Shooters

by Jonathan Snowden

Gotch’s success was golden for Gotch and his friends, not the wrestling business as a whole. Gotch became rich and famous but at a great cost to the industry. There weren’t any other stars of his caliber, he had made sure of that, and when he walked away it left a huge hole.

  Wrestling promoters like Jack Curley were determined not to let this happen again. In the teens and 1920s, there wasn’t a single champion standing head and shoulders above the rest of the business. Instead, four men drew big money all over the country — Wladek Zbyszko, Joe Stecher, Ed “The Strangler” Lewis, and Earl Caddock. The big four took turns losing to each other and each remained strong. Complex and intricate booking made sure there was a steady stream of challengers for the champion du jour. Gotch may have been a bigger star than anyone who followed him — but the business as a whole was in a stronger place without him.

  When the Great War broke out most wrestlers did all they could to avoid substantive military service. Caddock, the champion, was different. To his credit, he served honorably in World War I, a true blue patriot. He didn’t just hang around Army bases in the States, wrestling every weekend like the other stars of the day. In 1918, Caddock actually went to Europe with his unit, fighting the good fight. Zbyszko was the opposite extreme — he took his appeal to avoid wartime service all the way to President Woodrow Wilson, and when he was finally assigned to a unit in Maine was almost immediately discharged, claiming his cauliflower ears prevented him from hearing.

  Wrestling insiders wanted Caddock to drop the title before he left for Europe, but his manager Melady refused. He wanted to keep his hand in the wrestling racket and was afraid that losing to any of the top contenders would lead to a business centered on the East Coast, where he had no sway and his great rival Jack Curley held all the power. Curley, the Stecher brothers, and Lewis signed written agreements to work together in the major cities on the East Coast. Caddock and Melady were left out in the cold. When Caddock left for the war, he took the title with him.

  Caddock’s wartime service further muddled an already unclear title picture and the stakes were raised when rumors spread that he would have to retire after being poisoned by gas in the killing fields of France. Zbyszko and Stecher both made claims to the title. Win or lose, Lewis always seemed to bill himself as the rightful champion. A tournament was scheduled in 1919 to settle the score, and Caddock announced he was fit enough to take on the winner upon his return from active duty.

  In a double elimination tournament, Stecher beat both of his rivals and then pinned Caddock in a thrilling bout at Madison Square Garden in 1920. The match drew more than 10,000 fans and $80,000 and there were seven cameras on hand filming the bout for the theater. The New York Times reported tickets ringside were $22. The cheap seats went for just $2.20. All of New York society was there, including the Wall Street elite. It was roundly considered a huge success, defensive and exciting all at once. The two wrestlers made $30,000 for the film rights, and it’s one of the earliest wrestling matches to survive on video.

  The four continued to tour the country, in opposition to each other in various pairings. It was a big money enterprise, brought down by greed. Lewis, in the booking, was clearly the lesser of the four men. This rankled him, as he felt no man was his master when it came to actual wrestling. He had done jobs for all three while getting mostly draws and indecisive wins in return. When he finally got the chance to hold the world title at the end of 1920, he wasn’t inclined to give it back.

  The Second Strangler

  Though he had competition from Zbyszko, Stecher, and Caddock, Lewis eventually distinguished himself as the biggest star of his era, remaining at the top of the business until he was in his 40s, and only finally retiring for good in 1948 as he approached 60. The Strangler was one of the toughest wrestlers in the world, a defensive grappler who was big and strong enough to stifle even the very best opponents. When he wanted to make things difficult, Lewis could make matches ponderous affairs, simply outlasting his opponents.

  Lewis was one of many promising young wrestlers when he met Billy Sandow in 1914 in the wrestling hotbed of Kentucky. Sandow was a veteran wrestler and promoter who was a key figure in taking the Strangler to the next level. He helped invent a back story for Lewis, as a University of Kentucky instructor, a clean-cut and educated kid. Lewis, in reality, had worked at a paper mill and in a warehouse.

