Vic Hill vs Jack Gacek
I'm just moving these films back to the top of the blog. If you're interested in the early days of wrestling I just recently posted the contents of Fall Guys The Barnums of Bounce to this blog.
This is a transfer I made from my 16mm sound film called Modern Gladiators. The film itself was issued in 1940 but I think the match would date from the late 1930's.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Browning, Londos, Savoldi, Dean, Kashey, Reilly
This is a short set of clips that I transfered from a silent 16mm film I have. It has clips of a "Jumpin'" Joe Savoldi vs Man Mountain Dean, Jim Londos vs Jim Browning (I believe this is the match where Londos unifies his title with Browning's NY version) and finally Abe "King Kong" Kashey vs Pat "Rough-House" Reilly. They are very short clips but still rather interesting.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Fall Guys The Barnums of Bounce
I recently sold my original first edition copy of this book. I have read and enjoyed the book a few times. I also have this public domain book in electronic format which made my decision to sell the book a little easier. It is a very informative book on wrestling and I felt it should be available to those interested in the early days. If you're interested in this era of wrestling take a look at my dvd.
Fall Guys Chapter 24
Vale!
Wrestling recompense far exceeds that obtained by other professional athletes but the penalty for their earnings is also far greater.
Disease dogs the footsteps of the modern pachyderms. Nightly jumps in trains, eating in out of the way restaurants, lack of proper rest and the strenuous schedules all contribute toward the sapping of a grappler’s strength, and while countless wrestlers earn fortunes their lives at best, despite the programs, often tax the body beyond human endurance.
Some matmen die in the ring, others succumb from the shocks sustained while taking those trick falls and out of the ring dives, and others end up mumbling and spatting like punchy fighters who walk on their heels.
Stanley Stasiak was the greatest of all the modern villains who graced the wrestling ring. A roaring lion when once within the ropes, outside the arena Stanley showed the tenderness of a mother toward a new born babe. He died from blood poisoning after being cut during a bout in Worcester, Massachusetts, with Jack Sherry.
Steve Snozsky, another superman of the mat succumbed from an attack of locomotor ataxia, directly traced to injuries caused from falls taken during wrestling bouts.
The strenuous schedule which a champion is called upon to observe sapped the strength of Jim Browning, one time world’s title holder, who died in June, 1936, after an operation for ulcers of the stomach.
Browning, though rated one of the toughest grapplers who held the title during the modern era of wrestling, spent the last few months of his life half blinded from the ravages of trachoma and in intense pain from the stomach ulcers. During the last months of his life Browning’s weight fell from two hundred and thirty pounds to one hundred and forty. He could scarcely lift his hand when taken to Mayo Brothers Hospital at Rochester, Minnesota, in May of 1936.
Mike Romano, veteran grappler who held over from the Sandow era, collapsed in a Washington, D. C. ring one night in June, 1936, while engaged in a bout with Jack Donovan, a run of the mine grappler.
When ambulance surgeons arrived at the scene to treat him they pronounced Romano beyond human aid. He had died from athlete’s heart, an ailment so common to other grapplers who follow the hard and strenuous schedules that participation in professional wrestling requires.
We pause at this point in our revelations of the machinations of the wrestling business to reveal the other side so that readers of this work won’t think it’s all peaches and cream for the neckbenders.
They, too, run hazardous risks in their efforts to please the public. At times their efforts lead to more serious consequences than injuries suffered by fighters, ball players or tennis stars. For it is sometimes more exacting to make a match interesting when the finish is a planned one than it would be to let the course of events develop.
Lansing McCurley, sports editor of the Philadelphia Daily News, presented the best argument in favor of the bonecrushers when on June 28th, 1936, he wrote:
I’d like to point out that you can’t fix, by any means or manner, this cold gray man of the night we know as Death. You can’t lodge the golden dollars of man’s coinage in his bony palm, you can’t buy betrayal from the hollow of his cavernous skull. What most wrestlers fake, if you really want to know, is that they like it all, that they can’t be hurt, that they are supermen. Even the tough Ernie Dusek said to me one night in all seriousness, “Look at me, Lanse, what a life I lead, cut and bruised and beaten if I win or lose or draw.” It’s a tough life, you fans, who make your living selling bonds or cigars or refrigerators or eight hours of mental exercise. Theirs is a life that leaves you with big ears that make people stare and talk below the ordinary tone and point and look quickly away when you catch them looking. It’s a life that leaves you lopsided, with great white stripes of scar tissue across your face and body, with endless boils from endless bouts in endless ill-equipped dressing rooms, with endless worries and endless fights, until they all seem one worry and one match.
Your head is squeezed until the bees of a thousand hives drone you to sleep. Your very insides are flattened until your organs make great knots of pain against your ribs and your chest is full to breaking and your heart cramps and your eyes see black streaks and floating bubbles and myriad specks. Your arms are pulled out of their very sockets and your legs twisted into bows of pain. And the chances are 100 to 1 you go blind in the end and see only with the mind the bitterness of the might have been.
And you get what? A few dollars that you spend on trains and hotels and doctors and rare vacations, or send home to the wife and kids like other married men send home their money. Only you can’t have any fun because you have to be fit and ready. You get great gashes over the head from ring posts and cracked bones and torn muscles.
You get noises in the head and funny spells. And you get shouts and accusations of fake and in the bag and one hundred and one other epithets.
Fake or not, the fact remains the bonecrushers do suffer injuries, and as Lanse McCurley observes: “You can’t beat death.” He doesn’t work programs!
There is, of course, the serious side and the comic to all mat bouts. When Mike Romano died he took many a secret to the grave with him and though many of the matmen can’t grapple worth talking about, yet in a profession so packed with trickery and double crossing, the fact remains that the public likes and supports wrestling despite the many smelly scandals with which the sport has been identified during the years past.
Wrestling is in its second childhood. Matdom took advantage of the slowing up in boxing interest and when the fighters began to wrestle, the wrestlers began to fight. Some of the fans know they are watching a show and feel certain of it when they witness the hokum and byplay between mat clowns, but when the going is rough and exciting they are less doubtful.
Wrestling, according to the theatrical trade paper, Variety, has an edge in the human spectacle it offers. Huge two hundred pounders, wallowing around the ring, flying through the air from human catapults, and landing heavily and noisily on domes and spines is a sight. Through this flash wrestling has its advantage over boxing.
A bad wrestling match can’t be as bad as a poor boxing bout. In a poor wrestling match there is always the heft and sometimes much more to laugh at.
The big pachyderms possess a natural comedy element lacking in other sports. The antics inside the ropes, the postures, and gestures and the grimaces are funny.
The apparent cruelty of the sport appeals to men. They roar when a victim’s head is apparently caught in a strangling arm vice. The women fans howl, too. Those fine looking college men in the mat game account for the feminine draw.
Bending an opponent’s foot back until it seems to touch a bald headed man’s conk in the first row is one of grappling’s most appetizing gestures.
They struggle, gasp, squirm, toss, roll, yelp and grunt to keep the shoulders off the mat and after a good deal of the “Toots” Mondt showmanship formula, the shoulders touch and it’s all over, not including the shouting.
It must be a pleasure for a wrestler to go home at night, slip into the soft hay, and lay both shoulders on the mattress without worrying about the referee slapping an opponent on the back as a token of victory.
So next time you see the mat harlequins bouncing around the canvas don’t take it too seriously.
And remember you never can tell when there’s going to be an epochal wrestling double cross. It has happened before and will happen again. Faction against clique and trust against small fry.
The fight goes merrily on -
And so as Thackeray says:
The play is done; the curtain drops, slow falling to the prompter’s bell and when he’s laughed and said his say he shows, as he removes his mask, a face that’s anything but gay.
Au plaisir de vous revoir!
Wrestling recompense far exceeds that obtained by other professional athletes but the penalty for their earnings is also far greater.
Disease dogs the footsteps of the modern pachyderms. Nightly jumps in trains, eating in out of the way restaurants, lack of proper rest and the strenuous schedules all contribute toward the sapping of a grappler’s strength, and while countless wrestlers earn fortunes their lives at best, despite the programs, often tax the body beyond human endurance.
Some matmen die in the ring, others succumb from the shocks sustained while taking those trick falls and out of the ring dives, and others end up mumbling and spatting like punchy fighters who walk on their heels.
Stanley Stasiak was the greatest of all the modern villains who graced the wrestling ring. A roaring lion when once within the ropes, outside the arena Stanley showed the tenderness of a mother toward a new born babe. He died from blood poisoning after being cut during a bout in Worcester, Massachusetts, with Jack Sherry.
Steve Snozsky, another superman of the mat succumbed from an attack of locomotor ataxia, directly traced to injuries caused from falls taken during wrestling bouts.
The strenuous schedule which a champion is called upon to observe sapped the strength of Jim Browning, one time world’s title holder, who died in June, 1936, after an operation for ulcers of the stomach.
Browning, though rated one of the toughest grapplers who held the title during the modern era of wrestling, spent the last few months of his life half blinded from the ravages of trachoma and in intense pain from the stomach ulcers. During the last months of his life Browning’s weight fell from two hundred and thirty pounds to one hundred and forty. He could scarcely lift his hand when taken to Mayo Brothers Hospital at Rochester, Minnesota, in May of 1936.
Mike Romano, veteran grappler who held over from the Sandow era, collapsed in a Washington, D. C. ring one night in June, 1936, while engaged in a bout with Jack Donovan, a run of the mine grappler.
When ambulance surgeons arrived at the scene to treat him they pronounced Romano beyond human aid. He had died from athlete’s heart, an ailment so common to other grapplers who follow the hard and strenuous schedules that participation in professional wrestling requires.
We pause at this point in our revelations of the machinations of the wrestling business to reveal the other side so that readers of this work won’t think it’s all peaches and cream for the neckbenders.
They, too, run hazardous risks in their efforts to please the public. At times their efforts lead to more serious consequences than injuries suffered by fighters, ball players or tennis stars. For it is sometimes more exacting to make a match interesting when the finish is a planned one than it would be to let the course of events develop.
