When outsiders challenged his supremacy, claiming wrestling was fake and that Lewis and the other top wrestlers were scared to face them, the Strangler was game to confront them in the ring. Normally he was talked down — there was too much at risk. Anything could happen in a legitimate contest. Worse yet, the referee or state officials could be on the take. Wrestling against an opponent without a predetermined outcome could cost wrestling promoters dearly.
Instead, the wrestling trust came up with a more elegant solution. To tame the trustbusters, the trust needed their own shooters, policemen who could keep a territory safe for the wrestling industry. Foremost among the Gold Dust Trio’s policemen was John Pesek, the feared “Tigerman.”
The Nebraska-based grappler only weighed 185 pounds, but that never stopped him, even against the heavyweight division’s biggest behemoths. Pesek had a brutal double wristlock and combined the hold with a head scissors to pin many opponents. Pesek was as vicious as he was eager, often doing more than just beat the promotion’s foes. He was out to hurt people, and he did so frequently.
A policeman also tested wrestlers new on the scene to see what they were made of. When Armas Laitinen came from Finland, Pesek put him through his paces, attacking him with a fury that astounded the New York Times, cranking on a hammerlock until the Finn “indicated an injury” and had to withdraw.
Laitinen could consider himself lucky — he could have been Marin Plestina. A hulking Serb, Plestina had been trained since he was a teenager by Farmer Burns. Under the leadership of J.C. Marsh, the same huckster and con man who had guided Frank Gotch’s early career, Plestina made his reputation challenging the syndicate’s champion and proclaiming to anyone who would listen that the fix was in, the matches fake, the champions nothing but cowards. Bernarr MacFadden, publisher of Physical Culture magazine, took the bait, as did promoter Tex Rickard, and the American Legion, believing Marsh’s claims that the top stars were all afraid of Plestina: “Marsh placarded the country from coast to coast with broadsides proclaiming the crooked and double dealings of Sandow, Lewis, and Mondt. Though the three had never so much as taken a penny unlawfully from any man, Marsh began to make his allegations felt in many quarters. Some of the best towns fell off in wrestling gates.”
After a meeting of promoters, Plestina was matched with Pesek. If he could win a “shooting” match, Plestina would get bouts with the top stars of the day on his terms. “It is understood that some of the wrestlers who were charged with avoiding him in the past have agreed to meet him in a tournament of elimination at the Garden,” the New York Times declared. Of course, if he failed, his opportunity to claim he was being ducked by the trust was over and done with.
Promoted by Tex Rickard at Madison Square Garden, the match attracted wrestling royalty: Sandow, Lewis, Tom Jenkins, Benjamin Roller, and even former Greco-Roman star Ernest Roeber were all in attendance, eager to see a real contest. What they saw was a massacre. Pesek wasn’t there to wrestle — he was there to teach Plestina a lesson. The Times reports, “Pesek resorted to his foul work soon after the match started. His favorite trick was gouging. The Nebraskan had a penchant for digging the thumb of his left hand into the right eye of Plestina.”
Pesek continued fouling throughout the contest, catching Plestina with head butts, gouges, and even a punch or two. Plestina was heard to cry, “God, don’t kill me.” The crowd was boiling hot, with several members of the audience charging the ring, and a riot seemed imminent. Pesek was eventually disqualified. The next day, Plestina could only leave his room to visit the hospital where he was found to be suffering from serious injuries to both eyes.
Pesek and his manager Larney Lichtenstein were both banned for life by former Greco-Roman wrestling champion and then New York State Athletic Commissioner William Muldoon from ever competing in the Empire State and his purse was withheld. It may have come at a heavy price, but Plestina had been taught an important lesson. Pesek was repaid with a spot in Sandow’s group — his new manager was Sandow’s brother Max Baumann, who bought Pesek’s contract for $22,000.
His reputation now established, Pesek became the shooter of choice when a promoter needed a problem solved. In 1922 former pro wrestler Paul Bowser moved to Boston where, working closely with Sandow and his crew, Bowser replaced former Boston Post sports editor George Tuohey as the leading promoter in the city. He also drew some unwelcome attention from Jack Curley, the wrestling king of New York.
