FEMALE WRESTLING

Female wrestling becomes popular in Europe. Masha Poddubnaya, wife of the great Russian wrestler Ivan Poddubny, claimed the women’s title. Said journalist Max Viterbo of a female wrestling match in the Rue Montmartre in 1903, "The stale smell of sweat and foul air assaulted your nostrils. In this overheated room the spectators were flushed. Smoke seized us by the throat and quarrels broke out." As for the wrestlers, "They flung themselves at each other like modern bacchantes -- hair flying, breasts bared, indecent, foaming at the mouth. Everyone screamed, applauded, stamped his feet."

"It is a good thing for a girl to learn to box," says an article in the beauty column of February 27 issue of the New York Evening World. Why? Because "poise, grace and buoyancy of movement result from this exercise." Techniques that schoolgirls were told to practice with their maids included hooks to the face and solar plexus punches. According to the New York World, young ladies attending the Madison Academy in New York City also boxed and wrestled. The wrestlers included Pauline Fausek and Evelyn Reilly, who talked glibly of half-Nelsons and hammerlocks, while Annie Lynch, the boxer, was said to "hit a harder blow than the average young man. Every blow comes straight from the shoulder, not with awkwardness and lack of speed one would expect, but with the weight of the body behind it." Working-class women also boxed and wrestled, though more for the money than the sport, and in New Orleans, two female boxers died from injuries received while fighting a South American woman called Bellona.