O’MAHONEY AND HIS WHIP

Evening Star, Issue 22464, 8 October 1936, Page 4

O’MAHONEY AND HIS WHIP

IMPRESSIONS OF ‘‘LOFTY” BLOMFIELD .When I met Danno O’Mahoney in Fresno,, California, my main impression was that he was strong, tough, fit, and reckless, so much so that he would go all out to heat you or kill himself in the attempt (says “ Lofty ” Blomfield, in an article in the 1 New Zealand Observer ’). He beat mo by one fallj and it took him 23 minutes to get it. I certainly did not think that he would be a world's champion, but he must have improved pretty quickly, and, of course, his “ Irish whip ” was a very effective means of winning a match when used by a young and powerful man. The Irish whip, or something very like it, is also, used by George Pencheff. There is nothing much about it that reminds one or a whip. It is really a combination flying mare and dump, and l all that happens is that O’Mahoncy gets you off your balance, picks you up by sheer strength, heaves you through the air, and bashes you down. Balance is the whole secret of successful wrestling. You must have a sense of balance to apply grips properly, and also to avoid them. It is in being caught off one’s balance that one loses matches.

O’Mahoney when I met him was a real “ broth of a boy,”_ straight from Cobh (Cork), and he might have been a foreigner as far as most Americans wore concerned, as they couldn’t under stand his brogue, and he was consequently pretty lonely and homesick. Now, I believe, he is married to an American girl and probably in the process of becoming a thorough-going American, though it will take him a long time to lose that brogue. He may even get used to the way the Americans pronounce his name—- “ Omer-honie,” with the emphasis on the “ o.”