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  He and Muldoon often traveled together in touring troupes but kept separate company. Sullivan had dispatched Paddy Ryan to claim the heavyweight title but struggled with drink and weight issues. The two men were brought back together in part by a mutual distaste for Police Gazette owner Richard Fox. Muldoon and Fox had fallen out when the champion defeated Fox’s personal find Sorakichi. The newspaperman’s enmity for Sullivan was legendary. They were said to dislike each other from their very first encounter. Fox was used to sportsmen kissing up to him, desperate for favorable mentions in the Gazette. When he found Sullivan at the same establishment, Fox called the boxer into his esteemed presence. According to boxing lore the legendarily headstrong Sullivan was having none of it:

  “Mr. Fox would like a word with you.”

  The answer, bellowed to the waiter, was heard by everyone in the establishment.

  “You tell Fox that if he’s got anything to say to me he can Gahdamn well come over to my table to say it!”

  From the day of the insult forward, it was Fox’s mission in life to dethrone Sullivan. The dispatched Paddy Ryan was his boy; Fox even presented him with a diamond encrusted title belt. Sullivan’s supporters then raised money to buy him an even gaudier belt. “Fox’s is like a dog collar compared to mine,” the fighter was said to exclaim. Ryan would fall to Sullivan’s heavy hands three times, but Fox was hardly through with him. He brought in fighters to challenge Sullivan’s crown, men like Tug Wilson and “Maori” Slade who fell short of the goal, each clobbered by Sullivan’s prodigious punching power.

  Finally Fox unleashed his toughest competitor yet — Jake Kilrain, a rugged former mill worker who was also, in a strange mixture of sports, a former championship-caliber rower. Fox tried for years to get Sullivan, who had made almost a million dollars touring the world making boasts and performing exhibitions, into the ring with Kilrain. In 1887, while Sullivan was attracting huge crowds in Britain including the Prince of Wales, Fox declared his protégé to be the heavyweight champion of the world, hoping to raise Sullivan’s ire.

  BOXING GREAT JOHN L. SULLIVAN

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

  When the two were finally set to meet, Sullivan’s backers were almost ready to forfeit their $10,000 side bet rather than send John L. into the ring for an inevitable whooping from Kilrain. Sullivan’s British debauchery was legendary and his health had never recovered. Enter Muldoon, the proponent of physical fitness who had developed quite a reputation for healing the ills of society’s elite.

  Muldoon staked his reputation that he could get the grotesquely out-of-shape Sullivan into fighting trim in time to face Kilrain. It wasn’t easy. Sullivan was too stubborn to quit and performed all the physical tasks asked of him. It was quitting liquor that was the hardest part. Muldoon kept a watchful eye on the pugilist, once even following him into town and dragging him back as he was just getting started in what would surely be an epic bender. By the end of training the two were sharing a single room but hardly speaking. Recounts historian Arne K. Lang, “Their relationship, cordial at best, became downright hostile as the fight drew near. Toward the end of his stay, Sullivan purportedly stopped talking to Muldoon all together. Although they were literally inseparable, virtually Siamese twins, an entire day would pass with no verbal communication other than Muldoon’s terse commands.”

  The training paid off as Sullivan was able to last 75 rounds before Kilrain’s corner finally threw in the towel. It was a strange bout, as the contestants and the crowd all had to evade the law. Louisiana officials were dead set on stopping the fight. Eventually the fighters and 3,000 fans snuck onto a special train and made their way to Richburg, Mississippi. There the town sheriff entered the ring to stop the fight. He was given $200 and stepped right back out. The fight was on!

  It was a classic battle between technique and power. Kilrain peppered the champion with punches, but Sullivan landed the harder blows. This was the last championship fight contested under London Prize Ring Rules, which made Muldoon’s expertise valuable in more than just physical fitness. The bout included plenty of grappling, with Sullivan throwing Kilrain violently to the ground on multiple occasions, often attempting to land a knee or kick for good measure. As temperatures reached 100 degrees, both men sipped whiskey between rounds. The combination made Sullivan vomit when he took a hard punch to the gut in the 44th round.

