Merger on O'Mahoney

In the long and far from simple annals of wrestling, few careers are more remarkable than that of a 224-lb. oddity from Ballydehob, County Cork, named Danno O'Mahoney. A wrestling scout in Dublin on other business last autumn discovered O'Mahoney serving as a soldier in the Free State Army, brought him to the U. S., enlisted him as a member of the famed troupe of professional wrestlers run by

Promoter Jack Curley. Aided by two enormous paws, a neck thicker than his head and a strange grip which he called the "Irish whip." Danno O'Mahoney promptly won 49 bouts in a row. For his 50th. he received the reward of a match with Jim Londos, principal claimant to the World's Heavyweight Championship.

When he defeated Londos last month (TIME, July 8), O'Mahoney had only one obstacle left between himself and the undisputed championship of the world. That was Wrestler Ed Don George, a 30-year-old, 220-lb. Buffalonian, recognized as champion in Canada and parts of the U. S.

Last week, in Boston, O'Mahoney and George climbed into a ring to put the matter to the test.

After an hour and a half of the kind of undemonstrative growling and groveling of which most wrestling addicts heartily disapprove although they know it signifies the sincerity of the bout they are watching, Wrestler O'Mahoney contrived to throw his opponent over the ropes. Rules specified that George had 20 seconds in which to climb back into the ring. When he failed to do so, Referee James J. Braddock, Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World, raised O'Mahoney's right hand.

What followed the decision was disgraceful. One of George's seconds attacked Referee Braddock. Braddock promptly knocked him down. Twenty other handlers and camp-followers climbed into the ring, began scuffling among themselves. Pinned against the ring by spectators struggling to get into the fight was Massachusetts' Governor James M. Curley. one of the 45,000 (a record) who had seen the bout.

That last week's bout ended in a riot was much less remarkable than the fact that it occurred at all. For the past six years, ever since onetime Champion Ed ("Strangler") Lewis filed a protest after a match with Henri De Glane which was considered justified by some state athletic commissions but not by others, there have been two or more claimants for the wrestling championship. Far from being deleterious to the sport, this state of affairs has contributed largely to its renaissance since 1929 by making it possible for each of several different troupes of wrestlers, operating in different parts of the U. S., to have a "world's champion" of its own.

Two years ago, U. S. wrestling had boiled down to two major groups, comparable to the major leagues of baseball. One was Promoter Curley's, with Londos for champion. The other was run by Promoter Paul Bowser, with Ed Don George's predecessor, Henri De Glane, as chief attraction. A year ago, wrestling rumors said that a merger between the two groups was imminent. Last week's bout, however acrimoniously contested, was essentially an indication that the merger had been amicably completed and that Promoter Jack Curley, with simple O'Mahoney as his proxy, had finally become sole proprietor of the Heavyweight Wrestling Championship of the World.

A massive 59-year-old Alsatian, whose huge red, wide-eyed face looks as if it were being constantly pressed against an invisible pane of glass, Jack Curley was christened Jacques Armand Schuel, chose his present name because he has curly hair.

As a boy he ran away from home, became a mechanic, a waiter in an insane asylum and later trainer to Barney Oldfield in the days when Oldfield was a bicycle racer.

In 1899 he discovered his real vocation in Chicago. He began by promoting Wrestler Frank Gotch, progressed by promoting the Johnson-Willard fight, William Jennings Bryan, Caruso, bullfights, Annette Kellerman, Mrs. Pankhurst, Rudolph Valentino, the U. S. tour of the Vatican Choir, Georges Carpentier, William Tilden, several dance marathons and a flea circus.

After the War, when the famed "Masked Marvel" (Mort Henderson) was defeated by Strangler Lewis, wrestling became comparatively unprofitable. Promoter Curley restored the sport to favor in 1929 by the simple device of having his performers shriek, groan, wave their arms, grimace and plunge out of the ring, instead of squirming calmly on the floor as is the practice of wrestlers who are solely occupied with winning.

Amiable, cultured, incurably addicted to assisting at his own extravaganzas, Promoter Curley's two salient characteristics are good taste, which, because it is utterly anomalous in his profession, he rigorously confines to his private life; and the useful knack of knowing celebrities and being on hand at every sort of crisis. He is the only U. S. sporting personage whose reputation for being well-dressed is based on the excellence rather than the quantity of his clothes. His house at Great Neck. L. I., where his butler for many years was a retired fisticuffer named Bobby Dobbs, is a museum of superb old furniture. When he took a party of guests to the Sands Point Bath Club in 1933, it was characteristic of Promoter Curley that Senator Huey Long chose that evening to disgrace himself, by engaging in a brawl which Curley had to referee. Similar coincidences had caused Promoter Curley to become a crony of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, just before his assassination started the War; accidentally annoy Pancho Villa in 1915; act as pallbearer at Theodore Roosevelt's funeral and supply a night's free lodging to Edward of Wales. Promoter Curley drinks no alcohol, insists on driving his own car, married his secretary 15 years ago. His 22-year-old son by his first wife is now a newshawk on the New York American, which frequently derides the validity of Promoter Curley's exhibitions. Convinced by 40 years of experience that this is not a determining factor in their popularity, Promoter Curley says that he has never, to the best of his knowledge and belief, promoted anything dishonest.

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