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Show IIWSUMW IS A TOP-NOTCH WRESTLER The mass of press notices received In UU6 ii y concerning Henry Irellng-er, Irellng-er, the middleweight champion of En-rope, En-rope, """ho Is lo mwt Jark Harbertson 'in a finish match at the Orpheura theater the-ater March 26 aro wclJ calculated to throw a scare into tbe ordinary wrest-lm wrest-lm camp. There m-cuib to be nothing noth-ing of a doobrful nature in the record of the big felio fTom across the water, wa-ter, for he has met and defeated all the good one not only in his own class, bat on several occasions he has taken men a good many pound3 heavier than is permitted in the mill dlcweiRht division and in all of them he has nevor been thrown Since arriving ar-riving in this country. Irsllnger, who is an Austrian by birth, has taken on Ceorge Bothner. whom he wrestled three hours and forty minutes to n draw and has challenges ont to Fred Beel. Americus (Gus Schoenloin) and several other light heavyweiphts While Harbertson is by no means fearful of the result of the coming mat contest still he has come to realize re-alize that the contract is a little lar ger than he had anticipated when negotiations ne-gotiations were first started. Jack J sees a long hard battle before him, but I he says he ante ihat diamond-studded Lon3dnie belt which lrslinRcr BO jiroudly wears and he doesn't mind trying a little harder than usual to get it. Harbertson intends to train more careful1 than ever during the next three WM After data wan received Saturday night it was seen that Irsllnger normally nor-mally weighed around 17." pouuds and, thinking the Austrian might have some difficulty In weighing in at the lf8 pound notch, a wire was sent him inquiring about It. All doubt was dispelled last night, however, when a reply was received from Irnllnger stat-j stat-j ing that he agreed lo weigh in at 158 at 2 p. m. on the day of the match This is agreeable to Harbertson also. bo that the last obstacle has been removed re-moved to the staging of the match. Irsllnger is expected to arrive in Og-den Og-den March 17 A clipping from the London Times concerning the Austrian mat artist is lnieresting: "Irslingei- came to London when he was 17 years of age. where he commenced com-menced work as a confectioner He had always taken a keen interest In matters sporting, especially wrestling, and even after a hard day's work he would put In several hours' training Ferdinand Gruhu. who was one of the champions of that period and trnlneT of Haekenschmldt, 'The Russian Lion, then took Irsllnger in hand and under his tuition h's progress was rapid and successful "The first challenge he threw out was to Yamato Malda. a Japanese, 1 who was appearing at the Alhambra at lhat tiino, throwing out a challenge to anybody, offering $500 lo the mau who could defeat him Irslinger and his trainer being In tho audlooee. ac cepted the challenge, and a match was arranged at the Alhambra, London. Lon-don. He defeated Yamato in five minutes two seconds the first fall, and twenty-one minutes the second fall He immediately secured a six week s engagement at the Alhambra. After this Irsllnger entered the llhambra tournament for the cluin pionship of the world, which he sue I cceded in winning. He then received a number of music hall engagements, I In 190S he again won the champion ship of the world at Henglers circus In the final competition he wrestled with Sam Anderson of America, the bout lasting two hours twenty-seven minutes The first prize was $500 and the championship belt "In 1909 he left England for Chicago Chi-cago where he was matched to wrestle wres-tle Charles Postel for the middleweight middle-weight championship of America The match took place at the Opera House. Chicago, May, 1909 Irslinger gained the first fall in one hour and fortj minutes. Postel retiring during the second bout "After winning many matches in the United States he returned to England Eng-land In 1010. and wrestled with Bob i Berry of Wigau. the winner of the 1910 Alhambra tournament. They competed for the middleweight championship cham-pionship in July. 1910, at the Wlgan football ground, 1,000 spectators being be-ing present Irslinger whs returned the winner after .14 minutes' wrest ling "In December of the same year he wrestled with the great Indian. But tah Singh, at York, this being the hardest aud longest match he has ever taken part in It lasted 4 hours and 45 minutes without an Interval Singh retired and the match ended by Irsllnger agreeing to declare it a draw." |