"After I had won at wrestling, the miners up there thought I must be invincible in any sport, so they matched me with Frank Slavin, the Australian heavyweight, who was there at that time. Well, Slavin was never much of a slouch at boxing, and no matter what any one tells you, he was better that night than he ever was in his life -- at least, I think so. He must have hit at me fully 300 times in that scrap, and I didn't let one of the blows get by me. I stopped them all with my head or my body. The fight went seven rounds -- or at least, that is what they told men the next day when I came to."
There are evidently a great many things that Gotch has forgotten, or would like to forget. The match he refers to did not last seven rounds. It was in the fourth round, when Slavin was undoubtedly getting the best of it, that Gotch lost his head and started to wrestle. He took Slavin by the middle and upended him. Judgment was then given against him for fouling.
At that time Gotch's name was Frank Kennedy. He was brought here by Ole Marsh, having for some time before been traveling with Farmer Burns. Not only had a different name but he posed as a United States soldier, just in from the Philippines.
Ed. Note: Frank Gotch was arguably the most technically proficient
US professional wrestler of the twentieth century; Farmer Burns was his
mentor. Frank Slavin was a competent heavyweight boxer of the period. And
Ole Marsh was a pseudonym of Joe Carroll, a man convicted in Council Bluffs,
Iowa, on March 9, 1910 of using the US mails to fix horse races, foot races,
and (say it ain't so!) wrestling matches. -Joseph Svinth
JCS Nov 1999