Over 3,000 Mat Fans Get To See An Extra Contest

St. Joseph News-Press – January 16, 1943

Some 3,700 enthusiastic wrestling fans got to see a match that wasn’t advertised last night at the Auditorium as Betty Weston, a gal in red tights, who flashed an attack that matched the brilliance of her ring togs, won the right to meet Mildred Burke for the women’s world mat title here next Friday.

As originally planned the winners of last night’s top matches were to come together next week for the right to meet Miss Burke here on Jan. 29. The champion got another offer to tour Mexico and asked that her match be moved up a week. So the entire elimination was run off last night before one of the biggest and liveliest crowds of several seasons.

And Miss Weston, a poker-faced blaster, left little doubt in the minds of the fans that she will give the champion some serious trouble on the basis of the Columbus, Ohio, girl’s showing last night. She got the jump on the “new” Elviry Snodgrass in the opening match and kept the Tennessee athlete on the defensive except for a brief spell when Elviry was mistress of the situation with a double reverse toehold.

The rest of the time Betty was punching, choking, gouging, kicking and generally forcing Elviry to seek cover. This test was wound in eight minutes with Weston taking the fall on a smother that looked like it would work Elviry right through the floor of the ring.

Gladys (Kill ‘Em) Gillem qualified for the finals by defeating Mae Young, who came out a dazzling but somewhat fuzzy blonde, with one of the most neatly executed maneuvers ever seen on the Auditorium mat. Gladys has developed a flying scissors that is deadly when it connects. She used it to climax five minutes of wild Texas rules action and it caught Young off guard completely. The gals piled up with Gillem all but sitting on Young’s neck and that was the match.

This same maneuver prolonged the finals but Weston sharpened up enough after being trapped once to keep Gillem from using the hold as a clincher. Two slams and a smother gave Weston the first fall in seven minutes, but Gillem used the scissors to even the match in six minutes after Weston had thrown herself out of the ring on a missed flying tackle.

The final fall went only two minutes. The girls opened with a rush and were still going at top speed when Weston broke through on a series of body slams and a smother.

Meanwhile, Elviry had issued a challenge to Weston in an appeal to the fans to help her get matchmaker Gust Karras to book the bout. The fans evidently felt that it should be done.

Emir Badui and Bad Boy Brown defeated Jack Dillon and Jay Steele in the tag team match.