Lansing McCurley, sports editor of the Philadelphia Daily News, presented the best argument in favor of the bonecrushers when on June 28th, 1936, he wrote:
I’d like to point out that you can’t fix, by any means or manner, this cold gray man of the night we know as Death. You can’t lodge the golden dollars of man’s coinage in his bony palm, you can’t buy betrayal from the hollow of his cavernous skull. What most wrestlers fake, if you really want to know, is that they like it all, that they can’t be hurt, that they are supermen. Even the tough Ernie Dusek said to me one night in all seriousness, “Look at me, Lanse, what a life I lead, cut and bruised and beaten if I win or lose or draw.” It’s a tough life, you fans, who make your living selling bonds or cigars or refrigerators or eight hours of mental exercise. Theirs is a life that leaves you with big ears that make people stare and talk below the ordinary tone and point and look quickly away when you catch them looking. It’s a life that leaves you lopsided, with great white stripes of scar tissue across your face and body, with endless boils from endless bouts in endless ill-equipped dressing rooms, with endless worries and endless fights, until they all seem one worry and one match.
Your head is squeezed until the bees of a thousand hives drone you to sleep. Your very insides are flattened until your organs make great knots of pain against your ribs and your chest is full to breaking and your heart cramps and your eyes see black streaks and floating bubbles and myriad specks. Your arms are pulled out of their very sockets and your legs twisted into bows of pain. And the chances are 100 to 1 you go blind in the end and see only with the mind the bitterness of the might have been.
And you get what? A few dollars that you spend on trains and hotels and doctors and rare vacations, or send home to the wife and kids like other married men send home their money. Only you can’t have any fun because you have to be fit and ready. You get great gashes over the head from ring posts and cracked bones and torn muscles.
You get noises in the head and funny spells. And you get shouts and accusations of fake and in the bag and one hundred and one other epithets.
Fake or not, the fact remains the bonecrushers do suffer injuries, and as Lanse McCurley observes: “You can’t beat death.” He doesn’t work programs!
There is, of course, the serious side and the comic to all mat bouts. When Mike Romano died he took many a secret to the grave with him and though many of the matmen can’t grapple worth talking about, yet in a profession so packed with trickery and double crossing, the fact remains that the public likes and supports wrestling despite the many smelly scandals with which the sport has been identified during the years past.
Wrestling is in its second childhood. Matdom took advantage of the slowing up in boxing interest and when the fighters began to wrestle, the wrestlers began to fight. Some of the fans know they are watching a show and feel certain of it when they witness the hokum and byplay between mat clowns, but when the going is rough and exciting they are less doubtful.
Wrestling, according to the theatrical trade paper, Variety, has an edge in the human spectacle it offers. Huge two hundred pounders, wallowing around the ring, flying through the air from human catapults, and landing heavily and noisily on domes and spines is a sight. Through this flash wrestling has its advantage over boxing.
A bad wrestling match can’t be as bad as a poor boxing bout. In a poor wrestling match there is always the heft and sometimes much more to laugh at.
The big pachyderms possess a natural comedy element lacking in other sports. The antics inside the ropes, the postures, and gestures and the grimaces are funny.
The apparent cruelty of the sport appeals to men. They roar when a victim’s head is apparently caught in a strangling arm vice. The women fans howl, too. Those fine looking college men in the mat game account for the feminine draw.
Bending an opponent’s foot back until it seems to touch a bald headed man’s conk in the first row is one of grappling’s most appetizing gestures.
They struggle, gasp, squirm, toss, roll, yelp and grunt to keep the shoulders off the mat and after a good deal of the “Toots” Mondt showmanship formula, the shoulders touch and it’s all over, not including the shouting.
It must be a pleasure for a wrestler to go home at night, slip into the soft hay, and lay both shoulders on the mattress without worrying about the referee slapping an opponent on the back as a token of victory.
So next time you see the mat harlequins bouncing around the canvas don’t take it too seriously.
And remember you never can tell when there’s going to be an epochal wrestling double cross. It has happened before and will happen again. Faction against clique and trust against small fry.
The fight goes merrily on -
And so as Thackeray says:
The play is done; the curtain drops, slow falling to the prompter’s bell and when he’s laughed and said his say he shows, as he removes his mask, a face that’s anything but gay.
Au plaisir de vous revoir!
Fall Guys Chapter 23
Merry-Go-Round
Dracula was an angel, and King Kong was a sissy, compared with Richard Shikat, who schemed and connived as the attorneys for Haft, Sandow and Weismuller crossed swords with the legal batteries of the wrestling trust.
At this late date credit for the operations and maneuvers of the German are given to the late Mrs. Shikat, who was then constantly at the German’s side and ready at all times to advise him as to the necessary moves in the chess game the Teuton was playing with the entire wrestling business.
The early part of the trial on April 24, 1936, was taken up with the unimportant testimony of Leon Balkin, agent for Rudy Dusek. Knowing the facts in the case, it is only too evident Dusek and Balkin were playing fast and loose with the men with whom they were supposed to be working.
Dusek had sent Balkin to Columbus to cover up and lull the unsuspecting partners, but his presence proved the last straw for Shikat.
Quoting the Columbus Dispatch:
Much of the time during the morning session was devoted to objections as Leon Balkin, snappily groomed booking agent for Jack Curley in New York, was on the witness stand.
Another time John Connor, attorney for the defendant, asked Balkin how many different towns he booked matches for, and who the promoters were.
“Sure,” replied Balkin, reaching into his pocket for a list. “I’ve got it right here. There are about 30 of them.”
Balkin then proceeded to read the list, but Connor stopped him indignantly, saying he didn’t intend to take the time of the court to read such a long list.
“Well,” Balkin replied indignantly, “you asked for it.” After Balkin left the stand, receipts received by Shikat, signed by “Toots” Mondt, New York associate of Curley, were placed among the exhibits, which brought a long series of bickering between counsel concerning Alvarez’ connection with Shikat as his manager.
The Shikat-versus-the-mat-trust case was dying of its own lack of steam on Friday morning, April 24, when Judge Mel Underwood opened court.
If interest was lagging, however, Mr. Shikat was going to supply a few little surprises on his own part. As the court opened, according to the Columbus Dispatch:
Counsel for Alvarez moved to reinstate the temporary order restraining Shikat from wrestling, but decision on this was reversed, thus permitting Shikat to go through with a scheduled bout in Detroit tonight against Ali Baba.
It was pointed out by those who decline to believe in lily white business tactics, that Shikat might lose his title to Ali Baba, thus scrapping the importance of the present case.
It is assumed by inference that Alvarez and his associates are interested principally in the title Shikat holds, rather than in Shikat himself.
Ah, how well the mat moguls knew the ways of a wrestler. What they anticipated happened. Shikat hurried to Detroit and there, on April 24, 1936, lost his title to Ali Baba, former U. S. Navy gob, named Harry Eskisian, who, by benefit of a close haircut, shave, and sun lamp treatments, had become a “Terrible Turk.”
With the title lost, the mat moguls let the trial go by default to Shikat.
Shortly thereafter, on May 5th, 1936, just to make it official, Shikat came into Madison Square Garden in New York where, under the promotional “genius” of the Johnston brothers and Jack Pfeffer, he again lost to Ali Baba. Only twenty-five hundred people witnessed the New York bout, but Haft, Pfeffer, Weismuller, the Johnston brothers and Sandow were satisfied that they had established Ali Baba’s New York State claim to the heavyweight crown.
A few days after losing a second time to Ali Baba, Shikat returned to Germany with the body of his wife, who had been killed just a day after the New York bout with Ali Baba, in an automobile accident in Columbus, Ohio.
“Toots” Mondt came to the rescue again.
Figuring the next step in the Haft, Weismuller, Sandow and Pfeffer move would be to match Ali Baba with Everett Marshall, and thus put Sandow back in the driver’s seat with the heavyweight title, Mondt began making overtures to all parties, at the same time Ray Fabiani, Tom Packs, and Rudy Dusek were trying to make connections with the new title czars.
Pfeffer finally became imbued with the idea that Haft, Sandow and Weismuller were going to double-cross him and work with his old enemies again.
“If enybuddy got to woik wit the trost hi vant hit should be Pfeffer,” the little Litvak told Charlie Johnston. “Ve vill see ‘Toots’ Mondt and mak a double-cross of Sandow, Haft and Weismuller.”
Pfeffer found a willing listener in Mondt.
In the early part of June, 1936, Mondt sneaked quietly into New York and after a forty-eight-hour conversation with Pfeffer at the Hotel Warwick, Dave Levin, an ex-butcher boy from Jamaica, New York, was selected as the instrument to be used in the defeat of Ali Baba, the Sandow, Haft and Weismuller champion.
Levin was originally supposed to steal the title from Ali Baba during a bout at the Dyckman Oval in upper Harlem, but when the show was rained out, the match was held in Newark the following night, June 12, 1936.
A well timed kick in the groin, with Levin on the receiving end, and the title returned to Mondt, when referee Frank Sinborn disqualified Ali Baba, and awarded Levin the title on a foul, and proclaimed him “World Champion.”
Like the “Star Spangled Banner,” the bombs began bursting in air, on June 13th, for the sports world soon learned that Mondt had become manager of Levin. According to reports, Mondt paid Pfeffer $17,000 for Levin’s contract.
The wily Mondt had laid his lines so well that prior to the Ali Baba-Levin match at the Meadowbrook Bowl in Newark, Pfeffer was convinced that Weismuller, Haft and Sandow were on the verge of declaring him out of the combination, and making Mondt their partner.
This little thought was put over on Pfeffer through the expediency of countless phone messages left at Mondt’s hotel, which read:
“CALL ADAM WEISMULLER AT THE ALAMAC HOTEL.”
Mondt also arranged with friends in Rochester, Columbus and Detroit, the home cities of Haft, Sandow, and Weismuller, to have telegrams filed from these cities to him, and signed with the names of Haft, Sandow and Weismuller.
