WRESTLING

Evening Star, Issue 22633, 27 April 1937, Page 11

WRESTLING

OPENING OF SEASON The opening of the wrestling season has aroused great interest and there are indications that even the recordbreaking ligures •of last year will be eclipsed. Dunedin will commence active promotion next Saturday night with a professional heavy-weight bout between “ Lofty ” Blomfield, the eyer-popular New . Zealand champion, and Ray Richards, a newcomer from Nebraska who seems destined to play an important part in this year’s operations. Richards is a farmer, over six feet in height and weighing 17 stone. He is a graduate of Lincoln University, where he learnt wrestling and made himself famous 'as a footballer, his mat lessons being later finished off by the great Joe -Steelier. For the past seven years Richards has been one of the most prominent wrestlers in the Mid-west-ern States, and his record includes victories over - Ali Baba and Dick Shikat (both of whom have held the world title), as well, as Jim M’Millen, Ole Andresen, Freddie Meyer, and Abo Coleman. One of Richards’s specialities is the short-arm scissors, and with his own \ :ntion of the hold lie is able to fi> ■ his- opponent’s shoulders to aak.