MORE FAKE WRESTLING
Alleged Champions Add Another Fiasco to the Record.
ADALI SMOTHERED JENKINS
The Turk Lost One Fall for Rubbing Himself With a Towel After Chasing Jenkins Nearly an Hour – Then He Threw the American and IT Took Two Police to Haul Him Away. Match a Draw.
Originally Published In The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sunday, November 6, 1898, Page 8, Column 6.
The public, or three thousand members of it, was treated to another fiasco last night when the new Terrible Turk and Tom Jenkins met at Madison Square Garden for the championship of the world.
When Hali Adali made his appearance he was greeted with cheers and handclappings and when he reached the side of the mat he bowed repeatedly in acknowledgment to the welcome. He was fully 3 inches taller than Jenkins and 30 pounds heaver than the Cleveland wrestler.
Both men were pictures of health. When they began Adali stood in the middle of the mat while Jenkins kept skipping around its edge. Each time the big fellow put out his enormous hand to grasp his opponent the latter would skip away as if he did no relish his task.
After five minutes at this sort of work the Turk touched Jenkins’ head and Tom slapped Adali with his open hand on the neck. The Turk made a protest by pointing to his head and then Jenkins, while the crowd hissed the latter. The men went on with their efforts for three-quarters of an hour, when Pierre, the Turk’s manager and interpreter, told the big fellow that he could leave the mat. As soon as he understood this he began chasing Jenkins all over the floor.
Jenkins looked scared and sprinted very lively until the referee ordered them to the mat again. Then the Turk, thoroughly disgusted with his adversary’s tactics, walked off and began wiping his perspiring body with a towel.
Under the rules the referee said that this act constituted “a foul” and awarded the first fall to Jenkins. This decision was greeted with howls and hisses as the Turk soon learned that the people were protesting in his favor.
An interval of fifteen minutes was then announced.
The bout ended in a brutal spectacle, two policemen and the referee being required to get the Turk off the body of the prostrate and unconscious American. Tom O’Rourke declared the bout a draw, one fall each, although this was in direct contradiction of the article of agreement.
This page is part of Fake ... Working Through Wrestling's Past, a virtual library of pre-1920 newspaper articles that address or allude to fakery, fixes, or "hippodromes" in pro wrestling. For more information about this project, click here.
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