayer and Willie Johnston.

Unable to book Gorgeous George, the Mayer-Johnston axis bobbed up with Golden Superman – real name Walter Podolak.

Gorgeous George bounces into the battle pit clad in a taffeta-quilted robe worked in sequins, wide sash and side drapery to slenderize the waistline. He doesn’t go to work until his man sprays the canvas with a disinfectant. My my!

Golden Superman hops the hemp in a golden harness matching his hair, strikes more magnificent poses than did Mussolini.

Thus the rasslin’ dodge becomes even more amusing, with attire supplementing the acrobatics and histrionics.

Gorgeous George, an Oregonian, struggled along for 15 years. He got the resplendency idea from a grappler who called himself Lord Landsdown, old bean, and climbed into the enclosure with a monocle.

He appeared in and around Los Angeles until the movie crowd picked him up very much in the same manner that Mysterious Montague, the trick golfer and strong man, was endorsed several years back.

Gorgeous George and his curls and perfume were made when he appeared on radio programs with Bob Hope, Gary Cooper, Eddie Cantor and Burt Lancaster. And why not? He can out-act all of them. At a recent benefit in Los Angeles, he wrestled Lancaster and Hope was his valet. The newsreel people photographed him.

Gorgeous George spent considerable money on clothes and robes, and worked at being a dude like Lucius Beche. It’s no eacy matter to go to a hair dresser daily – ask the missus – then have to pull and tug at night.

Golden Superman, a squatty Pole out of Syracuse, but no sap, has been applying hammers and locks for 16 years. He holds weight-lifting titles.

“Gorgeous George has no physique,” says Golden Superman. “He’s all in one hunk.”

Gorgeous George and Golden Superman aren’t freaks in the strict sense, but the one had better streer clear of a Delilah and the other simply has to be harnessed like a trotter.

Professional wrestling isn’t dead.

Gorgeous George and Golden Superman make it livelier and funnier than ever.

[Nefercheperur]

New York Daily News
New York City, New York
30 July 1982

harold t. sakata dies

honolulu (ap) -- harold t. sakata, 62, an actor best known for his sinister characterizationof the killer bodyguard 'oddjob' in the james bond movie 'goldfinger', died yesterday (july 29) after a long bout with cancer. sakata won an olympic silver medal ion 1948 for weightlifting and wrestled professionally under the name 'tosh togo' before starting his acting career.

one day in the early 1960s, producer harry saltzman and director guy hamilton, discovered sakata when they saw him wrestling on television in london.

"they came to me and told me that they thought i would be right for the role of oddjob," sakata later told a reported. "i refused at first because i thought i was supposed to be kicked around by james bond. that would be bad for my image as a wrestler."

when he learned he would be dishing it out, sakata accepted the role.

as the formally dressed bodyguard, oddjob killer by decaptitating people with his steel-rimmed, razor sharp bowler hat.

[Nefercheperur]

Tyson vs Holyfield im Jahr 1904

Decatur, Illinois
The Daily Review
17 December 1904

Terrible Algerian Proves A Cannibal

Jenkins Awarded Match After Black Wrestler Chewed Him Up
San Francisco, Dec. 17. The wrestling match between Tom Jenkins and Buzayell, the Algerian, was given to Jenkins on a foul. After a struggle of two hours, Jenkins secured a hammerlock and as he was brining the Algerian over both rolled off the platform and fell to the floor.

When the men got on their feet there was a large sized piece of cuticle missing from Jenkins abdomen. There were also teeth prints in his arms where he had been bitten by Buzayell.

Referee Coche awarded the match to Jenkins and the police placed Buzayell under arrest on a charge of mayhem.