The Gazette – April 11, 1908
Perelli Gave Practical Demonstration of Rough Wrestling, With Cazeaux as Willing Assistant.
FRENCHMAN WON IN 43 MINS.
Made It Two Straight Falls, but Was Given Lively Time by Plucky Italian
An illustrated lecture on just how nasty Gotch was to Hackenschmidt a week ago, with Dr. Gadbois as the master of ceremonies, was followed at Sohmer Park last night by a much more practical and illuminating demonstration, with Raymond Cazeaux and John Perrelli occupying the centre of the stage. If Gotch forgot to use any trick that either wrestler from time to time brought into play last night, then he was careless, and deserved to be beaten. No one expected to see the big Frenchman lose to the Italian, and everyone looked forward to a lively go. Few, however, were prepared for just as hard a time of it as Perrelli gave the winner of eighteen straight matches, and quite a few for the open rough and foul work that the two wrestlers provided for the big crowd.
Cazeaux was 23 minutes and 50 seconds winning the first fall of the match, and 19 minutes and 10 seconds winning the second and the match. There was not a slow minute from the time the pair sparred up at the first toot of the whistle to the final blow declaring Cazeaux the winner. It was a popular go with the crowd, and every movement of the wrestlers was greeted with wild cheering from start to finish.
The wrestling could have been condensed into about half the time. The other half was given up to rough and tumble work, and at times there was more boxing than wrestling to the match. The spectators apparently liked the boxing even better than the wrestling, and the referee’s debonair attitude toward the rough work seemed to suit everyone.
Some eight or ten pounds heavier than the Italian, and considerably stronger, Cazeaux looked like a sure winner five minutes after the bout started. But Perrelli’s gameness and shifty tactics, combined with very considerable improvement in wrestling skill since his last appearance here, prolonged the bout to some forty-three minutes of the liveliest kind of work. Right to the finish each time Perelli seemed to be well up with his stronger and heavier opponent, and the falls followed offensive movements initiated by the Italian himself. The first fall won by the Frenchman followed a chancery by Perelli, which Cazeaux countered with a hammerlock and bar. Perrelli was helpless after having apparently a very good chance to win a fall himself. Preceding the second fall Perrelli was trying to rush things, but was caught in a half-waist hold and brought to the mat, to be turned over with a vigorously applied half-nelson.
Cazeaux has won a local name as a rough house performer, but Perrelli took charge of the rough work last night, and the crowd found much pleasure and considerable amusement in seeing the Frenchman subjected to the mauling to which he had treated previous visitors to the park. Perelli was much more active on his feet, and worked all around the other fellow in the rough and tumble clashes. Time and again he sidestepped deftly, letting Cazeaux crash into the ropes, and he could always get in two cracks to the Frenchman’s one in the open hand emashing. Cazeaux tried his famous headlock from a standing position a dozen times during the bout, but before he could get the Italian off his feet his own hand was jammed back and Perrelli was jabbing him in the eye with his thumb or pulling at his moustache. Cazeaux’s moustache was treated with the same consideration that Gotch showed for Pietro’s in their match here about a year ago. Perrelli never let slip a chance for a good, vigorous tug at it, and once Cazeaux retaliated by taking so firm a grip on Perrelli’s hair that the referee had to step in and make the men break.
It was easily the roughest exhibition that has been seen at the park in a long time, and Perrelli’s gameness against the big fellow made it interesting all the way to the crowd. The wrestlers had an old grudge to settle up from a previous meeting in Boston, and neither let anything slip to even up for previous knocks and bruises.
With three wrestlers to help him out, Dr. Gadbois gave an interesting lecture on the Gotch-Hackenschmidt match, which the doctor saw from one the best seats in the Chicago arena. His ideas on the match were crystallized, and an interesting talk was held out by practical demonstration, with the aid of Richard and Beauchamp, who immediately before this had given a rather clever exhibition in a preliminary.
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Next Thursday night Ackerman and Tremblay meet at the park in a match for the lightweight title. Ackerman is the wrestler who sent Tremblay to the hospital here two years ago, and kept the Frenchman out of the game for six weeks.
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