Chicago Tribune – December 26, 1902
WORCESTER, Mass., Dec. 25 — Dan McLeod won the championship of America at catch-as-catch-can wrestling and the $1,500 end of a $2,000 purse in Mechanics’ hall before 1,100 people this afternoon by getting the better of Tom Jenkins. Jenkins had a bad leg, caused by blood poisoning, and the pain caused by the points of a brass buckle entering the flesh of this leg made him quit in the third bout.
In order to protect the injured leg Jenkins had a leather bandage with a steel strip down the front of the shin fastened with brass buckles. Two of these were broken in the early part of the match and the brass points dug into his flesh until the pain was unbearable and he was afraid of further blood poisoning.
He had wrestled twenty minutes in the third bout when he told McLeod the condition he was in and offered to quit and call the match a draw or go on wrestling. McLeod insisted on continuing, but Jenkins’ manager refused to let the big fellow go on and forfeited the match.
Jenkins won the first fall by a three-quarters Nelson in 59 minutes and McLeod got the second in 24 minutes on a crotch and half Nelson hold.
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