  One hour became two and still the men fought on. They were barely coherent, struggling for breath and to maintain their feet, when Kilrain’s corner threw in the towel. After 75 rounds, Sullivan remained champion. Despite the success, Sullivan and Muldoon would never work together again, with the champion going as far as to say if the two crossed paths again he would punch the wrestler’s lights out. Muldoon responded in an open letter in the New York World. Translated into today’s verbiage, it carried a simple message: bring it on.

  Like Sullivan, Muldoon was the last of his kind. Just as the Marquess of Queensberry Rules supplanted the bareknuckled bouts of Sullivan’s time, a new form of wrestling was pushing Greco-Roman aside. Muldoon had carried the sport with personal charisma and celebrity. But long and dull clinch-fests couldn’t hold spectators’ attention the way the fast and action-packed catch wrestling could. A new day was dawning in American wrestling, with Evan “Strangler” Lewis leading the way.

  2

  THE UNCIVILIZED Import: CATCH-AS-CATCH-CAN

  While Muldoon’s Greco-Roman impressed dandies and wealthy sportsmen, including President Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Houdini, and other dignitaries, another style of wrestling was slowly overtaking Greco in popularity. It was once again an import, but instead of coming over from France as the misnamed Greco-Roman style had, it was a product of the English countryside.

  In Lancashire, England, the wrestling was as hard as the men. A collection of mill workers, miners, and textile workers, the blokes were rough and tumble and fit. Entertainment in the 19th century was primitive — singing, dancing, and scuffling. Wrestling was a big part of life, and the best men would meet in front of large audiences in challenge matches, with side bets making the result of more than a little interest to the spectators. These open-air bouts, often contested in just underwear, were a staple of Lancashire gatherings well into the modern age.

  Sporting aficionados, even other English wrestlers, considered the Lancashire style beyond the pale. It was seen as simply uncivilized — the attacks on the legs and wrestling on the ground just didn’t seem appropriate to many Englishmen. Of course even fierce critics like author Walter Armstrong admitted that it might just come in handy when push came to shove came to fisticuffs: “In a rough-and-tumble encounter, when ‘all is in,’ a knowledge of Lancashire wrestling might be of service; but even in a street fight it is not the fashion for an Englishman to battle on the ground, but to allow his opponent to get up again.”

  It was this ground wrestling that separated the Lancashire style of catch-as-catch-can from the other British wrestling arts that focused primarily on the throw. In Lancashire the action wasn’t over when the bout hit the grass — it was just getting started. Attacks included a variety of pinning holds, head locks, and arm locks. Arms and fingers were often broken in these contests; however, if the referee thought the hold was intended to do permanent damage he would disqualify the offending party. It was an aggressive and attacking style far removed from the kind practiced in the rest of Britain. To first-time viewers it was often an uncomfortable experience, and an 1893 compendium of sports and pastimes notes, “A Lancashire wrestling match is an ugly sight: the fierce animal passions of the men which mark the struggles of maddened bulls, or wild beasts, the savage yelling of their partisans, the wrangling, and finally the clog business which settles all disputes and knotty points, are simply appalling.”

  It was these “wild beasts” that came to America to spread their style of wrestling throughout the mid to late 1800s. Men like T
om Connors, Jim Parr, Edwin Bibby, Joe Acton, and Tom Cannon toured the country as part of a wrestling troupe. Acton may have been the best of the bunch but was only a middleweight. At around 140 pounds, he could meet all comers in the catch style but struggled in mixed-style competitions, which included Greco-Roman or collar-and-elbow style contests that placed a premium on bulk. The Brits initially dispatched all comers in their free-wheeling style and even had some success in Greco-Roman wrestling, particularly Bibby, who battled the “Western Hercules” Clarence Whistler to a draw in New York. Whistler “shook him like a dog would a rat” but couldn’t secure a fall. As good as he was in the French style, Bibby excelled in his own, beating Duncan Ross in a match to crown the first American heavyweight catch wrestling champion in January 1881.

  Ross was a National Police Gazette favorite, taking on all comers not just as a wrestler, but in foot races, hammer throws, and a variety of athletic endeavors. Among his specialties was a mounted broadsword competition with blunted weapons and a bit of armor. He often signed his correspondence “Duncan Ross, Champion Athlete of America.” After meeting Bibby on the mats he could still claim that title, but he was no longer America’s champion wrestler.

