The Bergen Evening Record – June 3, 1948
Grapplers Put Comedians To Shame At The Armory; Rothenberg Conquers Unscrupulous Foe
The two members of the Omaha, Neb., Riot Squad, Rudy and Wally Dusek, won an Australian tag team bout at the Teaneck Armory last night by defeating Hollywood’s Abe Stein and Toronto’s Tarzan Hewitt in two out of three falls.
Wrestling purists may shudder at the shenanigans the huskies pulled but for pure comedy it was worth a couple of Milton Berles and Lou Costellos.
Spectators walked out of the joint wiping their eyes. So did the promoter – for an entirely different reason.
The finale came when Tarzan inadvertently hit his partner, Mr. Stein, and Wally Dusek fell on him to gain a fall in 7 minutes.
The first fall was scored by the Duseks when Wally pinned Stein in 14:37. Then the Stein-Hewitt team evened it up as Stein scored over Rudy with an arm lock and cross cut saw with a bottom switch half nelson in 6:44.
The rules in this bout call for two men to wrestle while two remain in the corner, only working when called on by their partners. But the men were all in the ring despite admonitions by Referee Art Genovis who grows red in the face when he shouts. He was shouting all night long.
Spectators were asked to yell out violations, the announcer informing them that the referee “has only two pairs of eyes in his head.”
Rudy Dusek weighed 225, Wally 235; Stein 215, Hewitt, 240. The Duseks were cast in the role of heroes, the others were craven villains who did many mean things.
Murray Rothenberg of Teaneck scored his second win in a Teaneck ring by throwing Phil Grueber of Chicago with a flying headlock in a bout which only went 13 minutes.
This was a clean bout until Mr. Grueber stuck both fingers in the eyes of Mr. Rothenberg who resented such dastardly conduct. He scowled, shot venomous glances at his foe, appealed to the referee, and then egged on by the crowd, gave Grueber his comeuppance right soon.
Rothenberg’s classic profile will be on video tonight. He weight 207 to Grueber’s 206.
Dutch Schweigert, a bleached-blonde chap from Wildwood, scored over Clifton’s Austeri in the second match of the night in 16 minutes and 12 seconds. Austeri was dangling Dutch in an airplane spin and looked as if he would win when he banged the youth to the mat. But Dutch turned the tables by foiling his foe with a body press, or something, and was tapped on the back by the referee. Austeri claimed a short count.
Steve Gob, 210, Bayonne; and John Melas, Brooklyn, went to a 20-minute draw in the prelim. Their specialty was throwing each other out of the ring.
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