SPORTS AND PASTIMES
Wrestling.
Originally Published In The Brooklyn Eagle, November 14, 1877, Page 2.
SO CALLED CHAMPIONSHIP CONTESTS. – There is probably no sport before the public – not even excepting professional billiard playing – in which there has been so much regular “hippodroming” and crookedness practiced as in the wrestling arena within the past two or thee years. There has scarcely been an important contest in which the result has not been known beforehand. A system of humbug has been carried on in the form of creating a supposed bitter rivalry between prominent wrestlers, in order to get up an excitement, and matches have been arranged which have been alleged to be for thousands of dollars a side, when not a dollar has been put up on either side, the contest being one for the gate money alone, and that is equally divided, the betting deciding as to which party should win. The men have been found guilty of it and in one case the knavery was publicly exposed out West. But still the people are being galled by these so-called championship wrestling matches. The latest contest in the wrestling arena was that between Miller and Bauer at Boston last night, in which Miller was defeated Bauer winning in one fall. The usual $1,000 challenge followed, and another profitable gate money match will be arranged. Pools were sold at Boston on the match, in which Miller was the favorite with those not behind the scores, he being the strongest man and the best wrestler. The fact is nothing has been such a blight on honest sports as the curse of the pool box. It has almost killed professional billiards in the Metropolis; has broken into the healthy life of base ball; driven professional oarsmen out of the arena, and brought odium upon every sport with which it has been connected. Bur for the pool rooms of Chicago and St. Louis – encouraged by the local press there – there would have been no such crookedness in the Western base ball nines, which recent developments have disclosed.
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