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Show stecher TRYING ! TO EXPLAIN Former Champ Denies That He Refused to Wrestle Earl Craddock. 1 OiMAHA, April 12. Joe Stechcr Is prolific of explanations for his poor showing against Earl Caddock Mon-I Mon-I day night, which cost htm the world's championship, and 1h demanding a return re-turn match. Not much attention Is being given him or his claims, how- - ever, as those who woro for him are sore over his action and those who - were for Caddock say Stecher has " been permanently eliminated There is still another element of wise birds who believe the affair was a big stalling stall-ing match and preliminary to another meeting, the next time in Cuicago, where a capacity house might be expected. ex-pected. Joe Hetmanek, Stecher's manager, declares that in the diessing room after af-ter the second fall, which was won by Caddock, Stecher declared that ho would not return to the ring and that It was only after this positive refusal that he notified the referee that Stecher Stech-er would not go on. ' Stecher's statement, given to newspaper news-paper men, Is that he was preparing to go on with the match and did not know tho time was up when informed that the match had been awarded to Caddock. He denies that he refused to wrestle. During the wrestling for the second fall Stecher was thrown to the mat and Caddock claimed a fall, but Cy Sherman, Sher-man, the referee, denied there had been one and ordered the men to continue con-tinue The crowd, about evenly divided divid-ed between supporters of Stecher and Caddock, shouted Its protests or approval, ap-proval, and for a time there was tumult. tu-mult. The officials retired. It was ; said there was a heated argument ; among them as to whether Stecher had been thrown, the timekeeper, Robert Murphy, claiming he had. When Stecher and Caddock appear- ed on the mat after the second fall Steelier stated ho would not continue j the match and left the hall, Ignoring ', the protests of the referee and the ; i promoter. This was the first time Stecher had lost a fall during his entire mat career. ca-reer. The match lasted three hours and two minutes. Shortly before the winter holidays Stecher ran out of finishing a match with John Olln at Springfield, Mass., after he had failed to pin the Finn with his body scissors and following Olln's tossing the Nebraskan from the ropes to the floor. A decision was given against Stecher at that time. Caddock had been under the personal per-sonal training of Frank Gotch for several sev-eral weeks prior to tho meeting. Gotch did his work secretly in a Chicago gymnasium, where the Stecher men were unable to get a line on "what Caddock was doing or could do In the way of new tricks. Several days ago Gotch game out a guarded interview in which he said Caddock was fit. Privately, he is said to have informed in-formed a few friends that Caddock was a world beater and that Stecher had no business on the mat with him. Golcji also is understood to have predicted pre-dicted that there is not a -wrestler known today who can put Caddock down. Dodge county, Nebraska, home of Joe Stecher, Is bankrupt, and Anita, la., home of Earl Caddock, is rolling in wealth as a result of the match Dodge county is simply aghast at the outcome of the match. Stecher's farmor friends thought their man invincible in-vincible and accepted bets at almost any odds. Practically every bet on Stecher was lost. In a statement Stecher said: "I was honestly defeated in so far as the fall I lost was concerned, but as. to the final decision, I must say that" nobody notified me the time was up. 1 was suffering from a running ear and a surging cold In my head and chest, but I intended to go on with the match." oo |