  He built his legend with a single hold, the stranglehold from which he took his name. But that was a hold he couldn’t rely on as his bread and butter — it was illegal in most states at a time when wrestling was still thought to be legitimate, and thus regulated by many athletic and boxing commissions as if it were real sport. As an alternate hold, he used a “neck yoke” in which he pressed his opponent’s chin into their chest with a front facelock, cutting off their air supply and making them easy prey.

  Sandow did more than just create a legend for Lewis; he had the power to help him make it to the top of the game: “Before 1918, most of the power in pro wrestling was in the hands of managers. To be a major star in the sport, you needed a strong manager. Managers didn’t just manage bookings and money, they provided training for their performers and probably booked the actual matches. The manager with the biggest star, who could draw the most money, would control who won or lost. Most of the time that meant his wrestler won, and if another manager didn’t like the situation, he didn’t have to take the big money match. Sometimes the dominant manager would pull a switch, if there was more money to be made losing. Even Gotch did big money losses to Jenkins and Beell. The manager also made bets and made sure his grappler got his cut from gamblers. A good manager might have meant more to a wrestler than great wrestling ability.”

  Sandow also helped Lewis get over his finishing hold, one of the most legendary in wrestling history. Today, the headlock takeover is a move you see in almost every wrestling match, often in the beginning of the bout before things really get going. In Lewis’s day, the headlock into a takedown was a thrilling finisher. He would often apply the hold multiple times before finally getting the pinfall. It was dramatic and exciting — but it was also a clear sign that wrestling matches might not be on the level. The side headlock wasn’t a real hold — to apply it you had to give your opponent your back, something unthinkable for any wrestler worth his salt. “Strangler” Lewis may have been a great legitimate wrestler, but his patented hold was far from real.

  Lewis’s penchant for drawn out battles necessitated a change in the way business was done. His refusal to lock up with opponents was bad for business, so a points system was put into place. It was a time of innovation, with no idea too outlandish. These bouts were given a time limit and a wrestler would be awarded points for activity. Promoters hoped this might encourage defensive wrestlers like the Strangler to open up more. As it stood, many didn’t like having him on their cards. He drew a good crowd, but his style often ruined long-term business.

  “The refusal to meet the Strangler is not based on any belief that he is not a good wrestler, but simply on the fact that so many of his contests have proved unsatisfactory,” Caddock’s manager Gene Melady said, explaining why his fighter preferred to meet Zbyszko. “Lewis and his manager have succeeded in killing the game nearly everywhere they have appeared, because Lewis whenever he meets a man of ability has shown a penchant for playing on the defensive alone. His most notable offense was in Omaha when he wrestled Joe Stecher five hours without once trying to take the offensive.”

  ONE OF THE TOUGHEST OF ALL TIME: ED “STRANGLER” LEWIS

  SPECIAL COLLECTIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES OF NOTRE DAME

  Lewis was behind Stecher and Caddock in the pecking order for several years before finally moving to the fore. He became the first man to actually pin Stecher twice in a single match, winning a 1919 bout in Chicago, but put over Zbyszko and Stecher in big matches in New York. The idea was to convince fans anything could happen when these evenly matched compet
itors did battle — and it worked. When Lewis met Zbyszko in March 1919, thousands had to be turned away from a sold out Madison Square Garden.

  He finally got the big win from Stecher on December 13, 1920, taking the world title for the first time at the 71st Regiment Armory in New York. In front of a packed house, the two had a fast-paced and exciting bout, a far cry from their first two contests that had bored the socks off fans in Nebraska. The bout finally came to an end after Lewis kicked free of Stecher’s famous scissorshold and looked to finish his opponent. Nate Fleischer described the match in From Milo to Londos:

  As soon as Stecher, who was weary from his own efforts, reached his feet, Lewis sprang like a panther and circled the champion’s head with his left arm. Down went Stecher and it was nearly a minute before he succeeded in getting his head out of the lock. That was the beginning of the end as the champion was weak when he got on his pins.

  Seven times more in quick succession the Strangler put the headlock on his weakened opponent and on the eighth time Stecher was unable to escape and was pinned to the mat.

