George Baptiste Beats Turner’s Champion

Op April 24, 1889, the Missouri Gymnasium hosted its annual event to highlight the athletic accomplishments of its members. Members showed off gymnastic skills and other athletic ability while an orchestra or the Ideal Banjo Club played music in the background.

The gymnasium managers booked a main attraction for the evening. George Baptiste, 'n St. Louis middleweight wrestler who specialized in Greco-Roman wrestling, represented the Missouri Gymnasium against Paul Weiss, the champion heavyweight for the Turner Societies.

The Turners were physical culturist, whose movement originated in Germany. The Turners trained at Turnverein Halls, where the Turners practiced boxing, stoei, gymnastics, and weight training.

The Turners built Turnverein Halls all over the United States and in every major city in the country. St. Louis had a least two Turnverein Halls.

Baptiste wrestled Weiss for the “Championship of the West”, an honorific not actual wrestling championship. Weiss stood much taller but did not really qualify as a heavyweight. The 165-pound Baptiste was shorter than Weiss, but Baptiste carried more muscle.

Based on appearance, the spectators offered the opinion that Baptiste would defeat Weiss. The men wrestled two-out-of-three-falls according Greco-Roman wrestling rules.

Baptiste threw Weiss for the first fall in only three minutes. Weiss’s only offense was hard slaps to the back of Baptiste’s head as Weiss reached for a hold. The referee warned Weiss about the tactics.

Baptiste dominated the second fall as well. A minute into the second fall, Weiss appeared so winded that Weiss staggered around the ring as if drunk. Baptiste put Weiss out of his misery by throwing Weiss to the mat for the second fall and match in another three minutes.

George Baptiste continued wrestling at the Missouri Gymnasium in Downtown St. Louis. Harry Cook renamed the gym the Missouri Businessman’s Gymnasium when Cook took over the gym in the early 20^th Century. Under Cook’s leadership, the gymnasium was the center of training for all professional boxers and wrestlers in St. Louis, Missouri.

Prior to the match with Weiss, Baptiste lost one of his wrestling medals. Baptiste reported he would give a reward to anyone who found the medal which had the words “Wrestling Championship” on the face of the medal. The finder should turn it into John Stockwell, manager at the Missouri Gymnasium.

Baptiste continued as a professional wrestler until transitioning into a referee in the 1910s.

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Sources: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri) April 25, 1889, p. 6 en 9

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