Shortly after the double cross in Newark, Ali Baba, when interviewed by Dan Parker of the Daily Mirror, said:
“I thought there were only 40 thieves. Now I find there were 42.”
When informed of Ali Baba’s sentiments, Mondt threw his hands up in pretended horror, and said: “I hope Harry wouldn’t dare call wrestling promoters like Pfeffer and myself thieves.”
Pfeffer merely shrugged his shoulders, caressed his proboscis with the index finger, and said: “From dis I am conwinced.”
Mondt’s coup, however, split the wrestling trust wide open. Because he had not been in on the Ali Baba defeat, Paul Bowser notified “Toots” that in his book O’Mahoney was still World’s Champion, despite the fact that he had been defeated by Shikat. Rudy Dusek sided with Bowser and took his entire organization out of the Curley office, moving his belongings to the Hotel Lincoln, where he immediately began booking the smaller wrestling clubs, with the pronunciamento that Mondt and Curley were no longer his partners.
With Mondt controlling most of the topnotch matmen, and Dusek and Bowser also booking heavyweight grapplers, the situation by the Spring of 1937 finds Everett Marshall proclaiming himself wrestling king because he had defeated Ali Baba on June 29, 1936, in Columbus, Ohio, and had recognition in Illinois and Colorado as champion. Levin, in turn, was defeated by Dean Detton of Salt Lake City, in Philadelphia, September, 1936.
Perhaps the greatest influence toward the cleanup of wrestling took place late in August of 1936, when Lee Wycoff and “Strangler” Lewis, one the policeman for Levin, and the other the copper for Marshall, met at the N.Y. Hippodrome Sports Arena in a grueling two-hour shooting match. The bout had been ordered by the New York State Athletic Commission, with the solons designating the winner as challenger for Levin in an elimination. Lewis entered the ring confident he would make short shift of his younger and more wary adversary. Wycoff, too, came through the ropes oozing self-belief. Lewis had told his associates it would be a short and merry bout, with “Strangler” the winner. Two hours later, both men fell out of the ring exhausted, and referee George Bothner called the affair a draw.
While Wycoff had not beaten Lewis, he demonstrated himself to be a capable and feared matman, with whom Nekoosa could not cope. Lewis’ failure to subdue Wycoff rankled more because Ed’s old manager, Sandow, had trained Wycoff for the bout, and supposedly shown Lee all of his former partner’s grappling tricks.
Discouraged after his failure to beat Wycoff, Lewis virtually retired from all wrestling competition and promotion. Before bowing out of the grappling game, however, he went into serious training at “Toots” Mondt’s request, and in September of 1936, in the basement of Mondt’s home in Glendale, California, Lewis and six others of the toughest wrestlers the game knows, locked grips with Dean Detton of Salt Lake City, Utah, a heavyweight just two years out of the amateurs. Detton pinned all his opponents in short order.
It was after the Detton tryout that this writer sat in on a conference and Mondt told Lewis:
“Back in the old days, Ed, we slept nights because we had you on top, a champion who could wrestle. Even Gotch and Stecher were fellows who could hold their own by fair means or foul, when called upon to do so. Now Levin has cleaned up Lopez and I’m matching Dave with Detton in Philadelphia. Detton will win that one certain, and after that we’ll have a champion who we know we can exploit properly and we won’t have to take any guff from anyone.”
After Detton won the crown from Levin, Mondt endeavored to bring about a friendly feeling between the various wrestling factions, by welding Sandow, Haft, Weismuller, Curley, Bowser, the Johnstons, Lou Daro and Jack Corcoran of Toronto, into one big organization. He was blocked in this effort by the refusal of Sandow, Ed White, Haft and Weismuller to cooperate.
A growing confidence in wrestling, with Detton as champion, seems to be increasing throughout North America. Rugged, capable, skilled, well-bred and intelligent, Detton harks back to the halcyon days of the late William Muldoon, according to oracle Hype Igoe of the New York Evening Journal. Certain it is that like Muldoon, Detton need take a back step to no man in a wrestling sense.
Detton demonstrated his confidence in his own ability early last winter when the Illinois and Missouri Commissions attempted to force him into matches with Everett Marshall.
On December 27, 1936, Detton filed the following wire from the Western Union office at 710 Seventh Avenue, New York City to:
Joe Triner, Chairman
Illinois Athletic Commission
Chicago, Ill.
Garrett Smalley, Chairman
Missouri Athletic Commission
Kansas City, Mo.
Replying to various wires and letters regarding my granting title bout to Challenger Everett Marshall let it be understood I am willing to defend my title against challenger Marshall anywhere providing terms are satisfactory stop You understand a Detton-Marshall bout is a promotional plum and several cities are bidding for it stop Have under consideration bona fide offers from Twentieth Century Club New York Ray Fabiani Philadelphia Lou Daro Los Angeles to defend my title against challenger Everett Marshall stop The most satisfactory financial offer will be accepted stop So far no bids have been received from your promoters stop Realize you have no financial interest in any promoters only want to clear up mat situation so assume you have no objection my accepting best financial offer for title defense against challenger Marshall you merely want bout held stop Illinois New York Missouri California Pennsylvania all want bout I have met all challengers in defense of my championship and intend doing so with Challenger Marshall no exception stop I want to clean up all challengers and think in this case the promoter of a Detton-Marshall title bout should be a man of financial standing in whatever state held and both challenger and champion should be assured of impartial ring officials agreeable to both participants.
Dean Detton
Worlds Heavyweight Wrestling Champion
That Detton meant business and was in earnest he again demonstrated on January 3rd, 1937, when, not receiving a reply from the Illinois and Missouri Commissions, he dispatched the following letter to the Illinois Commission.
Detton’s letter follows and gives a comprehensive picture of the wrestling business.
January 3, 1937
Mr. Jos. Triner,
Chairman, State Athletic Commission,
Chicago, Ill.
Dear Mr. Triner:
The purpose of this letter is a definite and emphatic protest against the action of your commission in recognizing the winner of the forthcoming Marshall-McMillen match as world’s heavyweight wrestling champion.
Some time in June of the past year, the various athletic commissions of the states of California, Missouri, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania agreed, while attending the Louis-Schmeling boxing contest in New York City, to each designate a leading or No. 1 challenger for world titular honors in their respective states, and then by a process of elimination, establish a bona fide heavyweight champion and thereby put a stop to the claims of sundry champions who have no right to the honor.
It is my understanding that New York named Ed “Strangler” Lewis, Pennsylvania selected Dean Detton, Illinois chose Jim McMillen, Missouri took George Zaharias and California named Vincent Lopez.
Before any of these eliminations could take place, Dave Levin, of New York, placed the situation in a further muddle by defeating Ali Baba, who had the real claim to the title, by reason of his defeat of Dick Shikat, who had previously defeated Danno O’Mahoney when the latter had general and international credit as world’s champion. The Levin-Ali Baba match took place in Newark, N. J., June 12, 1936.
Immediately signing with Promoter Lou Daro, of Los Angeles, Levin agreed to meet Vincent Lopez in defense of his title claims, and eliminated Lopez, California’s entry, from further consideration, when he defeated the latter for the California title, which, as far as California was concerned, meant the world’s title.
Months before this situation arose, I was invited by Promoter Ray Fabiani, of Philadelphia, to enter a wrestling tournament, being held there and sponsored by the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission. I entered the tournament and was the ultimate victor, defeating Ed “Strangler” Lewis in the finals, which eliminated Lewis as a contender for the world title under the system proposed by the various states named above. I further want to bring out to you that despite the fact that Everett Marshall was contacted by registered mail by the Pennsylvania Commission, both he and his manager not only failed to enter the tournament, but disregarded entirely the communication they received from Commissioner Joe Rainey of Pennsylvania.
Now, regarding the situation in Chicago. Promoter Fellman, of Chicago, who was attempting to clarify the Illinois tangle, negotiated with me for a match with McMillen last summer. I readily accepted this match and on or about August 10, 1936, posted a forfeit with your commission. Now, may I again bring Marshall into the picture. A few days after my forfeit was posted to wrestle McMillen, Marshall met and defeated Ali Baba, and despite the fact that Baba had already been eliminated, by the Levin defeat, from all consideration, Marshall claimed the title when he won over Baba in Columbus.
At that time, your commission notified Marshall, or his manager by letter, a copy of which was forwarded to me by Ed White, of Chicago, that unless he agreed to meet either McMillen or myself, your commission would refuse to give any recognition whatsoever to his title claim. Following his procedure in Pennsylvania, Marshall completely ignored your communication, which, as it did in Philadelphia, eliminated him from further consideration in the title fight. He was given until September 15, 1936, to file an answer and when he failed to do so, there was only one course for Mr. Fellman and Mr. White to follow and that was a Detton-McMillen match, which was held and which resulted in a draw.
To progress further. On September 28, 1936, I met and defeated Dave Levin, in Philadelphia, which gave me recognition as champion in that state and further served to eliminate Levin from the title picture. This victory also gave me recognition in California. I followed this match with a defeat of George Zaharias in St. Louis, which not only eliminated Zaharias from titular honors but also gave me world championship recognition in Missouri. You will now note that every contender designated by the various states had been eliminated, with the exception of McMillen and myself.
Meanwhile, to digress, Marshall, invited to wrestle in New York by that commission, again followed in line with the policy he had taken in Pennsylvania and Illinois and refused to even answer the New York board’s communication, so that body suspended him, and it is a matter of record that at this writing that suspension still stands.
Now let’s return to the Chicago situation. After winning titular recognition in Pennsylvania and California and Missouri, Mr. Fellman and Mr. White asked me to wrestle in Chicago, and, in a match billed for the world’s heavyweight championship, I met and defeated Chief Little Wolf. On the same card, McMillen defeated Lewis. After both McMillen and myself won our matches, it was understood and told us, that we were to meet in Chicago for the undisputed heavyweight championship under the sanction of the Illinois Commission. Further, on the promise of such sanction, Mr. White drew from us an enormous amount of money for this purpose, claiming that he needed that money for Mr. Fellman or other large promoters who might be interested in bringing that match about.