  When Lewis released his victim, Stecher, nearly blind from the severity of the clutch, staggered around the ring and his seconds were compelled to lead him to a chair till he recovered.

  Although Lewis told people for years that the match was a shoot, the description above sounds like anything but. The New York Times raved about the match, saying Stecher and Lewis provided more action in the final seven minutes than in the preceding hour plus: “In fact, there was more lively, uninterrupted work by both grapplers in this space than is provided in the ordinary boxing match.”

  Lewis started his reign strong with a sellout win over Caddock but still wasn’t a popular attraction in his own right. His match with John Pesek in April 1921 only drew 4,000 fans, half of what he and Caddock drew earlier in the year. His headlock was also becoming controversial, especially in New York where the athletic commission, run by former wrestler William Muldoon, couldn’t seem to make up its mind about which holds should be barred. Many thought the headlock was just a chokehold in disguise, with Lewis slipping his arm under the chin and onto the throat whenever possible. Against Pesek the hold was disallowed.

  Lewis dropped the title to the ancient Stanislaus Zbyszko in May 1921, but in a shocking turn of events, a return match that November at Madison Square Garden was promoted not by Curley, but by his rival, boxing promoter Tex Rickard. Curly was on the outs and Sandow and Lewis were effectively running the wrestling racket. On March 3, 1922, Lewis won the title back from Zbyszko. As usual, money was the motivation.

  Boxing champion Jack Dempsey had issued a challenge to Zbyszko for a mixed match that February. “I’ll knock out Zbyszko and a half dozen other champion wrestlers the same night,” the boxer proclaimed. Lewis and Sandow salivated at the idea. Dempsey was the biggest draw in sports. His last fight, against Frenchman Georges Carpentier, had drawn almost $2 million at the box office. To put that in context, no wrestling show had ever drawn as much as $100,000. A match with Dempsey would be big, and he seemed up for the idea. Sandow became obsessed by the idea but wanted Lewis in the match, not the older, less capable Zbyszko.

  In March 1922, after Lewis took the title, Sandow made a challenge to Dempsey and his manager Jack Kearns. “I mean business,” said Sandow. “Let [Kearns] deposit a check for $5,000 as I have done on the behalf of Lewis and the match will most assuredly be staged. Our money is up and we stand ready to deposit another $5,000 when Kearns puts up the money for Dempsey. And my personal wager of $5,000 still stands that Lewis can beat Dempsey inside of 20 minutes in any ring in the world.”

  Instead, Dempsey toured Europe with a series of exhibitions. Sandow refused to let the idea die and allies in the press continued to push the idea. Walter Eckersall, a sportswriter for the Chicago Tribune, even wrote up a fictional account of the match, one he saw Lewis winning. Dempsey seemed to be seriously considering it.

  “If the match ever went through, I think I’d be mighty tempted to try to beat that wrestler at his own game,” the boxer said. “I’ve done a lot of wrestling as part of my preliminary training and I think I’ve got the old toehold and headlock down close to perfection. If I can win the first fall from him, I’ll begin to use my fists. But I’ve got a funny little hunch that maybe I can dump him without rapping him on the chin.”

  For his part, Lewis told the press he could “throw myself feet forward at least 15 feet. In doing so, I believe I could break the leg of a man like Dempsey. . . . I could cover up long enough to get hold of him, and once I got hold, he would not have a chance, because he does not know how to break wrestling holds and I am stronger than he is. Of course there is one chance in a thousand that he might hit me with a punch hard enough to knock me out before I could get hold of him, but that is only one chance.”

  Tom Law, a promoter in Kansas, offered to build a stadium and provide a purse of $300,000 for Dempsey. Suddenly things were looking serious. The match seemed like a possibility when Lewis ended up costing himself potentially the biggest payday of his career. He was scheduled to meet with Dempsey and Kearns to discuss terms and shoot some publicity photos. But Lewis had been arrested the night before in Tijuana, Mexico, after an assault at a party. He missed the meeting and possibly the biggest match of his career. The incident was hushed up and never made the press, but the damage was done. The match was suddenly on Dempsey’s backburner.