Curley, who had once been the leading wrestling promoter in the world, had signed former Olympic silver medalist Nat Pendleton to be his new standard bearer. But Curley was on the outs with the Lewis/Sandow promotion, which meant Pendleton couldn’t get matches with any of the era’s top stars like Stecher and Lewis.
Curley didn’t go down without a fight. He called out his opposition. He had a real shooter on his hands, thinking Pendleton was the toughest guy around, and was willing to flaunt it a bit, challenging Bowser’s best. Pendelton’s manager made a claim that Nat could beat Bowser, George Calza (a big Boston-based star) and Ed Lewis in one night. A feud in Boston was one thing. Bringing Lewis’s name into things was something else entirely. Lewis and his partner Sandow had to act.
After much bickering, Bowser and Curley settled on a bout for $2,000 a side, winner takes all. Bowser’s unknown, the only stipulation being that he weigh no more than 190 pounds, was to take on Pendleton and beat him twice in just 75 minutes. Many suspected Bowser himself, still a top star, would be the opponent. He had other plans. Despite the steep odds, Bowser was so confident that he offered to cover all bets up to $25,000. Days before the bout, Pesek was announced as Bowser’s man.
It was a tangled web for sure, with everyone involved having more than money at stake. Sandow and Lewis wanted Pendleton to go away — they didn’t want a charismatic, legitimately skilled wrestler challenging their champion, Lewis, for supremacy. Curley, in turn, wanted not just to see Pendleton thrive — he wanted Pesek humbled. Pesek was hovering in New York, looking for matches with the Zbyszko brothers, Curley’s remaining big stars after the defection of Lewis. Curley wanted Pesek out of the picture so he could promote his big stars in peace. Bowser wanted to control Boston, without the threat of Curley gaining a foothold in his city.
On January 25, 1923, Bowser packed 3,000 fans into the Grand Opera House in Boston for the showdown. Pesek immediately took the Olympian down and almost finished it early with a double wristlock. Pendleton valiantly held on and weathered the storm. He didn’t need to win — Pendleton just needed not to lose twice in the 75-minute time limit. After 35 minutes, however, Pesek caught Pendleton with a toehold. The Olympian attempted a leglock of his own, but exchanging foot holds with a master hooker is a bad idea. A snap was heard as Pendleton’s ligaments were torn. He submitted and the first fall went to the “Tigerman.”
When the match resumed, Pesek showed no mercy. He went right after the injured foot and forced a submission in just a few minutes. Pesek had done the impossible — he had beaten the Olympian twice in less than 75 minutes, winning two falls in a combined 41 minutes. The win helped both Bowser and Pesek make it big within the Sandow group, which was appreciative of the two removing Pendleton from the picture. Bowser went on to be one of the most successful promoters in wrestling history, and Pesek earned title shots against Lewis and a series of big money matches.
In 1924, Joe Stecher returned to action. He had missed most of 1922 and 1923 with a variety of ailments and a turn as a baseball professional, but was back in force and looking for a big match with Lewis. He was ringside for Lewis’s December 13, 1923, title defense against Josef Gurkeweicz in St. Louis. Originally barred from the ring, Stecher made his way before the people in between falls and challenged Lewis to a title match, offering $15,000 to Lewis to take the bout.
The Strangler wanted no part of Stecher, and fearing a double cross, he and Sandow demanded Stecher first defeat Stanislaus Zbyszko and Pesek before earning his
match with Lewis. This despite Stecher having won his last match with Lewis in San Francisco all the way back in 1921. When Stecher renewed his challenge in Kansas City later that month, Joe “Toots” Mondt, another tough policeman, was added to the list of men Stecher had to conquer to earn his title shot.
Instead of backing down, Stecher plowed forward. Lots of money was at stake — a legitimate claim to the world title was valuable and Stecher was willing to spend money to make money. He beat Zbyszko in St. Louis in January 1924, paying him $10,000 to lose two falls. The wrestlers’ cut of the gate proceeds was just $6,600, so Stecher paid out of pocket, actually losing money to get the win over the big Pole. But it was building to a big match with Lewis and Stecher in a wrestling hotbed, a match that could be worth a small fortune.
