"THEY DO GET HURT"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 120, 10 October 1941, Page 10

"THEY DO GET HURT"

Former Champion Cites Cases Of Injured Wrestlers

ALTER MILLER, former world > wrestling champion, and well known in wrestling circles in New Zealand, thinks that the recent controversy on wrestling in The Listener, prompted in the first place by "S.B’s" "Thoughts From a Ringside Seat," hardly does justice to the sport. Mr. Miller is particularly anxious to dispel any illusions about the toughness of the sport. "While you don’t see murder at every match, and it would be hard to get anyone to take up wrestling if you did," he says, "I have seen men take pretty fierce punishment in the ring, and I’ve taken some myself." Discussing the much argued question of the hitting power of an elbow, or more correctly, fore-arm jolt, Mr. Miller cites what happened to Ted ("King Kong") Cox in a match with Joe Corvelli last season in Sydney. Cox had his jaw broken in three places by a jolt, passed through Auckland on his way back to America with steel splints in his jaw, and was out of action for six months. Cox, moreover, was able to stand a phenomenal amount of punishment without showing its marks. Three years ago in Wellington he met Jack Forsgren, until then reputed one of the reughest, toughest men wrestling in New Zealand. The match became a duel of jolts and other rough tactics, and it was soon obvious that Forsgren had met his match. He jolted Cox every way he knew, but next day Cox was barely marked, while Forsgren himself had his hand and forearm swollen, and was battered about the face so severely that he could scarcely see. ‘When The Mountain Jumped "The writer of those ‘ Ringside Thoughts’ also wonders why more wrestlers aren’t hurt when they are first dumped and then jumped upon," added Mr. Miller. " Well, the fact is, they do get hurt." Take the case of Pat Meehan, now wrestling in New Zealand, said Mr. Miller. He was jumped on by "Man Mountain" Dean (who weighs just on 350 pounds in fighting time) and received two broken ribs, while a week after that "Man Mountain" jumped on

another wrestler by the name of Bill Longston and broke his back. Longston was out of the game for two years, and it was only due to careful medical treatment and a phenomenal constitution that he was ever able to wrestle agdin. Then there was the case of Lofty Blomfield, Mr. Miller added, who offered unwise resistance to a "Boston crab" applied by Forsgren. He was out of action for a month, X-rays showing a displacement of his spine. " A Serious Matter" _ Naturally it is a serious matter for a wrestler to suffer injury at the beginning of the season. It means loss of purse money for an appreciable period, and the chances are that he has no optiom but to return home, That was what happened to .Pete Mehringer, the 1933 Olympic champion who came to the Dominion four years ago. Early in the season he had his leg twisted so badly

in one of Lodfty Blomfield’s " octopus clamps" that after a month in hospital he returned to America. In his own long wrestling career, Mr. Miller was fairly lucky, and although he suffered the usual run of sprains, twists, and black eyes, his most serious injury was a broken shoulder received in a match with Bob Kruse, in Sydney in 1928. He was in plaster of Paris \for four months, and still carries a hard ridge of bone where the break occurred. ‘"Wrestling fans naturally don’t see serious injuries in every match," says Mr. Miller. "After all, they don’t go along, or shouldn’t go along, to see blood and butchery. But you can take it from me that wrestling isn’t always a safe, comfortable way of making a living. Ask the insurance companies, They rate a wrestler as one of the worst risks they can have, and it just isn’t worth paying the premiums they ask for an accident policy." ' What The Spectator Misses When it comes to ringside close-ups of the various holds which constitute a wrestler’s stock-in-trade, Mr. Miller claims that it is impossible for a spectator to tell whether a hold is " on" properly, or whether sufficient resistance is being offered and science applied to negative its effect. In the case of an arm bar, which is one of the most punishing holds, and quite capable of breaking a man’s arm if fully applied, a slight twist of the receiver’s arm renders it comparatively harmless. That slight twist which may be the prelude to a counter hold, is not noticeable from the closest ringside seat, and the cynical onlooker is only too quick to proclaim that it was all "hokum™" in the first place. And the same applies to many other holds from the wristlock down to the "Indian deathlock." As «o whether it is possible to break @ man’s arm by means of a hammerlock, Mr. Miller telly of a challenge he once made to a policeman in a certain New

Zealand city who had been ridiculing the hammerlock as applied in the wrestling ring, and claiming that he himself would break his opponent’s arm if he had the hold applied properly. Mr. Miller offered to wager him £100 to £5 that he would give the policeman any hammerlock he cared to put on him, and escape from it and break the policeman’s own arm with a hammerlock within a few seconds. The policeman pleaded indisposition,