Will Auckland Stand for “Rough-House” Wrestling?

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 537, 14 December 1928, Page 10

Will Auckland Stand for “Rough-House” Wrestling?

Clever Showmen Replace Famous Trio, Robin, Zbyszko and Sunni Ted Thye Earns £9,000 in Two Australian Seasons Memories of Sensational Contest in Auckland Town Hall Robin Declines £2,000 Contract in America Can Sunni Come Back?

Memories of the mighty Robin, the gorilla - like Zbyszko, and a lithe Indian dwarfed in stature alongside these two mastadons of the wrestling mat, were revived at the Auckland Town Hall on Monday evening, when Announcer W. Dervan introduced to the audience Mohammed Ali Sunni, triple New Zealand champion, as a challenger to the winner of the Kilonis-McCarthy bout. TN vain has M. A. Sunni sought matches in New Zealand. He is the holder of three Maoriland titles, but since the virtual retirment of Robin and the all-too-brief stay o£ the globe-trotting Zbyszko, wrestling has been more or less at a dead end in New Zealand. An Aucklander by adoption, and a credit to the sport of wrestling by his gentlemanly bearing, Sunni seemed ill at ease under the glare of the floodlights in which a swarthy Greek and a grim Irishman basked with evident enjoyment. The dusky son of the Orient fidgeted nervously while the announcer introduced him to the audience, and he seemed glad to make an unobtrusive exit when the ordeal was over.

Times have changed in the wrestling game since Robin, Zbyszko and Sunni were last before the public. This famous trio, three of the greatest of their time, led the advance guard of the Australian invasion in 1925-26, but to-day they have been succeeded by a motley throng of showmen-grap-plers, colourful exponents of a style of wrestling which at times is little more than a cross between a dog fight and a Punch and Judy show. The question is how long the public and responsible authorities will “stand for these rough house” circus stunts, which have already formed the subject of police inquiry in Sydney? In fairness to Kilonis and McCarthy, however, it must be said that the “rough stuff” was more apparent than real in their contest at the Town Hall this week. It is all “part of the show” with these modern grapplers, and being allowed to do practically as they pleased by the referee, they made the most of their opportunity to provide entertainment for the fans. There is, of course, big money in these wild and woolly displays. Kilonis has earned £5,654 in the two seasons he has appeared before the Australian public. Astonishing as these figures are, they pale into insignificance when compared with the income of “Big Boss” Ted Thye, who passed through Auckland a few weeks ago on his wayback to America after a strenuous season in Sydney and Melbourne. M.r. L. G. Melville, of the “Sydney Guardian,” says that from June to November, 1927, Thye’s percentage of the gate money he assisted to draw

was slightly over £5,000, and for the season just ended in Sydney his banking account was swelled to the extent of another £4,000. Bearing in mind the huge amounts which these men have earned, it may come as no surprise to New Zealand sportsmen to learn that after his memorable battle with Stanislaus Zbyszko in the Auckland Town Hall in September, 1926, in which the gigantic New Zealander fought Zbyszko to a draw, Ike Robin was offered a contract in the United States, with I

a guarantee of £2,000 down in an Auckland bank before he left the Dominion. There has been no wrestler in recent years with the tremendous strength of Iliaapa Rapana, as he is known to his Maori friends. An ungainly figure in the ring, he towered 6ft 6in in height, and stripped round about 17st. He had no great knowledge of the finer points of the game (there was not the opportunity), but those who remember the series of terrific headlocks he fastened on to Zbvszko after the Foie had taken a

fall from him, will vividly recall his terrible strength. Of Scottish and Maori ancestry, Robin had the heart of a lion. When Zbyszko took the first fall from him in the famous 3 926 bout, Robin was badly hurt when he fell, but he came back m one of the most amazing exhibitions of sheer grit and indomnitable courage that the writer has ever been privileged to see in any athlete, and that takes in boxers of the Macdonald type, Rugby footballers like M. J. Brownlie and L. Righton, who never knew what it was to “turn the game in,” and a champion axeman of the South who crashed through a loin, log to Victory with a deeply-gashed foot, streaming with blood. Robin drew his match with Zbyszko—one fall each way—and after the bout, Zbyszko, with 30 . years’ experience against the world’s best, told the writer that he had never met a man with the terrible strength of the Hawke’s Bay giant. It is no secret now that Zbyszko and his manager, Klank, wanted Robin to go back with them to the States, but Ike with his slow smile, and the classic Maori phrase on his lips, “Taihoa,” gave a good-humoured refusal. We who know the Maori temperament well can understand and appreciate the view that his home and his cJjilcLi'en came first. Ike was comfortably off down in Hawke’s Bay; wrestling was a good sport, and be enjoyed it; but the glamour of the footlights in a far country held no great attraction for the Maorilander, whose mind was on country sports meetings, where he could hurl the hammer a prodigious distance, and on the shearing sheds, in which it was pleasant to browse over

memories of triumphs of other days. Besides, he was getting old. . . . Comparisons are somewhat odious at times, but without prejudice against the “rough-house” display staged at the Auckland Town Hall this week, it can be said that for one tiling, the handicap of weight and strength would give Kilonis and McCarthy little chance against Robin and Zbyszko, as they were in 3 926. The Greek and the Irishman are 13 stone men; Robin was at least 501bs. heavier and Zbyszko would have been a super - forward even in an All Black Rugby scrum. Certainly Sunni once beat Robin, but the Indian defies all the rules of weight as a medium of strength in wrestling. Robin and Zbyszko indulged in little, or no rough stuff, but for all that their two bouts in Auckland were memorable tussles, and it is pleasant to think that one saw them at the height of their matchless powers as a vivid memory of other days, when the commercialised brutality and circus stunts of their successors were then comparatively unknown. Mohammed Ali Sunni is the only one of the three left to-day. The passing of the years. and lack of matches, may have rusted his consummate artistry and supple strength. How the Indian with his polished methods will fare against the winner of the Kilonis-McCarthy contest remains to be seen. It is a pity he was not two or three years younger. Age is not so much a bar in wrestling, but lack of competition over a period ol' years definitely is, and to expect a lightweight like Sunni to meet one of these men under the “all-in” condi* tions which prevailed last Monday night is asking a big thing.