Until last week, no one knew who was heavyweight wrestling champion of the world. Officials in the U. S. had never been able to agree on the matter. Claimants to the title found it more profitable not to endanger their pretensions by wrestling against each other. Into Madison Square Garden's Long Island City Bowl last week there climbed the two principal pretenders: Christopher Theophilus (Jim Londos), recognized as champion in Pennsylvania, California and most other States; Jim Browning, recognized in New York, where wrestling draws biggest crowds. Because it seemed likely that neither Londos nor Browning would willingly sacrifice a title which has been worth $75,000 a year to each, the New York State Athletic Commission authorized Promoter Jack Curley—who had arranged the match because wrestling gate receipts have lately declined—to disregard the ruling which says that in New York wrestling bouts are "exhibitions" not "contests." The crowd (35,000) was the biggest at a wrestling match since the one which saw Frank Gotch defeat George Hacken-schmidt in 1911 in a bout which appeared so fraudulent that no professional wrestling has been conducted in daylight since.
Twenty minutes after the bout began, Londos applied his favorite hold, a Japanese armlock. Browning broke it, retaliated with the "airplane scissors" which he learned by wrapping his legs around a flour barrel on his Indiana farm. Planning to become a professional fisticuffer when he ends his career as wrestler, Browning cuffed Londos on the nose. Londos whacked his opponent on the ear, adroitly tripped him, twisted his foot in a toe hold. Wrestling bouts continue un til one contestant or the other is too tired or too dazed to function normally. After an hour and ten minutes, Londos last week turned his back on his opponent, reached across his own shoulder to seize Brown ing's head, tossed him over his shoulder in a "flying mare." After three "flying mares," Champion Browning was too sore and puzzled to do more than rub his neck. Champion Londos seized him by the crotch, spun him in the air, dropped him on the canvas, fell on top, pinned his shoulders to the floor.
Like most successful wrestlers. Champion Londos has no home. He travels, usually by plane, for ten months a year, wrestles five nights a week in different cities. He banks his earnings in St. Louis, rents a house there for his library of 1,000 volumes, trophies which include a world's championship belt showing the history of wrestling in twelve plaques. Son of a Greek olive picker, Champion Londos was born near Athens in 1898. He got his nickname in 1915 from a San Francisco sportswriter friend who admired Jack London. He takes singing lessons, smokes a corncob pipe, speaks good English in a squeaky tenor.