I was absolutely dumbfounded when, recently, you wired me that I was suspended in your state for failure to go through with a McMillen match, this despite the fact that at no time were my representatives or myself notified about any such match being proposed. I so wired you in my reply and further asked you for details, which were not forthcoming from you. Instead, I received a very evasive letter, stating that I had made a verbal agreement with you to meet any contender you selected. In your same wire you notified me that I had run out of the McMillen match and took it for granted that I had, when in reality this was an absolute lie with no basis of truth, and then in the next statement you notified me that Marshall and McMillen were wrestling for the world’s heavyweight championship.
Now, Mr. Triner, you and your commission are not going to get away with anything as raw as this very bold attempt to try and cheat and job me out of my hard and rightfully earned championship. Because I’m not going to sit idly by and watch your commission recognize a discredited heavyweight named Marshall, who has been condemned not only by your own commission but by those of Pennsylvania, New York and California, for his pointblank refusal to enter any legitimate tournaments in an effort to straighten out the title situation.
It was you, Mr. Triner, and not I, that went back on your word, for despite your assurances that Marshall was definitely out of the running, you, in some manner, permitted him to slyly post a forfeit without letting me know of it and then come out and boldly announce his match for the world title.
In the near future, I’m going to ask your commission for a hearing and I’m prepared to battle this thing to a finish. In conclusion, the reason the whole matter appears wrong to me is because even with your threats to suspend me, I haven’t yet received an offer from any Chicago promoter to come there and wrestle any opponent - be it McMillen or anyone else.
Yours very truly,
Dean Detton,
World’s Heavyweight Wrestling Champion.
The fearless attitude of Detton has provoked favorable comment everywhere from press and public and he bids fair to remain champion a long time.
Detton summed it up to the writer one night last winter when he said: “So far I’ve never been asked to lose a match or do anything crooked, so anything I hear about wrestling is only hearsay. However, I don’t ask opponents to lie down to me and I’m in shape to wrestle at all times, so the Marshalls and others can come along whenever they wish.”
Reviewing the wrestling picture through the pages of this book these are strange words indeed.
But this is getting to be a strange land, my dear Gaston.
Dracula was an angel, and King Kong was a sissy, compared with Richard Shikat, who schemed and connived as the attorneys for Haft, Sandow and Weismuller crossed swords with the legal batteries of the wrestling trust.
At this late date credit for the operations and maneuvers of the German are given to the late Mrs. Shikat, who was then constantly at the German’s side and ready at all times to advise him as to the necessary moves in the chess game the Teuton was playing with the entire wrestling business.
The early part of the trial on April 24, 1936, was taken up with the unimportant testimony of Leon Balkin, agent for Rudy Dusek. Knowing the facts in the case, it is only too evident Dusek and Balkin were playing fast and loose with the men with whom they were supposed to be working.
Dusek had sent Balkin to Columbus to cover up and lull the unsuspecting partners, but his presence proved the last straw for Shikat.
Quoting the Columbus Dispatch:
Much of the time during the morning session was devoted to objections as Leon Balkin, snappily groomed booking agent for Jack Curley in New York, was on the witness stand.
Another time John Connor, attorney for the defendant, asked Balkin how many different towns he booked matches for, and who the promoters were.
“Sure,” replied Balkin, reaching into his pocket for a list. “I’ve got it right here. There are about 30 of them.”
Balkin then proceeded to read the list, but Connor stopped him indignantly, saying he didn’t intend to take the time of the court to read such a long list.
“Well,” Balkin replied indignantly, “you asked for it.” After Balkin left the stand, receipts received by Shikat, signed by “Toots” Mondt, New York associate of Curley, were placed among the exhibits, which brought a long series of bickering between counsel concerning Alvarez’ connection with Shikat as his manager.
The Shikat-versus-the-mat-trust case was dying of its own lack of steam on Friday morning, April 24, when Judge Mel Underwood opened court.
If interest was lagging, however, Mr. Shikat was going to supply a few little surprises on his own part. As the court opened, according to the Columbus Dispatch:
Counsel for Alvarez moved to reinstate the temporary order restraining Shikat from wrestling, but decision on this was reversed, thus permitting Shikat to go through with a scheduled bout in Detroit tonight against Ali Baba.
It was pointed out by those who decline to believe in lily white business tactics, that Shikat might lose his title to Ali Baba, thus scrapping the importance of the present case.
It is assumed by inference that Alvarez and his associates are interested principally in the title Shikat holds, rather than in Shikat himself.
Ah, how well the mat moguls knew the ways of a wrestler. What they anticipated happened. Shikat hurried to Detroit and there, on April 24, 1936, lost his title to Ali Baba, former U. S. Navy gob, named Harry Eskisian, who, by benefit of a close haircut, shave, and sun lamp treatments, had become a “Terrible Turk.”
With the title lost, the mat moguls let the trial go by default to Shikat.
Shortly thereafter, on May 5th, 1936, just to make it official, Shikat came into Madison Square Garden in New York where, under the promotional “genius” of the Johnston brothers and Jack Pfeffer, he again lost to Ali Baba. Only twenty-five hundred people witnessed the New York bout, but Haft, Pfeffer, Weismuller, the Johnston brothers and Sandow were satisfied that they had established Ali Baba’s New York State claim to the heavyweight crown.
A few days after losing a second time to Ali Baba, Shikat returned to Germany with the body of his wife, who had been killed just a day after the New York bout with Ali Baba, in an automobile accident in Columbus, Ohio.
“Toots” Mondt came to the rescue again.
Figuring the next step in the Haft, Weismuller, Sandow and Pfeffer move would be to match Ali Baba with Everett Marshall, and thus put Sandow back in the driver’s seat with the heavyweight title, Mondt began making overtures to all parties, at the same time Ray Fabiani, Tom Packs, and Rudy Dusek were trying to make connections with the new title czars.
Pfeffer finally became imbued with the idea that Haft, Sandow and Weismuller were going to double-cross him and work with his old enemies again.
“If enybuddy got to woik wit the trost hi vant hit should be Pfeffer,” the little Litvak told Charlie Johnston. “Ve vill see ‘Toots’ Mondt and mak a double-cross of Sandow, Haft and Weismuller.”
Pfeffer found a willing listener in Mondt.
In the early part of June, 1936, Mondt sneaked quietly into New York and after a forty-eight-hour conversation with Pfeffer at the Hotel Warwick, Dave Levin, an ex-butcher boy from Jamaica, New York, was selected as the instrument to be used in the defeat of Ali Baba, the Sandow, Haft and Weismuller champion.
Levin was originally supposed to steal the title from Ali Baba during a bout at the Dyckman Oval in upper Harlem, but when the show was rained out, the match was held in Newark the following night, June 12, 1936.
A well timed kick in the groin, with Levin on the receiving end, and the title returned to Mondt, when referee Frank Sinborn disqualified Ali Baba, and awarded Levin the title on a foul, and proclaimed him “World Champion.”
Like the “Star Spangled Banner,” the bombs began bursting in air, on June 13th, for the sports world soon learned that Mondt had become manager of Levin. According to reports, Mondt paid Pfeffer $17,000 for Levin’s contract.
The wily Mondt had laid his lines so well that prior to the Ali Baba-Levin match at the Meadowbrook Bowl in Newark, Pfeffer was convinced that Weismuller, Haft and Sandow were on the verge of declaring him out of the combination, and making Mondt their partner.
This little thought was put over on Pfeffer through the expediency of countless phone messages left at Mondt’s hotel, which read:
“CALL ADAM WEISMULLER AT THE ALAMAC HOTEL.”
Mondt also arranged with friends in Rochester, Columbus and Detroit, the home cities of Haft, Sandow, and Weismuller, to have telegrams filed from these cities to him, and signed with the names of Haft, Sandow and Weismuller.
Shortly after the double cross in Newark, Ali Baba, when interviewed by Dan Parker of the Daily Mirror, said:
“I thought there were only 40 thieves. Now I find there were 42.”
When informed of Ali Baba’s sentiments, Mondt threw his hands up in pretended horror, and said: “I hope Harry wouldn’t dare call wrestling promoters like Pfeffer and myself thieves.”
Pfeffer merely shrugged his shoulders, caressed his proboscis with the index finger, and said: “From dis I am conwinced.”
Mondt’s coup, however, split the wrestling trust wide open. Because he had not been in on the Ali Baba defeat, Paul Bowser notified “Toots” that in his book O’Mahoney was still World’s Champion, despite the fact that he had been defeated by Shikat. Rudy Dusek sided with Bowser and took his entire organization out of the Curley office, moving his belongings to the Hotel Lincoln, where he immediately began booking the smaller wrestling clubs, with the pronunciamento that Mondt and Curley were no longer his partners.
With Mondt controlling most of the topnotch matmen, and Dusek and Bowser also booking heavyweight grapplers, the situation by the Spring of 1937 finds Everett Marshall proclaiming himself wrestling king because he had defeated Ali Baba on June 29, 1936, in Columbus, Ohio, and had recognition in Illinois and Colorado as champion. Levin, in turn, was defeated by Dean Detton of Salt Lake City, in Philadelphia, September, 1936.
Perhaps the greatest influence toward the cleanup of wrestling took place late in August of 1936, when Lee Wycoff and “Strangler” Lewis, one the policeman for Levin, and the other the copper for Marshall, met at the N.Y. Hippodrome Sports Arena in a grueling two-hour shooting match. The bout had been ordered by the New York State Athletic Commission, with the solons designating the winner as challenger for Levin in an elimination. Lewis entered the ring confident he would make short shift of his younger and more wary adversary. Wycoff, too, came through the ropes oozing self-belief. Lewis had told his associates it would be a short and merry bout, with “Strangler” the winner. Two hours later, both men fell out of the ring exhausted, and referee George Bothner called the affair a draw.
