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In the U. S., Manager Pojello (still a wrestler himself at 42) wisely avoided the more hippodromic Manhattan wrestling syndicates (Jack Pfeffer's "Bums," etc.), picked up with Boston's Paul Bowser. Bowser, now the Angel's matchmaker, recognizes one Steve Casey as U. S. champion, claiming for this crown an unbroken line of descent all the way back to Frank Gotch, who retired as champion in 1913. Other current "recognized" U. S. champions: Veteran Jim Londos (N. Y., Pa., & Calif.) ; Bronko Nagurski and/or Bobby Bruns (Midwest); Everett Marshall (Rocky Mts.). None of these prize beeves has yet offered the Angel a bout, but if he mops up the rest of the herd, the champs may have to face him or quit.
Behind the massive, masklike face that looks like something out of a Coney Island mirror, the Angel is not a bad egg. Well-manicured and groomed, his pilgarlic pate usually covered in public with a beret, he reads authors such as Paul Bourget (Le Disciple), speaks hoarse but genteel French and smatterings of four other tongues, avoids crowds when he can.
He eats five times a day, with big helpings of fruit in between. Favorite fruit: bananas; next: pears, which he gobbles up the way others do grapes. Of U. S. wrestling tactics, he has not yet run the full gamut, will not venture a full critique. Asked, however, how the slugging Bacigalupi welcome in Boston struck him, he replied blandly: "Je ne suis pas une jeune fille" (approximately: "I'm no lily").