Page "Frank Gotch" Paragraph 17

There is another side to this story, however.

When Lou Thesz was just starting out in the early 1930s, there were a good many wrestlers still active who had known Gotch and were not reluctant to talk about him.

“ The picture that emerged of Gotch from those conversations ,” Thesz recalled, “ was of a man who succeeded at his business primarily because he was, for lack of a kinder description, a dirty wrestler.

That ’ s not to say that he wasn ’ t competent, because everyone I ever talked with said he was one of the best.

But those same people described him as someone who delighted in hurting or torturing lesser opponents, even when they were supposed to be working out, and he was always looking for an illegal edge when he was matched against worthy ones.

One of the old-timers I met was a fine man named Charlie Cutler, who knew Gotch very well and succeeded him as world champion …; according to Cutler, Gotch would gouge, pull hair and even break a bone to get an advantage in a contest, and he was unusually careful to have the referee in his pocket, too, in case all else failed .”