While Wycoff had not beaten Lewis, he demonstrated himself to be a capable and feared matman, with whom Nekoosa could not cope. Lewis’ failure to subdue Wycoff rankled more because Ed’s old manager, Sandow, had trained Wycoff for the bout, and supposedly shown Lee all of his former partner’s grappling tricks.
Discouraged after his failure to beat Wycoff, Lewis virtually retired from all wrestling competition and promotion. Before bowing out of the grappling game, however, he went into serious training at “Toots” Mondt’s request, and in September of 1936, in the basement of Mondt’s home in Glendale, California, Lewis and six others of the toughest wrestlers the game knows, locked grips with Dean Detton of Salt Lake City, Utah, a heavyweight just two years out of the amateurs. Detton pinned all his opponents in short order.
It was after the Detton tryout that this writer sat in on a conference and Mondt told Lewis:
“Back in the old days, Ed, we slept nights because we had you on top, a champion who could wrestle. Even Gotch and Stecher were fellows who could hold their own by fair means or foul, when called upon to do so. Now Levin has cleaned up Lopez and I’m matching Dave with Detton in Philadelphia. Detton will win that one certain, and after that we’ll have a champion who we know we can exploit properly and we won’t have to take any guff from anyone.”
After Detton won the crown from Levin, Mondt endeavored to bring about a friendly feeling between the various wrestling factions, by welding Sandow, Haft, Weismuller, Curley, Bowser, the Johnstons, Lou Daro and Jack Corcoran of Toronto, into one big organization. He was blocked in this effort by the refusal of Sandow, Ed White, Haft and Weismuller to cooperate.
A growing confidence in wrestling, with Detton as champion, seems to be increasing throughout North America. Rugged, capable, skilled, well-bred and intelligent, Detton harks back to the halcyon days of the late William Muldoon, according to oracle Hype Igoe of the New York Evening Journal. Certain it is that like Muldoon, Detton need take a back step to no man in a wrestling sense.
Detton demonstrated his confidence in his own ability early last winter when the Illinois and Missouri Commissions attempted to force him into matches with Everett Marshall.
On December 27, 1936, Detton filed the following wire from the Western Union office at 710 Seventh Avenue, New York City to:
Joe Triner, Chairman
Illinois Athletic Commission
Chicago, Ill.
Garrett Smalley, Chairman
Missouri Athletic Commission
Kansas City, Mo.
Replying to various wires and letters regarding my granting title bout to Challenger Everett Marshall let it be understood I am willing to defend my title against challenger Marshall anywhere providing terms are satisfactory stop You understand a Detton-Marshall bout is a promotional plum and several cities are bidding for it stop Have under consideration bona fide offers from Twentieth Century Club New York Ray Fabiani Philadelphia Lou Daro Los Angeles to defend my title against challenger Everett Marshall stop The most satisfactory financial offer will be accepted stop So far no bids have been received from your promoters stop Realize you have no financial interest in any promoters only want to clear up mat situation so assume you have no objection my accepting best financial offer for title defense against challenger Marshall you merely want bout held stop Illinois New York Missouri California Pennsylvania all want bout I have met all challengers in defense of my championship and intend doing so with Challenger Marshall no exception stop I want to clean up all challengers and think in this case the promoter of a Detton-Marshall title bout should be a man of financial standing in whatever state held and both challenger and champion should be assured of impartial ring officials agreeable to both participants.
Dean Detton
Worlds Heavyweight Wrestling Champion
That Detton meant business and was in earnest he again demonstrated on January 3rd, 1937, when, not receiving a reply from the Illinois and Missouri Commissions, he dispatched the following letter to the Illinois Commission.
Detton’s letter follows and gives a comprehensive picture of the wrestling business.
January 3, 1937
Mr. Jos. Triner,
Chairman, State Athletic Commission,
Chicago, Ill.
Dear Mr. Triner:
The purpose of this letter is a definite and emphatic protest against the action of your commission in recognizing the winner of the forthcoming Marshall-McMillen match as world’s heavyweight wrestling champion.
Some time in June of the past year, the various athletic commissions of the states of California, Missouri, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania agreed, while attending the Louis-Schmeling boxing contest in New York City, to each designate a leading or No. 1 challenger for world titular honors in their respective states, and then by a process of elimination, establish a bona fide heavyweight champion and thereby put a stop to the claims of sundry champions who have no right to the honor.
It is my understanding that New York named Ed “Strangler” Lewis, Pennsylvania selected Dean Detton, Illinois chose Jim McMillen, Missouri took George Zaharias and California named Vincent Lopez.
Before any of these eliminations could take place, Dave Levin, of New York, placed the situation in a further muddle by defeating Ali Baba, who had the real claim to the title, by reason of his defeat of Dick Shikat, who had previously defeated Danno O’Mahoney when the latter had general and international credit as world’s champion. The Levin-Ali Baba match took place in Newark, N. J., June 12, 1936.
Immediately signing with Promoter Lou Daro, of Los Angeles, Levin agreed to meet Vincent Lopez in defense of his title claims, and eliminated Lopez, California’s entry, from further consideration, when he defeated the latter for the California title, which, as far as California was concerned, meant the world’s title.
Months before this situation arose, I was invited by Promoter Ray Fabiani, of Philadelphia, to enter a wrestling tournament, being held there and sponsored by the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission. I entered the tournament and was the ultimate victor, defeating Ed “Strangler” Lewis in the finals, which eliminated Lewis as a contender for the world title under the system proposed by the various states named above. I further want to bring out to you that despite the fact that Everett Marshall was contacted by registered mail by the Pennsylvania Commission, both he and his manager not only failed to enter the tournament, but disregarded entirely the communication they received from Commissioner Joe Rainey of Pennsylvania.
Now, regarding the situation in Chicago. Promoter Fellman, of Chicago, who was attempting to clarify the Illinois tangle, negotiated with me for a match with McMillen last summer. I readily accepted this match and on or about August 10, 1936, posted a forfeit with your commission. Now, may I again bring Marshall into the picture. A few days after my forfeit was posted to wrestle McMillen, Marshall met and defeated Ali Baba, and despite the fact that Baba had already been eliminated, by the Levin defeat, from all consideration, Marshall claimed the title when he won over Baba in Columbus.
At that time, your commission notified Marshall, or his manager by letter, a copy of which was forwarded to me by Ed White, of Chicago, that unless he agreed to meet either McMillen or myself, your commission would refuse to give any recognition whatsoever to his title claim. Following his procedure in Pennsylvania, Marshall completely ignored your communication, which, as it did in Philadelphia, eliminated him from further consideration in the title fight. He was given until September 15, 1936, to file an answer and when he failed to do so, there was only one course for Mr. Fellman and Mr. White to follow and that was a Detton-McMillen match, which was held and which resulted in a draw.
To progress further. On September 28, 1936, I met and defeated Dave Levin, in Philadelphia, which gave me recognition as champion in that state and further served to eliminate Levin from the title picture. This victory also gave me recognition in California. I followed this match with a defeat of George Zaharias in St. Louis, which not only eliminated Zaharias from titular honors but also gave me world championship recognition in Missouri. You will now note that every contender designated by the various states had been eliminated, with the exception of McMillen and myself.
Meanwhile, to digress, Marshall, invited to wrestle in New York by that commission, again followed in line with the policy he had taken in Pennsylvania and Illinois and refused to even answer the New York board’s communication, so that body suspended him, and it is a matter of record that at this writing that suspension still stands.
Now let’s return to the Chicago situation. After winning titular recognition in Pennsylvania and California and Missouri, Mr. Fellman and Mr. White asked me to wrestle in Chicago, and, in a match billed for the world’s heavyweight championship, I met and defeated Chief Little Wolf. On the same card, McMillen defeated Lewis. After both McMillen and myself won our matches, it was understood and told us, that we were to meet in Chicago for the undisputed heavyweight championship under the sanction of the Illinois Commission. Further, on the promise of such sanction, Mr. White drew from us an enormous amount of money for this purpose, claiming that he needed that money for Mr. Fellman or other large promoters who might be interested in bringing that match about.
I was absolutely dumbfounded when, recently, you wired me that I was suspended in your state for failure to go through with a McMillen match, this despite the fact that at no time were my representatives or myself notified about any such match being proposed. I so wired you in my reply and further asked you for details, which were not forthcoming from you. Instead, I received a very evasive letter, stating that I had made a verbal agreement with you to meet any contender you selected. In your same wire you notified me that I had run out of the McMillen match and took it for granted that I had, when in reality this was an absolute lie with no basis of truth, and then in the next statement you notified me that Marshall and McMillen were wrestling for the world’s heavyweight championship.
Now, Mr. Triner, you and your commission are not going to get away with anything as raw as this very bold attempt to try and cheat and job me out of my hard and rightfully earned championship. Because I’m not going to sit idly by and watch your commission recognize a discredited heavyweight named Marshall, who has been condemned not only by your own commission but by those of Pennsylvania, New York and California, for his pointblank refusal to enter any legitimate tournaments in an effort to straighten out the title situation.
It was you, Mr. Triner, and not I, that went back on your word, for despite your assurances that Marshall was definitely out of the running, you, in some manner, permitted him to slyly post a forfeit without letting me know of it and then come out and boldly announce his match for the world title.
In the near future, I’m going to ask your commission for a hearing and I’m prepared to battle this thing to a finish. In conclusion, the reason the whole matter appears wrong to me is because even with your threats to suspend me, I haven’t yet received an offer from any Chicago promoter to come there and wrestle any opponent - be it McMillen or anyone else.
Yours very truly,
Dean Detton,
World’s Heavyweight Wrestling Champion.
The fearless attitude of Detton has provoked favorable comment everywhere from press and public and he bids fair to remain champion a long time.
Detton summed it up to the writer one night last winter when he said: “So far I’ve never been asked to lose a match or do anything crooked, so anything I hear about wrestling is only hearsay. However, I don’t ask opponents to lie down to me and I’m in shape to wrestle at all times, so the Marshalls and others can come along whenever they wish.”