A match with Mondt followed, but negotiations for the eventual Lewis match were faltering. Stecher, perhaps, wanted a run with the title. Lewis, historian Steve Yohe suggests, may have only been willing to wrestle to a draw. Tempers were high and no decision could be reached. Mondt punched Stecher in their February bout in Kansas City. The cheap shot ended the match and the negotiations for a Lewis bout.
Changing Gears
With Stecher out as an opponent, Lewis, who held the title for almost three years, was running out of competition. Now in his mid-30s, Lewis was getting fat, was constantly booed by fans all over the country, and trachoma, a bacterial infection of the eye, had cost him much of his vision. Wrestling need a change and Sandow had an idea to shake things up that revolutionized the sport’s history — and spelled the beginning of the end for the Gold Dust Trio. In Ringside, Scott Beekman writes, “With a wrestler’s grappling skills no longer the determining factor in match decisions, Sandow recognized that a charismatic individual, with little or no actual wrestling ability, could be built into a champion. He solved the dilemma of a dearth of marketable title challengers by orchestrating the rise of Wayne ‘Big’ Munn.”
Munn was a football player who had attracted a lot of attention at the University of Nebraska. He stood a whopping 6'6" and weighed 260 pounds. Sandow was intrigued by the idea of promoting a champion who had never wrestled at all — it was taking the con to the next level. According to Lewis student Lou Thesz, the champion and Mondt were both game: “Ed and Toots agreed that it was a compelling idea — bring in a mainstream sports hero who was already popular with the sports fans and turn him into a wrestler — so they went along with the plan. Sandow persuaded Munn to give professional wrestling a try, Ed and Toots taught him how to perform a match, and off they went, with Ed and Toots protecting Munn all the way from getting into a match with someone who couldn’t be controlled.”
Munn took the title from Lewis in Kansas City in front of a huge crowd. The plan was working perfectly. Time magazine even did a write-up of the match, drawing attention to the kind of hijinks that characterized the new brand of wrestling that Sandow and Mondt had innovated. Time picks up the action after Munn had won the first fall with a slam and then thrown Lewis over the top rope in the second fall:
Meantime, Billy Sandow, Lewis’ manager, had jumped into the ring. “It’s a foul!” cried he. “A dirty foul! You’ve got to award us the match!” The swarthy Munn peered querulously across the mat, tore off his bathrobe, assumed a bellicose attitude, confronted the irate manager. Munn’s manager likewise grew threatening; but for all that the referee gave the fall to Lewis on a foul, allowing the latter 15 minutes to get back into the ring. The crowd was indignant, stormed about the ringside, hooting, booing.
The last fall was quickly decided. Lewis appeared, his back well bandaged; soon he was lying limp on those bandages. The heavyweight title had passed to Wayne Munn. The crowd went “mad-dog,” scrambled on its seats, shook the rafters of Convention Hall as it screeched, boomed, barked salvos of shouts for the victor. Many sportsmen caterwauled at the dejected figure with the bowed head in the centre of the ring.
The Munn experiment, like many things tried for the first time, was a noble failure. He won the title on January 8, 1925, but before he could establish whether or not he was going to be a big draw (and before he could drop the title back to Lewis) disaster struck the Gold Dust Trio in the form of Stanislaus Zbyszko. Known as “The Old Man” in the press, Zbyszko was a long time associate of Jack Curley, a rival of the Sandow group. Lewis, Sandow, and Mondt thought they had control of the enormous Pole, providing him a living and a series of major matches. They were wrong. He had been wrestling for them since 1921, but harboring grudges, getting more and more angry every time he lost a match. And he lost a lot in 1924, more times than he had in the previous decade combined. When Curley and rival promoter Tony Stecher came calling, Zbyszko was quick to respond.
Munn met Zbyszko on April 15, 1925. No one suspected a double cross. They had met that February in Kansas City and Zbyszko took a fall as planned. This was to be just another night at the matches in Philadelphia — until things took a turn for the worse for “Big” Munn.