  The Brits controlled the American championship for most of the 1880s, and in the classic American way this Lancashire style was soon assimilated into a melting pot of wrestling techniques called American catch-as-catch-can. At the same time the Lancashire style of wrestling was finding an audience, Japanese jiu-jitsu aces were touring the country sharing their own brand of wrestling. The combination of the two, along with traditional American “rough and tumble” and collar-and-elbow moves, proved nigh unbeatable.

  A Stranglehold on the Competition: Evan “Strangler” Lewis

  It’s fitting that the first true American wrestling champion in the catch-as-catch-can style was a man every bit as hard and ruthless as his English forbearers. A native of Ridgeway, Wisconsin, Evan “Strangler” Lewis was the son of a farmer and butcher. Already a wrestling stalwart in his tiny town, he left to seek his fortune out west in his early twenties.

  Lewis made waves first in Montana, where he won a 64-man tournament, returning home in 1883 as the Montana State Champion. Lewis dominated the Midwest scene for several years, often in front of raucous crowds criticized by some as being truly disgraceful.

  In 1885 he debuted his famed stranglehold, described by a reporter on the scene as a “peculiar neck-lock.” Victims included Charles Moth and the Englishman Tom Cannon. The Moth win was followed by whispers the bout had been staged, or in the parlance of the time, a hippodrome. Those suspicious of a match’s validity simply followed the money. Despite losing the first fall to Moth in Moth’s favored Greco-Roman style, the bets poured in for Lewis. Sure enough, Moth was disqualified for using a stranglehold and the win went to Lewis. The Wisconsin State Journal called the bout fixed and the audience denounced it. Still Lewis’s popularity soared in his home state and eventually his reputation demanded he venture out into the wider world to face the country’s best wrestlers.

  Working with promoter Charles “Parson” Davies, the top “manager of athletic entertainments” in the Midwest, Lewis was groomed for stardom. Davies was a born huckster and controversy followed him wherever he went, starting with organized walking contests (once one of the most popular sports in the country) before graduating to wrestling and finally prize fighting once wrestling had been thoroughly exposed as no longer on the level. Davies, like all the best con men and promoters, was a smooth operator with the media. When he passed through Ogden, Utah, on his way to California, Davies held the local reporters in the palm of his hand. For example, the Ogden Standard reported, “The ‘Parson’ is in good health and looks more like a preacher than a sporting man. He is a very handsome, clean-shaven man of about 35 years of age and dressed in faultless style. He is recognized among the fraternity as being the best living authority in his particular line, and whoever obtains a straight tip from him considers himself lucky indeed. Mr. Davies is a fluent and interesting talker and a prime favorite with the newspaper boys.”

  Between marquee matchups, Davies and his team of grifters found a foolproof way to pocket a pretty penny. Davies, and other companies like his, crisscrossed the country providing wrestling and boxing exhibitions. In fact, the major matches served as advertisements for these traveling shows. You could make a decent buck with a major event, collecting a few pennies from each spectator to see your show — but you could really become rich by taking bets, building up expectations by making a local performer look unbeatable before fleecing bettors when an unheralded wrestler in the troupe would beat him soundly to close the show.

  Of course, the wrestlers on tour had to be double tough as well as sneaky. You never knew when a local kid had real wrestling chops or a ringer would journey to the same town the troupe was performing in to cause trouble. Whether wrestling was on the level in the late 1800s is an open question, especially in high profile bouts between business partners. But there was never a dull day on the road.

  “In the 1880s & ’90s, the time of Muldoon, and then Evan Lewis, and those who followed, with shrewd promoters like Davies showing the way, headline wrestlers took on ‘all comers’ via participation in vaudeville revues and other forms of legitimate stage bookings,” wrestling historian J. Michael Kenyon wrote. “Like the vaudeville acts, they’d put on afternoon and evening shows, day after day, for weekly engagements, with payoffs to anyone who could ‘stay’ the prescribed time with the headliner. Often times, the week-long bookings would end in a blow-off bout with a local of some prominence . . . depending on how many suckers they could find to get involved with some betting. This sort of thing provided living expenses for the stars, with the wagering providing their ‘bonus’ cash.”