Reviewing the wrestling picture through the pages of this book these are strange words indeed.
But this is getting to be a strange land, my dear Gaston.
Fall Guys Chapter 22
Smoke Got in Their Eyes
Jack Pfeffer gloated in his new-found glory of parading Richard Shikat around the newspaper offices as the man who broke the nationwide wrestling trust.
He found the champ a willing sporting stooge in his campaign to blow the whistle on the machinations of the bonecrushing industry.
Though extremely ignorant as to the background and motivation in wrestling, sports scribe Dan Parker managed to maintain a certain note of authority in his columnistic revelations because of Pfeffer’s willingness to supply information with just a modicum of truth in every statement he gave the New York Mirror’s reporter.
Too, Dan Parker had another source of confidential information in “Chick” Wergeles, master of espionage, who, while working for the Curley office as a press agent, garnered gossipy tidbits concerning the inside of the wrestling business and relayed them to Parker, who printed the information in his column.
Failing in their efforts to do business with Richard Shikat, the mat trust dug up a managerial contract held by Joe Alvarez, Boston matchmaker for Bowser, and sued in the Federal district court of Columbus, Ohio, to restrain Shikat from wrestling for the Haft-Sandow-Weismuller combine.
Ray Fabiani, Joe Alvarez, Leon Balkin and Jack Curley journeyed to Columbus for the legal joust.
On Friday, April 23, 1936, the Columbus Citizen, in recounting the various moves in the Federal trial to curb Shikat, said:
Wrestling is on the level.
Jack Curley, for 40 years one of the leading sport promoters of the country, swore to that today on the witness stand in Judge Mell Underwood’s federal court, at the opening of the hearing of Joe Alvarez’ request for an injunction against World’s Champion Dick Shikat wrestling for anyone else but him.
Mr. Curley was the first witness offered by Attorney Fred C. Rector, acting for the plaintiff.
Mr. Curley had conveniently forgotten his revelations to Robert Edgren, New York World sports scribe, to whom he had revealed the various machinations of the wrestling business back in 1911, after the sorry Gotch-Hackenschmidt affair in Chicago.
Continuing, the Columbus Citizen said:
Just before noon recess, Attorneys Rector and John Connor for the defense engaged in a heated argument over admissibility of a photostatic copy of an agreement purported to be signed by Curley, Paul Bowser of Boston, Ray Fabiani of Philadelphia, Ed White of Chicago, Tom Packs of St. Louis and “Toots” Mondt of New York.
According to Mr. Connor, this copy, if admitted in evidence, will show the existence of a signed agreement between these men, splitting up the eastern half of the United States in a wrestling combine or trust.
Mr. Curley admitted on the stand that such an agreement existed, and vouched for his signature on the agreement.
Mr. Curley was called to the stand after Judge Underwood had dissolved the temporary restraining order, forbidding Mr. Shikat to appear in any matches except for Mr. Alvarez.
The hearing then swung into a request for a permanent restraining order.
In response to a question from Mr. Rector, Mr. Curley said he had never participated in the fixing of a wrestling match, nor had he ever known of one being fixed.
Curley’s testimony at this juncture, it might be pointed out, was in direct contradiction to Jack Pfeffer’s various statements published in the New York Daily Mirror.
Quoting the Citizen again:
In the opening statements the two attorneys presented sharply contrasting pictures of the case.
To Mr. Rector it was merely a case of Mr. Shikat signing a contract with Joe Alvarez, and enjoying Mr. Alvarez’ help and cooperation in getting to the top, and then deciding he’d no longer cut Mr. Alvarez in on the earnings.
To Mr. Connor it was a dramatic story of a German coming to this country as a stranger, and finding he had to ditch Rudy Miller, his original manager, and sign up with a manager named by the “trust” before he could get any matches.
Then, according to Mr. Connor, came days when the trust demanded that he put up a deposit of $18,000 with the so-called trust, to guarantee he’d follow instructions, even to the extent of losing when instructed to lose.
After following instructions, Mr. Connor said Mr. Shikat asked for the return of his $18,000 deposit, and the return was refused.
Then came instructions to sign with another manager, also in the combine, and a period of two years of trying to get the deposit back.
After that, according to Mr. Connor’s opening statement, Mr. Shikat was signed to meet Danno O’Mahoney in New York City.
After the O’Mahoney match, according to Mr. Connor, representatives of the trust offered him his deposit back and $25,000 in addition, if he’d go in and meet Mr. O’Mahoney again and lose to him or to another wrestler named Robert.
Mr. Shikat, according to Mr. Connor, indignantly refused, and came west to join the stable of Al Haft, Columbus impresario of grunt and groan.
The Columbus State Journal said:
Charges that a wrestling “trust” exists in the eastern half of America, and that grapplers are forced to “win or lose or draw,” according to order, or lose huge forfeits, whirled through federal court yesterday.
Indications were that the testimony would be completed Saturday, only two of more than a score of witnesses reaching the stand yesterday.
The two were Jack Curley, New York promoter, and Garrett L. Smalley of Kansas City, chairman of the Missouri State Athletic Commission.
In addition to Shikat and Haft, who is co-defendant in the suit, and friends of Haft and Curley, Ray Fabiani, Philadelphia promoter, was an interested spectator, and probably will be a witness when the hearing is resumed at 10 o’clock this morning.
The preliminary restraining order which stopped Shikat from appearing in any matches was dissolved by Judge Underwood at the morning session, after a brief exchange between John Connor, attorney for Shikat and Haft, and Fred Rector, counsel for Alvarez. As a result, Shikat may appear in any match until the hearing is concluded, it is understood, and he is supposed to appear in Detroit tonight.
Smalley said he believed all contracts filed with the Missouri commission had borne Alvarez’ name as manager. He said he had no documentary support, since all contracts are destroyed soon after matches.
Connor asked him who was paying his expenses to Columbus, and Smalley replied no one had paid them yet, but he expected Tom Packs of St. Louis would do so. Packs is a member of the wrestling “ring.”
From Smalley’s testimony it is only too evident to the reader as to which corner the Missouri State Athletic Commission was working in. Contracts destroyed, and a trust paying a public servant’s expenses for favorable testimony. Truly a strange condition of affairs.
Quoting the Ohio State Journal again:
Jack Curley testified that he had known Alvarez for some years and that wrestling as it is conducted today in the United States, is strictly “on the level.” He denied vigorously that he had asked Shikat to “take a dive” in his match with O’Mahoney, and also declared false an implied assertion that he had tried the same thing again in trying to induce Shikat to agree to a return match with the Irishman.
The eastern impresario of exhibitions and athletic shows seemed to resent Attorney Connor’s revelation that his former name was Armand Jacob Schmul, which he changed 35 years ago in Chicago, to his present name.
Sports scribe Bob Beach of the Ohio State Journal, commented:
Lawyers must practice taking surprises without showing any shock. There is no doubt that the appearance in the court of a photostatic copy of the contract among Curley, Mondt, Bowser, Packs and Fabiani and White was like a bomb in the midst of the plaintiff’s staff of attorneys. But Rector didn’t show it. Neither did his colleague, Mr. Sterling, Curley’s Philadelphia lawyer. Curley himself, however, on the witness stand at the time, couldn’t conceal a trace of amazement.
While Shikat was purportedly in the employ of Alvarez, and allegedly under “contract” to him, all the vouchers with which he was paid, which were introduced by the plaintiff, bore the signature of Curley.
Back to the court trial as again recounted in the Columbus Ohio State Journal:
After the O’Mahoney match, Connor said Shikat was called into Curley’s office, where several members of the “ring” confronted him and asked him, “Why did you double cross us like you did last night?” But this also was denied by the witness.
Then the offer to Shikat for a return match, with the stipulation to “take a dive” was made, Connor said, but the title holder merely smiled and refused.
Curley said he had been engaged in the promotional game for years, and in response to his attorney’s questions, said he included in his management, Annette Kellerman and the Vatican Choir “direct from Rome.” He also said he had managed the tour of William Jennings Bryan in 1901-02.
He professed ignorance of most of the details of his promotional enterprises, asserting the details were left to his assistant, Leon Balkin. He admitted signature of checks to Shikat.
At the afternoon session the contract between Mondt, White, Curley, Packs, Bowser and Fabiani, and others, in which they agreed to split 60 percent of the proceeds of all their matches was introduced.
As Bowser, whom Shikat’s attorney claims was the real manager and not Alvarez, was one of the signers, Curley admitted that he would participate in the earnings of the champion, not only as a partner, but also as a promoter.
The wrestling trial was becoming heated and partisan, when on Friday, April 24, Lew Byrer, Sports Editor for the Columbus Citizen commented:
Mr. Curley affirmed and reaffirmed that he had no interest in the case other than seeing the right prevail.
He kept reaffirming even after admitting on the stand that he had signed the so-called trust contract along with Messrs. Bowser, Fabiani, Packs, Mondt and White.
Never did John Barrymore quiver a more disdainful nostril than did Mr. Curley in voicing his emphatic denial. Never did John’s sister, Ethel, give a more vivid portrayal of righteous indignation.
One member of the mat trust spoke frankly, however, while the fireworks were going on in Columbus, Ohio. Tom Packs of St. Louis, in a statement given out to the National wire services, said:
“That a ‘promoters’ agreement’ had been formed, but that it was junked after a 30-day trial.
“Promoters throughout the country,” Packs said, “were trying to outbid each other for important matches. We found we were giving practically all of the profits to the wrestlers.
“We formed an association pooling profits and dividing equally. This agreement was not considered satisfactory by Curley, Bowser and Fabiani, so we decided to operate independently.”
At least Packs was using his head and keeping it above water.
Jack Pfeffer gloated in his new-found glory of parading Richard Shikat around the newspaper offices as the man who broke the nationwide wrestling trust.
He found the champ a willing sporting stooge in his campaign to blow the whistle on the machinations of the bonecrushing industry.