  STRANGLER LEWIS LOCKS UP WITH THE COSSACK GIANT IVAN LINOW WITH A DEADLY HEADLOCK AT THE INTERNATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING TOURNAMENT

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

  The publicity continued throughout the year. According to the Associated Press, Dempsey accepted an offer from promoter Al Woods for the bout with Lewis to be held in New York, part of a three-fight deal that would pay him a cool million. That too fell through. Later in life, Sandow would blame Kearns for the match never happening. The boxing promoter had dabbled in wrestling and knew the characters well enough to be sure that a double cross was likely and that Lewis would shoot on Dempsey no matter what they had agreed the outcome would be. Both men continued on as champion in their respective sports, the world never knowing who was the better man.

  Lewis’s second title reign was much more successful than his first. He was becoming a star thanks to national radio and had learned how to work crowd-pleasing matches. According to Griffin, it was hardly business as usual. Lewis and his cronies changed the way the business worked, moving events from smaller venues to the “finest auditoriums in America” and bringing an unprecedented level of organization to the matches, making sure the results made sense and that they were always building up contenders for the title. They also changed the way wrestling looked in the ring, led in this effort by their new partner Joe “Toots” Mondt. “We’ll take the best features of boxing and the holds from Graeco-Roman, combine these with the old time lumber camp style of fighting and call it ‘Slam Bang Western Style Wrestling,’” Mondt said.

  Sandow and Lewis acquiesced and with the help of other mat men who saw the possibilities, the new trio of Sandow, Mondt, and Lewis sped up wrestling, changed the public taste, and within a few months wrestling gates soared to new heights and the old guard was brought to its knees and forced to work with the new trust. According to Fall Guys,

  Sandow signed wrestlers to contracts, and it is said that he had as many as five hundred hulking bonecrushers under his banner at one time. Thus was Sandow in control, not only of wrestlers, but wrestling clubs too, for without mat men, independent grappling promoters couldn’t operate, and via contract, Sandow had every worthwhile attraction under his thumb.

  Practically overnight Billy Sandow became the coast-to-coast wrestling Czar, and he cracked the whip over meat tossers and promoters alike in the style expected of royal rulers. In the basement of his California home, Sandow built a gymnasium, which he called “The Bullpen.” In the enclosure, from early morning unti
l late in the afternoon, his behemoths tugged and hauled, working out “finishes,” testing each other’s hearts and ability, and giving the “Boss” a general line on the workers he had under contract.

  Sandow, of course, wasn’t working in a vacuum. He got lots of input from Lewis, who had seen it all, and Mondt, a tough shooter and a mainstay of the New York wrestling scene.

  “Toots was responsible for adding another wrinkle to the game still in existence today — wrestling as a packaged show. In fact, it was probably his greatest contribution,” Lou Thesz wrote in Hooker. “Up to that point, wrestlers moved around a lot, like the old barnstormers, getting bookings for themselves wherever they could, usually no more than a date or two in any town, and promoters acted as little more than matchmakers. Toots’s idea was that it made a lot more sense economically to handle wrestling much like a vaudeville show — maintain a stable of wrestlers and stage the bout as a package, replacing some of the talent every so often to keep things fresh.”

  It was an idea that gave the group tremendous power over wrestlers nationwide. They weren’t just offering the occasional match — they were offering cooperative wrestlers a real livelihood. Having burned their bridges in New York, the Gold Dust Trio of Sandow, Mondt, and Lewis concentrated their efforts in the Midwest. Under their leadership the wrestling business was better organized and more coherent than it had ever been. But danger still lurked on the margins. The trio had the business locked up, controlling money and bookings for the nation’s mat men — but they still feared a growing collection of wrestlers working outside their system. While they ran the industry with their trust, trustbusters sprang up around the country.

  9

  POLICEMEN, TRUSTBUSTERS, and the Double Cross

  Ed “Strangler” Lewis was one of the toughest legitimate wrestlers of his day. His protégé Lou Thesz observed, “His stamina was absolutely amazing for a man so bulky . . . he could and literally did wrestle for hours without noticeably tiring. When he saw his opponent was starting to weaken, that’s when he turned things on.”