Одноэтажная Америка / Little Golden America

At the exit the news vendors were selling the night editions of Daily News and Daily Mirror, on the first pages of which in large letters was printed the news that Camera won over his opponent in the fourth round. Between the minute this event occurred and the moment we bought the newspaper containing the news about the match no more than �half an hour had elapsed.

In the nocturnal sky flamed the electric sign “Jack Dempsey”. Having finished his career in the ring, the great boxing champion opened near Madison Square Garden a bar and restaurant where sport fans gather.

It would never occur to any American to blame Dempsey for turning from a sportsman into a barman. The man is making money, he is doing business. Does it make any difference how he earns his money? That money is best of which there is most!

Boxing may be liked or disliked. That is the private affair of every man. Boxing is a sport, perhaps a rough and even an unnecessary sport, but still a sport. As for the American wrestling match, that is a spectacle which is in no way sporting, however astounding it may be.

We saw such a wrestling match in the same Madison Square Garden.

According to the rules of American wrestling… As a matter of fact, why speak of rules, when the peculiarity of this combat consists precisely in that it has no rules whatever? You may do anything you like: break your opponent’s arm; shove fingers into his mouth in an effort to tear it, while at the same time the opponent tries to bite off the fingers; pull the hair; simply beat him up; tear the face with finger-nails, pull off ears; choke his throat – everything is permitted.

This form of combat is called wrestling, and there are actually people who evince a genuine interest in it.

The fighters roll in the ring, pressing against each other, and lie like that for ten minutes at a stretch. They weep in anguish and anger, they snort, spit, scream, and in general carry on in a disgusting and shameless manner – like sinners in hell.

The disgust is increased when a half-hour later you begin to understand that all this is the silliest kind of sham, that it is not even a street light between two drunken hooligans. When one strong man really wants to break the arm of another he can do it at any time with a certain twist. In wrestling, however, despite all the frightful gestures, there is never any harm done to the parts of the body.