Though extremely ignorant as to the background and motivation in wrestling, sports scribe Dan Parker managed to maintain a certain note of authority in his columnistic revelations because of Pfeffer’s willingness to supply information with just a modicum of truth in every statement he gave the New York Mirror’s reporter.
Too, Dan Parker had another source of confidential information in “Chick” Wergeles, master of espionage, who, while working for the Curley office as a press agent, garnered gossipy tidbits concerning the inside of the wrestling business and relayed them to Parker, who printed the information in his column.
Failing in their efforts to do business with Richard Shikat, the mat trust dug up a managerial contract held by Joe Alvarez, Boston matchmaker for Bowser, and sued in the Federal district court of Columbus, Ohio, to restrain Shikat from wrestling for the Haft-Sandow-Weismuller combine.
Ray Fabiani, Joe Alvarez, Leon Balkin and Jack Curley journeyed to Columbus for the legal joust.
On Friday, April 23, 1936, the Columbus Citizen, in recounting the various moves in the Federal trial to curb Shikat, said:
Wrestling is on the level.
Jack Curley, for 40 years one of the leading sport promoters of the country, swore to that today on the witness stand in Judge Mell Underwood’s federal court, at the opening of the hearing of Joe Alvarez’ request for an injunction against World’s Champion Dick Shikat wrestling for anyone else but him.
Mr. Curley was the first witness offered by Attorney Fred C. Rector, acting for the plaintiff.
Mr. Curley had conveniently forgotten his revelations to Robert Edgren, New York World sports scribe, to whom he had revealed the various machinations of the wrestling business back in 1911, after the sorry Gotch-Hackenschmidt affair in Chicago.
Continuing, the Columbus Citizen said:
Just before noon recess, Attorneys Rector and John Connor for the defense engaged in a heated argument over admissibility of a photostatic copy of an agreement purported to be signed by Curley, Paul Bowser of Boston, Ray Fabiani of Philadelphia, Ed White of Chicago, Tom Packs of St. Louis and “Toots” Mondt of New York.
According to Mr. Connor, this copy, if admitted in evidence, will show the existence of a signed agreement between these men, splitting up the eastern half of the United States in a wrestling combine or trust.
Mr. Curley admitted on the stand that such an agreement existed, and vouched for his signature on the agreement.
Mr. Curley was called to the stand after Judge Underwood had dissolved the temporary restraining order, forbidding Mr. Shikat to appear in any matches except for Mr. Alvarez.
The hearing then swung into a request for a permanent restraining order.
In response to a question from Mr. Rector, Mr. Curley said he had never participated in the fixing of a wrestling match, nor had he ever known of one being fixed.
Curley’s testimony at this juncture, it might be pointed out, was in direct contradiction to Jack Pfeffer’s various statements published in the New York Daily Mirror.
Quoting the Citizen again:
In the opening statements the two attorneys presented sharply contrasting pictures of the case.
To Mr. Rector it was merely a case of Mr. Shikat signing a contract with Joe Alvarez, and enjoying Mr. Alvarez’ help and cooperation in getting to the top, and then deciding he’d no longer cut Mr. Alvarez in on the earnings.
To Mr. Connor it was a dramatic story of a German coming to this country as a stranger, and finding he had to ditch Rudy Miller, his original manager, and sign up with a manager named by the “trust” before he could get any matches.
Then, according to Mr. Connor, came days when the trust demanded that he put up a deposit of $18,000 with the so-called trust, to guarantee he’d follow instructions, even to the extent of losing when instructed to lose.
After following instructions, Mr. Connor said Mr. Shikat asked for the return of his $18,000 deposit, and the return was refused.
Then came instructions to sign with another manager, also in the combine, and a period of two years of trying to get the deposit back.
After that, according to Mr. Connor’s opening statement, Mr. Shikat was signed to meet Danno O’Mahoney in New York City.
After the O’Mahoney match, according to Mr. Connor, representatives of the trust offered him his deposit back and $25,000 in addition, if he’d go in and meet Mr. O’Mahoney again and lose to him or to another wrestler named Robert.
Mr. Shikat, according to Mr. Connor, indignantly refused, and came west to join the stable of Al Haft, Columbus impresario of grunt and groan.
The Columbus State Journal said:
Charges that a wrestling “trust” exists in the eastern half of America, and that grapplers are forced to “win or lose or draw,” according to order, or lose huge forfeits, whirled through federal court yesterday.
Indications were that the testimony would be completed Saturday, only two of more than a score of witnesses reaching the stand yesterday.
The two were Jack Curley, New York promoter, and Garrett L. Smalley of Kansas City, chairman of the Missouri State Athletic Commission.
In addition to Shikat and Haft, who is co-defendant in the suit, and friends of Haft and Curley, Ray Fabiani, Philadelphia promoter, was an interested spectator, and probably will be a witness when the hearing is resumed at 10 o’clock this morning.
The preliminary restraining order which stopped Shikat from appearing in any matches was dissolved by Judge Underwood at the morning session, after a brief exchange between John Connor, attorney for Shikat and Haft, and Fred Rector, counsel for Alvarez. As a result, Shikat may appear in any match until the hearing is concluded, it is understood, and he is supposed to appear in Detroit tonight.
Smalley said he believed all contracts filed with the Missouri commission had borne Alvarez’ name as manager. He said he had no documentary support, since all contracts are destroyed soon after matches.
Connor asked him who was paying his expenses to Columbus, and Smalley replied no one had paid them yet, but he expected Tom Packs of St. Louis would do so. Packs is a member of the wrestling “ring.”
From Smalley’s testimony it is only too evident to the reader as to which corner the Missouri State Athletic Commission was working in. Contracts destroyed, and a trust paying a public servant’s expenses for favorable testimony. Truly a strange condition of affairs.
Quoting the Ohio State Journal again:
Jack Curley testified that he had known Alvarez for some years and that wrestling as it is conducted today in the United States, is strictly “on the level.” He denied vigorously that he had asked Shikat to “take a dive” in his match with O’Mahoney, and also declared false an implied assertion that he had tried the same thing again in trying to induce Shikat to agree to a return match with the Irishman.
The eastern impresario of exhibitions and athletic shows seemed to resent Attorney Connor’s revelation that his former name was Armand Jacob Schmul, which he changed 35 years ago in Chicago, to his present name.
Sports scribe Bob Beach of the Ohio State Journal, commented:
Lawyers must practice taking surprises without showing any shock. There is no doubt that the appearance in the court of a photostatic copy of the contract among Curley, Mondt, Bowser, Packs and Fabiani and White was like a bomb in the midst of the plaintiff’s staff of attorneys. But Rector didn’t show it. Neither did his colleague, Mr. Sterling, Curley’s Philadelphia lawyer. Curley himself, however, on the witness stand at the time, couldn’t conceal a trace of amazement.
While Shikat was purportedly in the employ of Alvarez, and allegedly under “contract” to him, all the vouchers with which he was paid, which were introduced by the plaintiff, bore the signature of Curley.
Back to the court trial as again recounted in the Columbus Ohio State Journal:
After the O’Mahoney match, Connor said Shikat was called into Curley’s office, where several members of the “ring” confronted him and asked him, “Why did you double cross us like you did last night?” But this also was denied by the witness.
Then the offer to Shikat for a return match, with the stipulation to “take a dive” was made, Connor said, but the title holder merely smiled and refused.
Curley said he had been engaged in the promotional game for years, and in response to his attorney’s questions, said he included in his management, Annette Kellerman and the Vatican Choir “direct from Rome.” He also said he had managed the tour of William Jennings Bryan in 1901-02.
He professed ignorance of most of the details of his promotional enterprises, asserting the details were left to his assistant, Leon Balkin. He admitted signature of checks to Shikat.
At the afternoon session the contract between Mondt, White, Curley, Packs, Bowser and Fabiani, and others, in which they agreed to split 60 percent of the proceeds of all their matches was introduced.
As Bowser, whom Shikat’s attorney claims was the real manager and not Alvarez, was one of the signers, Curley admitted that he would participate in the earnings of the champion, not only as a partner, but also as a promoter.
The wrestling trial was becoming heated and partisan, when on Friday, April 24, Lew Byrer, Sports Editor for the Columbus Citizen commented:
Mr. Curley affirmed and reaffirmed that he had no interest in the case other than seeing the right prevail.
He kept reaffirming even after admitting on the stand that he had signed the so-called trust contract along with Messrs. Bowser, Fabiani, Packs, Mondt and White.
Never did John Barrymore quiver a more disdainful nostril than did Mr. Curley in voicing his emphatic denial. Never did John’s sister, Ethel, give a more vivid portrayal of righteous indignation.
One member of the mat trust spoke frankly, however, while the fireworks were going on in Columbus, Ohio. Tom Packs of St. Louis, in a statement given out to the National wire services, said:
“That a ‘promoters’ agreement’ had been formed, but that it was junked after a 30-day trial.
“Promoters throughout the country,” Packs said, “were trying to outbid each other for important matches. We found we were giving practically all of the profits to the wrestlers.
“We formed an association pooling profits and dividing equally. This agreement was not considered satisfactory by Curley, Bowser and Fabiani, so we decided to operate independently.”
At least Packs was using his head and keeping it above water.
Fall Guys Chapter 21
Dog Fight
Danno at least proved to be a wise young man, possessed of something else besides brawn and no brains.
As the news scribes flocked into his dressing room after the epochal Shikat double cross, the Irishman was ready for them.
“I didn’t quit,” he told the Fourth Estaters. “I’ve been in more punishing holds. I was tired, though, because of my long three-hour match last Friday night in Boston with Yvon Robert, so I couldn’t do my best. When Shikat clamped the arm lock on me I went to the floor.
“Shikat then told Referee Bothner he would break my arm unless he stopped the match. Bothner asked me if I wanted him to halt the contest, and I said: ‘Don’t halt the bout.’ Well I guess Bothner misunderstood my brogue, for he then slapped Shikat on the back, as a sign he was the winner and pulled the German off of me.
