Ad Santel
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Ad Santel, born Adolph Ernst, was considered one of the greatest competitors in the history of catch wrestling.
Ad Santel wrestled in the various legitimate catch wrestling tournaments in Europe. These tournaments included wrestlers from various styles of wrestling from India, Europe, United States of America and Japan. Modern day mixed martial arts can trace its history from these legitimate clash-of-the-styles matches which frequently pitted martial arts discipline against discipline eg. Pehlwani vs. catch wrestling,catch wrestling vs. judo etc.
[edit] Hook wrestling vs. Judo
Ad Santel was credited to have fought first the major clash-of-the-styles match in modern martial arts history, against Tokugoro Ito, a 5th degree black belt in Judo from Japan.
The match in 1914 was one between two prime representatives of their respective crafts, Ad Santel was the World Light Heavyweight Champion in Catch Wrestling while Tokugoro Ito claimed to be the World Judo Champion. Santel defeated Ito and went on to be the self proclaimed World Judo Champion. The response from Jigoro Kano's Kodokan was swift and came in the form of another challenger, 4th degree black belt Daisuke Sakai. Santel, however, still defeated the Kodokan Judo representative.
The Kodokan tried to stop the legendary hooker by sending men like 5th degree black belt Reijiro Nagata (who was defeated by Santel by TKO). Ad Santel also drew with 5th degree black belt Hikoo Shoji. The challenge matches stopped after Santel, yet to taste defeat at the hands of any Kodokan representative, willingly gave up on the claim of being the World Judo Champion in 1921 in order to pursue a career in full time professional wrestling.
The impact of these performances on Japan was immense. The Japanese were fascinated by the European form of catch wrestling and the devastating submissions taught in the discipline. A steady stream of Japanese fighters travelled to Europe in order to either participate in various tournaments or to learn catch wrestling at European schools such as Billy Riley's Snake Pit in Wigan, UK.
In his professional wrestling career, Santel wrestled legendary wrestlers like the Indian, Gobar Goho.The match against Goho took place in 1922 in San Francisco, California for the World Heavyweight Championship. Santel coming off a dominance of 1914-1921 as the self proclaimed World Judo Champion was the unanimous favourite against the lesser known (and reportedly lesser technically proficient) Gobar.
By the end of this match, Gobar Goho had done the impossible, defeated the legend that was Ad Santel and claimed the World Heavyweight Championship in front of an appreciative yet surprised San Francisco crowd.
[edit] Legends
A rumour surrounding Santel was that before the second legendary Georg Hackenschmidt vs. Frank Gotch match Gotch, had paid Santel to make sure Hackenschmidt was not at 100% for his match. Santel did just that, seriously injuring Hackenschmidt's knee during what was intended to be a simple training session. Supporters of Gotch vehemently deny that Gotch and Hackenschmidt's second match was anything other than on-the-level, though the American easily defeated the Estonian challenger to retain the world title.
