Episode 105 – Feats of Strength
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In this episode, I discuss 19th Century pioneer wrestler Sorakichi Matsuda, the first Japanese professional wrestler in the United States.
News
Television ratings for wrestling programming is down across the board. I doubt WWE on ESPN app or AEW on Max are doing great ratings. If they were, we would hear about it from the company and their broadcast partners.
Pro wrestling needs to develop young fans for the sport to survive. The WWE pricing strategy will work against that need.
Wrestling is a star vehicle.
Sorakichi Matsuda posing in his prime (Public Domain)
Main Content
At the end of May 1885, Sorakichi Matsuda took part in a strength challenge with an old foe, Capt. James C. Daly. Daly stood six feet, two inches tall, and weighed 260 pounds. Daly challenged a strongman, who did not bother showing up for the challenge.
Emil Voss, a traveling strongman, lifted R.K. Fox’s club, weighing one hundred fifty pounds, seven times. Prior to Voss’ feat, no one lifted the club more than four times.
Capt. Daly challenged Voss to show up at the office of Fox’s publication, the Police Gazette for a club lifting challenge. Daly said he would put up two hundred fifty dollars against the same amount by Voss in a competition to see who could lift the club the most times.
Since Voss no-showed, Matsuda, who lived in New York, accepted Daly’s challenge instead. Matsuda bet Daly $10 that Matsuda would lift the club ten times.
Daly called Matsuda by his nickname, “Mat,” and agreed to the challenge. Matsuda walked around the club, which was four feet tall and about two feet in diameter.
Matsuda picked up the club. He then lifted it eleven times. Daly appeared shocked.
Daly refused to pay the ten dollars because Matsuda had not shown his ten dollars prior to lifting the club. Daly said, “I thought you were fooling Mat.” Matsuda counted out ten dollars and agreed to lift the club more times than Daly.
Both men placed the ten dollars with Mr. Harding, the editor of the Police Gazette.
Daly took off his shirt, approached the club and lifted it fourteen times, twice Voss’ earlier feat. Daly thought he won the bet.
However, Matsuda approached the club again and lifted it eighteen times without stopping. Daly stared in disbelief as Mr. Harding clasped Matsuda’s hand with both of his. “That’s the most marvelous exhibition I ever saw,” Harding exclaimed. Harding handed Matsuda the $20.
Matsuda won numerous other strength competitions over the years. If you could make a living as a professional strongman, Matsuda may have been the pound-for-pound strongest man in the world.
Update
I am making heavy weather of the second edition of the St. Louis’ Civil War: The Streetcar Strike of 1900, so I’m going to start on a new project on Ad Santel. I will complete the projects in parallel.
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