“Bothner told me in the ring after the bout was over, that he thought I said ‘Halt the bout.’ Shikat is a good man and I hope to meet him again with a referee in the ring who can understand an Irish accent.”
While Danno was declared shorn of his laurels by the New York State Commission, his brogue alibi served to save some vestige of his prestige.
The story behind Danno’s defeat in itself far outfigures the plots of master fictionists.
Months before the Danno double cross, Shikat, inspired by a disgruntled member of the trust, announced his intention of returning to Nazi land, but before doing so, contacted fellow countryman Rudy Miller, Florida wrestling agent for the nationwide combination.
Miller came to New York and the tough Teuton vowed vengeance on the entire mat industry, and declared that upon his return from the Fatherland, he (Shikat) intended to await an opportunity to beat Danno O’Mahoney right in Madison Square Garden.
Miller acted fast. Al Haft, Columbus, Ohio, promoter, Detroit promoter Adam Weismuller, and onetime Mat Czar Billy Sandow, were apprised of Shikat’s intentions. They signified their willingness to talk business with Shikat after he beat Champion O’Mahoney.
Late in the fall of 1935, Shikat returned from Germany, and was pointed for the title match with O’Mahoney which culminated in the epochal March 2, 1936, Madison Square Garden double cross. Shikat was now in a position to even old scores with Joe “Toots” Mondt, Jack Curley, “Strangler” Lewis, Jimmy Londos and Ed White. Too, he was in the driver’s seat, and could erase some grudges Rudy Dusek, his sponsor, harbored against various parties. The gears in the well-oiled double cross began to grind slowly but surely, while other unsuspecting mat trusters remained in the dark. After winning his claim to the mat championship, the trust tried to talk business with Shikat. That worthy listened, but, prompted by his sponsor, Miller, decided to cast his lot with Haft and Sandow.
Shikat tried to interest Jack Pfeffer in the deal, but the wily leaping Litvak trusted Teutons, wrestling promoters, and grapplers as much as Al Capone trusts a cop, and refused to pool money in the deal, agreeing, however, to book Shikat in New York and protect him to the best of his ability. Which was like guaranteeing a baby that a Jack Dempsey wallop would not hurt him.
Surprisingly enough, it comes to light at this late date, that Shikat merely beat Danno to the gun in taking his title away. For out in the Midwest the Sandow-Haft group had already made a deal with O’Mahoney, to have him leave New York right after the Shikat bout and accept a bout in Detroit with Everett Marshall, which the latter would win. The terms of the deal are said to have been arranged by a New York newspaperman on one of the Irish-American newspapers, and only Shikat’s getting in ahead of Marshall prevented the plan from materializing.
Immediately after hearing of Danno’s defeat, Mondt took a transcontinental plane to New York, and by tying up the loose ends he was able to figure out the key man in the double cross. It took him time, and while Mondt worked like one of Edgar Hoover’s G-Men, Shikat was parading the country as champion.
Mondt made Shikat an offer to meet Vincent Lopez in Los Angeles, and agreed to post fifty thousand dollars as a guarantee for two bouts.
Shikat was holding out for the highest bidder. With the money of Haft and Sandow in his safety deposit box, he had decided to carry the double cross a little further, and double cross everyone.
As Shikat told this writer:
“My title is on the auction block. I’m going to get as much for it as possible. After the Browning match in Madison Square Garden, when I protested against Lewis losing the title to Browning without taking me in on the deal, Lewis and Mondt invited me up to the Warwick to talk it over, and instead, they beat me up. I waited a long time for revenge. I could have beaten Londos in Madison Square Garden on December 11th, 1934, after the big trust deal had been made with him and he was holding the fifty thousand dollars, and I was going to do so until I began wrestling with Londos in the Garden ring and sensed that this was just what Londos wanted so he could file his claim to the fifty thousand dollars and leave the country. “I decided right then and there to lose to Londos as programmed, and wait until later for revenge. I hated Londos as much as I hated Curley, Lewis, Mondt, Fabiani and Bowser, but I didn’t want to make Londos richer by double crossing the heels who had been in on the beating I took at the Warwick.”
“Why?” this writer asked of Shikat, “didn’t you come back and work with Mondt when you won the title back from Danno?”
“I was all ready to go back to Mondt or Bowser, because I felt they were the squares of the bunch, but I heard they planned to give me twenty-five thousand dollars for a return bout in Boston with Danno, and all agreed to this, but Lewis said: ‘Sure, we’ll promise him the twenty-five thousand dollars until after he loses to Danno, and then we’ll take him up to a hotel room and give him another beating,” responded Shikat. “So,” concluded Shikat, “those fellows should watch my smoke now. I’m on my own.”
Danno at least proved to be a wise young man, possessed of something else besides brawn and no brains.
As the news scribes flocked into his dressing room after the epochal Shikat double cross, the Irishman was ready for them.
“I didn’t quit,” he told the Fourth Estaters. “I’ve been in more punishing holds. I was tired, though, because of my long three-hour match last Friday night in Boston with Yvon Robert, so I couldn’t do my best. When Shikat clamped the arm lock on me I went to the floor.
“Shikat then told Referee Bothner he would break my arm unless he stopped the match. Bothner asked me if I wanted him to halt the contest, and I said: ‘Don’t halt the bout.’ Well I guess Bothner misunderstood my brogue, for he then slapped Shikat on the back, as a sign he was the winner and pulled the German off of me.
“Bothner told me in the ring after the bout was over, that he thought I said ‘Halt the bout.’ Shikat is a good man and I hope to meet him again with a referee in the ring who can understand an Irish accent.”
While Danno was declared shorn of his laurels by the New York State Commission, his brogue alibi served to save some vestige of his prestige.
The story behind Danno’s defeat in itself far outfigures the plots of master fictionists.
Months before the Danno double cross, Shikat, inspired by a disgruntled member of the trust, announced his intention of returning to Nazi land, but before doing so, contacted fellow countryman Rudy Miller, Florida wrestling agent for the nationwide combination.
Miller came to New York and the tough Teuton vowed vengeance on the entire mat industry, and declared that upon his return from the Fatherland, he (Shikat) intended to await an opportunity to beat Danno O’Mahoney right in Madison Square Garden.
Miller acted fast. Al Haft, Columbus, Ohio, promoter, Detroit promoter Adam Weismuller, and onetime Mat Czar Billy Sandow, were apprised of Shikat’s intentions. They signified their willingness to talk business with Shikat after he beat Champion O’Mahoney.
Late in the fall of 1935, Shikat returned from Germany, and was pointed for the title match with O’Mahoney which culminated in the epochal March 2, 1936, Madison Square Garden double cross. Shikat was now in a position to even old scores with Joe “Toots” Mondt, Jack Curley, “Strangler” Lewis, Jimmy Londos and Ed White. Too, he was in the driver’s seat, and could erase some grudges Rudy Dusek, his sponsor, harbored against various parties. The gears in the well-oiled double cross began to grind slowly but surely, while other unsuspecting mat trusters remained in the dark. After winning his claim to the mat championship, the trust tried to talk business with Shikat. That worthy listened, but, prompted by his sponsor, Miller, decided to cast his lot with Haft and Sandow.
Shikat tried to interest Jack Pfeffer in the deal, but the wily leaping Litvak trusted Teutons, wrestling promoters, and grapplers as much as Al Capone trusts a cop, and refused to pool money in the deal, agreeing, however, to book Shikat in New York and protect him to the best of his ability. Which was like guaranteeing a baby that a Jack Dempsey wallop would not hurt him.
Surprisingly enough, it comes to light at this late date, that Shikat merely beat Danno to the gun in taking his title away. For out in the Midwest the Sandow-Haft group had already made a deal with O’Mahoney, to have him leave New York right after the Shikat bout and accept a bout in Detroit with Everett Marshall, which the latter would win. The terms of the deal are said to have been arranged by a New York newspaperman on one of the Irish-American newspapers, and only Shikat’s getting in ahead of Marshall prevented the plan from materializing.
Immediately after hearing of Danno’s defeat, Mondt took a transcontinental plane to New York, and by tying up the loose ends he was able to figure out the key man in the double cross. It took him time, and while Mondt worked like one of Edgar Hoover’s G-Men, Shikat was parading the country as champion.
Mondt made Shikat an offer to meet Vincent Lopez in Los Angeles, and agreed to post fifty thousand dollars as a guarantee for two bouts.
Shikat was holding out for the highest bidder. With the money of Haft and Sandow in his safety deposit box, he had decided to carry the double cross a little further, and double cross everyone.
As Shikat told this writer:
“My title is on the auction block. I’m going to get as much for it as possible. After the Browning match in Madison Square Garden, when I protested against Lewis losing the title to Browning without taking me in on the deal, Lewis and Mondt invited me up to the Warwick to talk it over, and instead, they beat me up. I waited a long time for revenge. I could have beaten Londos in Madison Square Garden on December 11th, 1934, after the big trust deal had been made with him and he was holding the fifty thousand dollars, and I was going to do so until I began wrestling with Londos in the Garden ring and sensed that this was just what Londos wanted so he could file his claim to the fifty thousand dollars and leave the country. “I decided right then and there to lose to Londos as programmed, and wait until later for revenge. I hated Londos as much as I hated Curley, Lewis, Mondt, Fabiani and Bowser, but I didn’t want to make Londos richer by double crossing the heels who had been in on the beating I took at the Warwick.”
“Why?” this writer asked of Shikat, “didn’t you come back and work with Mondt when you won the title back from Danno?”
“I was all ready to go back to Mondt or Bowser, because I felt they were the squares of the bunch, but I heard they planned to give me twenty-five thousand dollars for a return bout in Boston with Danno, and all agreed to this, but Lewis said: ‘Sure, we’ll promise him the twenty-five thousand dollars until after he loses to Danno, and then we’ll take him up to a hotel room and give him another beating,” responded Shikat. “So,” concluded Shikat, “those fellows should watch my smoke now. I’m on my own.”
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