Was Lewis or Gotch Better?

In January 1921, Ad Santel started a minor controversy by claiming Ed “Strangler” Lewis was a better wrestler than the late Frank Gotch.  Santel trained with both Gotch and Lewis, so he did have an insider’s knowledge.  Was he right though?

Gotch was the last Undisputed World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion.  Gotch won the title by defeating the great Georg Hackenschmidt.  Besides defeating Tom Jenkins, Stanislaus Zbyszko and Georg Lurich, Gotch defeated Hackenschmidt in the 1911 rematch.

Retiring in 1913 to spend time with his wife Gladys, who he married in 1911, Gotch died in 1917 at only 40 years of age from uremic poisoning.  Up until his death, wrestlers were still trying to lure Gotch from retirement for one more match.

Ed “Strangler” Lewis came to prominence in 1915.  Besides emerging as one of the top contenders in the 1915 International Wrestling Tournament, Lewis also started a famous feud with Joe Stecher.  It would culminate with Lewis defeating Stecher for his World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship in 1920.  Lewis reportedly defeated Stecher for real, when he didn’t want to go along with dropping the title to Lewis.

Lou Thesz and Gene LeBell stated Lewis would drop the title to a wrestler to build up anticipation for the return match.  If the other wrestler didn’t want to lose the championship back to Lewis, Lewis would simply beat him and take it.  Few wrestlers ever made Lewis “stretch” them though knowing it was futile to test Lewis.

In defense of his argument, Santel stated, “Gotch had to beat his man quickly.  If he didn’t, he got himself in trouble.”  However, the first Gotch-Hackenschmidt match lasted 2 hours before Hackenschmidt quit.  Gotch was fine to continue.

Santel also talked about Gotch using trickery to beat Stanislaus Zbyszko.  Santel was partially correct on this point.  Gotch did tackle Zbyszko off the customary handshake to score a quick and unsportsmanlike pin.  However, he beat Zbyszko clean for the second fall.

The real difficulty in evaluating Santel’s argument is the different conditions both men wrestled under.  Gotch did take part in pre-arranged or “fixed” matches during his career.  However, Lewis took part in almost all “fixed” matches.  Outside of the Stetcher match and maybe one or two others, the matches were “worked” exhibitions.

It’s always going out on a limb to say matches were legitimate but Gotch defeated Hackenschmidt twice, Tom Jenkins twice and Stanislaus Zbyszko in legitimate contests.  Gotch’s era was much different from Lewis’ era only a decade later.

Lewis was a talented submission wrestler.  Gene LeBell was a national judo champion and well-respected grappler.   According to LeBell, a blind 50-year-old Lewis taught him a great deal of catch wrestling, which became a cornerstone of his style.  Despite his age and lack of sight, Lewis was still able to beat most men in a grappling match.

No doubt Lewis and Gotch were both extremely talented wrestlers.  If you put a gun to my head and made me choose, I would pick Gotch.  In fairness, I think we should declare it a draw.

You can read more about Frank Gotch in my book, Gotch vs. Hackenschmidt: The Matches That Made and Destroyed Legitimate American Professional Wrestling available on Amazon in paperback and e-book.

You can leave a comment or ask a question about this or any post in the comment section below, on my Facebook page, Twitter profile and Google+ page.

Source: St. Louis Star-Times, January 4, 1921 edition, p. 17

 

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