06.11.2006, 07:26
The Hartford Courant
Hartford, Connecticut
17 September 1937
Mat Champs As Numerous As Customers
Promoter Fiddler Ray Fabiani Gets Laugh Out of Naming John Pesek Champion
New York, Sept 16 – (AP) – All is chaos along grunt and groan row. Everybody is in everybody else’s hair. Rassling champs are as numerous as tax collectors. The struggle for promotional supremacy is jammed with laughs and busted pocketbooks. It’s so bad one rassler almost got hanged in the quest for free publicity.
And topping all the upside business, in the candid opinion of promoter Ray Fabiani, is the action of the National Wrestling Association which named John Pesek, the old Tiger Man from Nebraska, world champion. Pesek, wagers Maestro Fabiani, is a young man of promise somwhere in his late fifties, mabe early sixties.
“I,” said Fabiani, who used to wield a mean fiddle in grand opera, “have been in this business many years now but the action of the National Wrestling Association gives me my greatest laugh. Why didn’t they name some young fellow like George Hackenschmidt or Stanislaus Zbyszko? We’ve had enough young upstarts like Psek in this business. By the way, what is the National Wrestling Association? Darned if I ever heard of it before.”
Since the famed Jack Curley passed on, the scrap for wrestling supremacy has branced out with five big factions, I’m told.
The rivals, listed by Fiddler Fabiani, who claims he doesn’t want to fiddle while the rassling business burns up, are Toots Mondt, New York and Philadelphia; Al Haft, Columbus, Ohio; Paul Bowser, Boston; Jack Pfefer, New York and now Jim Londos, who’s in business for himself. A probable added starter is Curley’s son, young Jack, who threatens to do big things.
Ernie Dusek, who does his rassling for Fabiani, is the one who almost got hanged as a publicity gag. They got Jack Dempsey to hold the loose end of the rope and Fabiani kicked the box from under Dusek’s feet. It worked swell. Dusek’s neck withstood the shock beautifully. But the trouble arose when Dempsey, holding the rope in his vise-like grip, became so interested in the dangling Dusek he forgot to let go.
“Why, Ernie almost lost his life,” sighed Maestro Fabiani. “Imagine what a story: Hanged by Jack Dempsey!”
Strangler Lewis is on his way to India to wrestle the great Gama, magic Hindoo who has never been beaten.
“Lewis can’t win,” confessed Fiddler Fabiani. “Gama wrestles once a year for the maharajah of Patiaia. For every match, the maharajah builds a new stadium. They wrestle on sand and as soon as one man is thrown off balance, why, the match is over. They never last more than a minute. Stanislaus Zbyszko once went over there. It took him two months to make the trip and Gama beat him in 52 seconds. The Strangler will do okay by himself though. He’s getting $30,000 for the match.
“Once I tried to get Gama over here, but quit negotiations as soon as he told me he had to have 15 servants – one to kill his chickens. Sometimes I wish I was a promoter in India.”
Hartford, Connecticut
17 September 1937
Mat Champs As Numerous As Customers
Promoter Fiddler Ray Fabiani Gets Laugh Out of Naming John Pesek Champion
New York, Sept 16 – (AP) – All is chaos along grunt and groan row. Everybody is in everybody else’s hair. Rassling champs are as numerous as tax collectors. The struggle for promotional supremacy is jammed with laughs and busted pocketbooks. It’s so bad one rassler almost got hanged in the quest for free publicity.
And topping all the upside business, in the candid opinion of promoter Ray Fabiani, is the action of the National Wrestling Association which named John Pesek, the old Tiger Man from Nebraska, world champion. Pesek, wagers Maestro Fabiani, is a young man of promise somwhere in his late fifties, mabe early sixties.
“I,” said Fabiani, who used to wield a mean fiddle in grand opera, “have been in this business many years now but the action of the National Wrestling Association gives me my greatest laugh. Why didn’t they name some young fellow like George Hackenschmidt or Stanislaus Zbyszko? We’ve had enough young upstarts like Psek in this business. By the way, what is the National Wrestling Association? Darned if I ever heard of it before.”
Since the famed Jack Curley passed on, the scrap for wrestling supremacy has branced out with five big factions, I’m told.
The rivals, listed by Fiddler Fabiani, who claims he doesn’t want to fiddle while the rassling business burns up, are Toots Mondt, New York and Philadelphia; Al Haft, Columbus, Ohio; Paul Bowser, Boston; Jack Pfefer, New York and now Jim Londos, who’s in business for himself. A probable added starter is Curley’s son, young Jack, who threatens to do big things.
Ernie Dusek, who does his rassling for Fabiani, is the one who almost got hanged as a publicity gag. They got Jack Dempsey to hold the loose end of the rope and Fabiani kicked the box from under Dusek’s feet. It worked swell. Dusek’s neck withstood the shock beautifully. But the trouble arose when Dempsey, holding the rope in his vise-like grip, became so interested in the dangling Dusek he forgot to let go.
“Why, Ernie almost lost his life,” sighed Maestro Fabiani. “Imagine what a story: Hanged by Jack Dempsey!”
Strangler Lewis is on his way to India to wrestle the great Gama, magic Hindoo who has never been beaten.
“Lewis can’t win,” confessed Fiddler Fabiani. “Gama wrestles once a year for the maharajah of Patiaia. For every match, the maharajah builds a new stadium. They wrestle on sand and as soon as one man is thrown off balance, why, the match is over. They never last more than a minute. Stanislaus Zbyszko once went over there. It took him two months to make the trip and Gama beat him in 52 seconds. The Strangler will do okay by himself though. He’s getting $30,000 for the match.
“Once I tried to get Gama over here, but quit negotiations as soon as he told me he had to have 15 servants – one to kill his chickens. Sometimes I wish I was a promoter in India.”