WRESTLING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24412, 25 September 1940, Page 8

WRESTLING

EMPIRE CHAMPIONSHIP McCREADY REGAINS TITLE That somewhat elusive honour, the: Empire title, which for the past lew months has kept the three British professional wrestlers in the Dominion busy defending it or winning it. went back to its original owner last night when Earl McCready defeated John Katan by a fall, the. only one of the contest, which was held in the Town Hall. The fact that the match was for the championship attracted a particularly large crowd, and when the wrestlers entered the ring there was not a vacant seat. There was the added fact that McCready. who is more or less of an idol among the wrestling public of Dunedin, was going to have a try at recapturing what the majority of his supporters seemed to consider he should never have lost, and with them, whatever he did was right. Equally, in the eyes of the majority of the crowd. Katan could no nothing right, so that throughout the match, there was a noisy and at times entertaining, display of partisanship that culminated in one of McCready's more excited female supporters rushing up on to the stage as Katan was leaving for his dressing room and delivering a farewell address of considerable pungency. Katan's weight was given as 16.10 and that of McCready as 17.1 and in height and bulk they looked well matched. Early in the bout Katan raised a storm of hoots for punching, and as the. contest progressed he was warned on several occasions for using tactics that, to say the least of them, were doubtful. He is without question a fine wrestler, but last night there was not a great deal of variety in his work, and he seemed to be set on making his opponent do most of the attacking. Time and again, he would wrestle on the retreat and, when cornered, would seek sanctuary in the ropes. All the time he was on the alert to catch his man in his favourite stepover toe-hold, but McCready, although he was nearly trapped in the opening stages of the bout, eventually wakened up to this move and countered it cleverly, once with a rocking-chair splits that might have proved troublesome if the gong had not sounded for the end of the round. The first few rounds were marked by plenty of action, but somehow the work of both men seemed to lack any definite purpose, and although holds and throws were numerous'and cleverly executed, there was not the sting in the exchanges that the crowd wanted. That came in the fifth round when Katan started a jolting bout and McCready finished it. Katan had twice been told to break a stranglehold, so, determined to do something about it, he sent in a couple of punches to his opponent's ribs, and followed up with two heavy jolts to the jaw. When they came out for the next round they stood toe to toe in the corner and slugged away at one another until a particularly heavy jolt from McCready whirled Katan back into the centre of the ring again. Four more followed and the title-holder was an easy prey to McCready's cradle-hold with the leg which was a preliminary to a pin. One would have thought that with a fall against him. it would have been all or nothing with Katan since if he made a draw of it. he still retained his title. But no. He continued to keep out of trouble and make McCready brines the contest to him, and although he nearly scored with a headlock towards the end of the seventh round, McCready had the better of the exchanges for the remainder of the bout, and when the final gong sounded he had his man firm in a standing splits The Preliminaries. ...

R. Meinung 10.0 drew with W. Chalmers 9.4, neither man securing a fall. R. Tourrel] 11.10 beat G. McKay on points. W. Williams 8.0 beat J. Angow 7.13 by two falls, both secured with reverse full nelsons. .■: \ J. Morris 12.4 beat K. Knox 12.0 on points. F. Keach 10.7 drew with W. Vincent 10.0, neither man securing a fall. Mr D. Samson was the referee for the preliminaries, and Mr F. Anderson controlled the main bout.