Zbyszko decided he wanted to win the match and no one had bothered to teach Munn much in the way of wrestling. After eight minutes, Zbyszko slammed him to the mat and almost immediately pinned his shoulders to the ground. Between falls, Sandow got in the ring and got right in Zbyszko’s face. The former champion was unyielding however — he was going to finish what he started. The second fall was even quicker, lasting just four minutes and 53 seconds, despite a Sandow-friendly referee doing all he could to refuse a fair count. Zbyszko was so dominant the official had to count the fall to avoid a riot. Despite the best laid plans, Zbyszko was the new champion.
A few weeks later, Zbyszko played his cards, dropping the title to Joe Stecher in St. Louis. A new gang was making a play for the wrestling business, with Stecher’s brother Tony, Curley, and St. Louis’s Tom Packs leading the way. Zbyszko lost the title to Stecher on May 30, the same date of the Lewis-Munn rematch in Michigan City, Indiana.
The balance of power had officially shifted when Pesek left the Sandow conglomerate to work with the new Curley-Stecher-Packs trust. Another top star, Jim Londos, soon followed. Stecher toured the country as champion for almost three years, defending his new title against many of the top names of the day — all the while Lewis was on the outs. Stecher wrestled frequently on the West Coast; his family had moved to Long Beach, California, and the Los Angeles area was becoming a wrestling hotbed, setting attendance records at the new Olympic Auditorium.
Despite Munn’s loss, actual wrestling skill meant less than ever. So did the world title. Sandow and Lewis all but ignored Stecher’s title, proclaiming Lewis champion. For years the two groups did battle in the press instead of the ring, with both Stecher and Lewis proclaiming their superiority. They went head to head in Chicago in March 1926, with Lewis drawing the bigger crowd. But Stecher was a hit almost everywhere he went — in New York for Curley, in St. Louis for Packs, and in Los Angleles for Lou Daro.
While Thesz claims Stecher refused to defend the title, afraid of Lewis showing up to challenge him, newspaper reports show that Joe accepted Lewis’s challenges on at least two occasions. The Strangler wanted no part of Stecher, it seems, in a legitimate contest. Both times, in Chicago and Los Angeles, he left town rather than wrestle the champion.
Lewis canceling one of these proposed Stecher matches in Los Angeles in 1926 led to a bout that many consider one of wrestling’s last great shoots. Stecher had already wrestled the formidable John Pesek twice that year, but this time was different. After splitting the first two falls, the Tigerman began shooting in the deciding third fall, trying to take the world title for real. Reports say Pesek had Stecher beat several times, with the referee, a Stecher man, refusing to count any of the pinfalls. Historian Mark Hewitt writes that Stecher asked Pesek in Czech, a language shared by the two, what was going on. “Shoot match,” the emotionless Pesek was said to reply.
Pesek eventually made Stecher submit to a head scissors and wristlock combination but the
referee again broke the hold. Finally another wristlock ended the contest, a concession hold so obvious that not even a Stecher-friendly referee could deny Pesek had won the bout. Pesek left the building quickly, looking to escape the wrath of Stecher supporters, a tactical mistake. The decision was overturned in his absence. It was said his head scissors was a choke and that using the hold had disqualified him.
Pesek not only missed out on the title, he wasn’t given another match anywhere in the country for the rest of 1926, punishment from the promotional powerhouses he had betrayed. But the damage to Stecher was dire too: the most lasting blow received was the one to his ego. He had really believed for years that he was the best wrestler in the world, and the Pesek battle left him with second thoughts that many believed killed his enthusiasm for wrestling.
That and a change in the industry led to his retirement in 1928. Stecher was growing tired of the wrestling grind, including a new schedule that had the champion wrestling more than ever all over the country. The days of coming into a town and training for a week while hobnobbing with the local media were over. The champion was wrestling several times a week and Stecher was wearing down.
Finally he agreed to meet Lewis for a tenth time, again changing the course of wrestling history. The two sides came to a working agreement after meetings in Philadelphia and Kansas City. Tom Packs was the man who brought the Lewis and Stecher camps together, and he got the match for his St. Louis promotion. Lewis was built up for his big match with Stecher by beating John Pesek in St. Louis, Lewis’s first time back in the city in years. Pesek then proceeded to do jobs from coast to coast, still being punished for shooting on Stecher the year before.
Shooters Page 11