The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-12-29
Madison Square Garden Abandons Canuas For Mat
By WESTBRoOK PEGLER Geased Wire to The Arc-HeroId. !,

NEW YORK, Dec. 2S-It is more tnan three years since the Polish giants. the Russian lions, the ter rlple Turks and German oaks, to say nothing of the Sicilian scissors grinders, have been allowed to tweal and tear one another in public in New York and now they are com ing back
 stransler Ed Lewis, the Ken tuckian, who held the heavyweight wrestling championship of the world at last reports, also Is returning to the habitat of the eagerest wrestling customers and so are Joe Stecher, Earl Caddock and the biscuit broth CTS, Stanislaus and Wladek Zbyszko.
 Wrestling will go again in New York only because all the boxing champions, for one reason or another, refuse to take indoor winter engage ments except Harry Greb. the middle weight ruler, who has signed articles, as they say, for bout with the man he beat for the title last summer, Johnny Wilson. Pancho Villa will not fight Frarkie Genaro: Joe Lynch has not fought to a decision against bantamweight in New York since he took the title from the enfeebled Johnny Buff, Is months ago; John ny Dundee, realizing that the rubber quality of his vitality has departed his frame, will not fight feather weights to a decision; Benny Leon ri u itdS lIO ClldileHSGTS WDOiu ne Hdo not beaten before; Mickey Walker will not fight Dave Shade or any one else under the auspices of the New York boxing commissions; Mike McTtgue is wearing false whiskers for fear Tom Gibbons will recognize and take punch at him. and Jack Dempsey awaits the coming of June and the straw-hat season before he Will shove bis knuckles into leather to fight anyone.
 
 Winter Season n Farce.
 Thus the winter boxing season. which emaciated managers and ex- fled fighters greeted with such warm enthusiasm only three years ago, has been thus far this year a season of caresses between unlovely second raters and the shrnkage in receipts at the fight clubs is in proportion to the reticence of the demure young business men who hold the cham pionships.
 On it's merits. wrestling has all ways been as good a sport as box ing, and it has stood in well with the law in such cities as Chicago and St. Louis, where boxing was not suffered to transpire at all, or was tolerated rather grudgingly by the local officials. For some occult req son laws have not been passed against the work of the alien horde of wrestlers except in few com munties, whereas boxing, largely a native sport, has been restricted and chlvvied into barns and other clan destine haunts, now and again. in all states from California to Maine, except, perhaps in Louisiana.
 Not that wrestling has been guilt less of fakery. Frank Gotch, though he be deceased and more or less heroic fetish in American sport, was not above venal trickery in his day of power and celebrity. He did not disdain to defend his title" against George Hackenschmidt subsequently, reported killed in the Masurian lakes in the uniform Of the czar, when ne Rnew~sIA Ackenschmidt was crippled man, that time they met in return match in Chicago.
 Nor did Gotch hold himself above sly move in one of his other big championship matches in Chicago decade ago, when he tricked for eign wrestler, Yussif Mahmout, into fall by seizing the strangers prof fered hand at the start Of the bout and so twisting the mitt that the agony of torsion forced him to the carpet for the first fall.
 Fans Smell a scandal.
 When wrestling was on the boom in New York in the winter before the coming of the fight game in New York just after the war, there were many bouts in the Seventh regl- ment armory. It was not until the season ended and the people began to recount the number of times the title had changed hands, and the uncanny sameness of the duration of all bouts. that there arose suspi- cion that all had not been honest in tle program.
 William Muldoon. as boxing and wrestling commissioners, personaiiy h,p-tied the wrestling business for two wears when boxing came back because he resented the dirty work which he had suspected in the pre- ceding season Although Muldoon had been a champion wrestler hlm- nelf many years ago, and had toured as dramatic wrestler in the com many of Madame Modjeska, he 1m- posed the rolling and flying faii rule which made it impossible Tor cry, but also killed the wrestling business for the time being.
 When pin falls are the rule It IS easv for the skillful twisters to keep at it for hours without fall. Atter a time the rolling and flying falI' r,,Ie was relaxed, but then the cham nion fighters were willing to work in inc winter and the Wrestlers hun eered for work and rations.
 The first time Tex Rlckard triea to promote wrestling bout two large. oleaginous strangers misbe- bayed so badly that the customers crew restive and the commission be- gan an inquiry. Rickard had an idea that the wrestling trust naa sent the grapplers into Rickards r:ng with instructions to be dis, graceful and to discourage Rickard 90 that he would not try wrestling Sou, however. Rickard has been forced back to it. The fighters won't fight indoors and the wrestlers are fin suppliant mood. The Zbyszkos' Renato Gardini, John Gradovltch Caddock, perhaps Stecher, ana event ,,aIiv Lewis himself are likely to work in the garden before this Win fer is over. But they must be care