  Before Lewis could headline one of these traveling extravaganzas, he first had to make more than a regional name. His first major test was Japanese strongman Matsada Sorakichi. One of the first wave of Japanese wrestling stars to tour America, Sorakichi was the perfect foil for the homegrown American talent. Promoted by Professor Phil Kirby and the creation of the National Police Gazette’s Richard Fox, the Japanese sensation was derisively referred to in the papers simply as “the Jap.” Unlike the jiu-jitsu and judo stalwarts who would soon follow him from Asia, Sorakichi wasn’t selling science. His style, called simply “the Japanese style,” was essentially Sumo mixed with a little bit of thuggery. His most effective move involved plowing his head into his opponent’s midsection with all the force of his 160 pounds. Many ribs were broken this way, and plenty of noses bloodied, giving the wrestler a fearsome reputation.

  Unfamiliar with the western methods of wrestling, Sorakichi found scant success against the likes of Acton, Bibby, and even Muldoon in a mixed rules match that included Greco-Roman, Japanese, and catch-as-catch-can action. Fox worked hard to set up the Muldoon bout, but four falls took less than 15 minutes and the audience was said to have left “disgusted,” believing Muldoon had intentionally thrown the third fall.

  It was a rare misfire for Sorakichi, who generally left fans satisfied and would tour the country in 1885, wrestling a who’s who of the time including Duncan Ross, Joe Acton, and Germany’s Karl Abs. A draw with Ernest Roeber and wins over Andre Christol and the tough collar-and-elbow stylist Jack Gallagher helped build his reputation, and his drawing power, to the point that Muldoon was begging for a rematch. He never failed to entertain, approaching every match with a furious intensity. Win or lose, at the end of a match with Sorakichi, his opponent would know he had been in a battle. The Japanese star was immensely strong. Between matches he would entertain the crowd by twirling 250-pound Indian clubs. It was this strength that made him competitive when wrestling ability and smallish size left him at a disadvantage.

  He met Lewis in Chicago in January 1886. Sorakichi would be giving up almost 30 pounds to Lewis but proclaimed himself unconcerned. He told a reporter he wasn’t worried —
after all he had held his own with the monstrous Karl Abs. Sorakichi was more concerned with Lewis’s reputation for finger breaking and choking, but assured his supporters he had a counter for the chokehold.

  Unfortunately, that didn’t appear to be the case. After winning the first fall by pinfall, Lewis was shoved out of the ring by his Japanese foe. Sorakichi proclaimed it an accident. Nevertheless, after the incident the mean-spirited Lewis head-butted his opponent right off the stage, landing the two men on the same spot the Japanese had deposited him moments before. Lewis was immediately disqualified, losing the fall. In the third and deciding fall, Lewis was able to secure his vaunted chokehold. As he coughed blood, Sorakichi had enough time to cry uncle before passing into unconsciousness. Lewis was the victor, but agreed with Sorakichi’s self-proclaimed status as wrestling’s strongest man: “Sorakichi is the strongest man from the waist up that ever I came across. When I wrestled Cannon, Leon, ‘Greek’ George and those fellows, I knew I had the advantage of them in strength, but the Jap has arms like a bar of iron.”

  Lewis’s string of wins brought him the attention of the sports world and Joe Acton, a man who was once loath to battle the Japanese star but eventually took him under his wing and was Sorakichi’s trainer for the bout with the Strangler. Acton was also the man considered by most to be the top British catch-as-catch-can wrestler, and he challenged Lewis to a match in either Philadelphia or Chicago. First, however, there was the matter of a little unfinished business with Sorakichi.

  A rematch was signed for the very next month in Chicago. Lewis brought 3,000 rabid fans to the Second City for a bout with the stranglehold barred. Debate about the use of the hold would follow Lewis throughout his career and many opponents wouldn’t wrestle him without the hold being declared illegal. Cynics could see it as an easy way to work what would later be called a “program” with opponents. One match would be held with the hold legal, a follow up with it barred. That’s exactly what happened here. Sorakichi wanted it clear he didn’t intend to be choked again, telling Lewis that if he choked him, Lewis would be shot. Lewis vowed to the Japanese that he would instead “screw your leg off.”