The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1918-05-02
Corbett's Daily Letter
On Great Sport Topics
b. JAMES ). coRBETT

The 5000 offer for a match between
Earl caddock and the winner of the Joe,
Stecher- Stranger Lewis match is strik-
ing evidence that the wrestling game has
GENE back with loud hurrah!
A purpose OF this proportion is the
hugest ever offered for catch-as-catch-
can contest in the United States. And
Jack Curley and Louis Meyer, who are
making st, certainly wouldn't do so II
they weren't reasonably certain of break
ing ahead of expenses, which. with the
purse included, might approximate around
$780, 900.
Intense interest already is being shown
in the possibility of such graphing
contest, and if the two gladiators ever
meet, a 100000 gate is more than prob
able If that comes about it will smash
the wrestling receipts record OF $S3Oo,
made in 1908 when Frank Gotch won the
worlds championship in Chicago from
George Hackenschmidt.
A year or two ago when wrestling was
at it's lowest ebb, no promoter who would
have gone so far as to offer even $4,000
for titular match. At that time there
was not much of a popular demand for
wrestling. The retirement of Gotch and
the dearth of real wrestling material
made the sport lovers apathetic concern
ing the doings of the mat artists.
But the death of boxing in New York
state and in other localities and the
clean and successful revival Of wrestling.
has brought the mat game back to the
prominence it enjoyed IN the other days
And now there is an insistent clamor by
the enthusiasts to determine the real
champion among the crack heavyweights,
to find new king to rule in the place
of the late Frank Goteh.
The outstanding wrestlers Of today are:
Earl Caddock, now in the United States
army; Joe Stecher, inventor of the IA
NOUS scissors hold; Ed (Strangler) Lewis.
creator of the deadly deadlock. and Wall
dek Zbyszko, the Pole. who specializes
in the toe hold. Also there is Marin
Plestina, westerner, who demands rec
ognition and bout with one or another
of the four men. However. Plestina's
claims are not regarded seriously. He
lost two falls in succession to Caddock
about two years ago and sometime back
engaged in an unsatisfactory two-hour
contest with Stecher.
"Caddock is regarded as the champion
Just now, but there are legions of wres-
Ting enthusiasts who fell that Stecher,
Lewis and Zbyszl1o have a slight edge on
him. said Curley. Lewis and Caddoc1
never have met, but Caddock defeated
the other two. However, his victories
were not clean-cut enough to convince
the supporters of Stecher and ZbySzko
that he is their real peer.
'Stecher became looked upon as the
champion after Gotch retired, and sue
cessfully defended his claim until he took
or Caddock Each man gained a fall
in that match. Stecher failed to return
to the arena in time for the third fall
and the referee awarded the match, by
defs.uIt, to Caddock. Stecher later claimed
that his failure to return was not be-
cause he didn't want to continue, but
because he hadn't been notified that the
Is minutes intermission was over
'Stecher and Zbyszko met a few
months ago in the west. Each man
gained a fall and then. after more than
an hour of wrestling, the referee stopped
the contest and awarded the match to
Caddock on points
TT can be seen from this that all
though Caddoek dld gam victories over
both his great rivals, in neither case
was it a decisive one. And so the feel
ing has come about that one or another
CT his three rivals could defeat him in
a finish clash.
"Plestina insists that he is better than
any of the four and has issued some
strange-sounding challenges. He insists
also that we have been trying to freeze
him out But that is not true. If Pies
Nd
as a wrestler, nothing would please us
more than to promote a match between
him and one of the Big Four But Pies
tina has been beaten by Caddock and has