Ad Santel Brings The Pain
Ad Santel gained his reputation as a dangerous catch wrestler from his frequent bouts with judoka from Japan during the 1910s and a story from the second George Hackenschmidt training camp for the Frank Gotch rematch. According to legend, Frank Gotch paid Santel, a skilled submission wrestler, $5,000.00 to injure Hackenschmidt’s knee in training.
While this story may or may not be true, Santel won several legitimate matches with several judo players from Japan in an early version of mixed martial arts. However, Santel wrestled mostly in prearranged wrestling matches. After the 1915 International Wrestling Tournament in New York, promoters prearranged the outcome of most wrestling contests in the United States.
Ad Santel, skilled shooter and hooker, defeated many judo and jujitsu black belts (Public Domain)
However, matches could get heated and the wrestlers deviated from the cooperative nature of the match. On January 19, 1916, Ad Santel and his opponent Dick Daviscourt began to wrestle for real in the middle of their match. Daviscourt made a poor decision as he ended up with a fractured shoulder-blade courtesy of the powerful Santel.
The 28-year-old Santel met the 27-year-old Daviscourt in a match where Canadian born Daviscourt would have to throw Santel twice in an hour to win the match. Santel already carried quite a reputation in 1916, so the promoter must have been trying to build Daviscourt up in the public’s esteem.
Daviscourt took the first fall in 25 minutes and 6 seconds. Five minutes into the second fall, Santel slammed Daviscourt. Daviscourt displayed an obvious shoulder injury after the slam. Ad Santel won the second fall with a toe hold in 32 minutes and 26 seconds.
Santel possessed powerful slams in his repertoire from his early training with George Hackenschmidt, the Greco-Roman World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion. In one of his first victories over a judoka, Santel used a half nelson slam to render Taro Miyake unconscious. Miyake was dizzy for hours after the match.
The broken shoulder-blade set Daviscourt back for a few months but he resumed his wrestling career. Daviscourt wrestled longer than Santel, who retired in 1933 at 46 years of age. Daviscourt wrestled until 1938, when he was a 50-year-old veteran. Daviscourt was long in the tooth even for the prearranged era.
Ad Santel continued wrestling in prearranged pro wrestling matches and legitimate shoot fights with Judo players. At 5’09” but a powerful 189 pounds, Santel left a long line of victims in his wake. Dick Daviscourt learned a lesson many other grapplers would learn in the future. Don’t make Ad Santel angry!
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Source: Daily Capital Journal (Salem, Oregon) January 19, 1916 edition, p. 6