[MarkF]

"John Osako, a yodan[sic] of Chicago, a favorite before the shiai began, lacked endurance and only uchi mata worked. This was not enough in the rugged fusegi of Gene LeBell. LeBell took first with a smashing Kaeshi style, incorporating a powerful kesa gatame with good effect. LeBell's only weakness is that he has no leading throws of any quality, save for a smashing ashibarai. He has a semblance of seoinage, taiotoshi, and hidari-hane goshi, and if he can smoothe those out, he will be one fine representative for us in international competition. Seattle's Shuzo Kato, shodan, held LeBell to a decision, dropped [Lyle] Hunt with a fierce O soto kaeshi[sic], pinned Vince LeRot with tate-shihogatame, And otherwise showed himself to be a real comer and a force to be reckoned with[sic]in future shiai.

"In the finals LeBell one a unanimous decision over the fifty pound lighter Yamada of Seattle. In the thirteen minutes of the bout, Yamada attempted eleven throws, LeBell 7, including kaeshi attempts. Yet Yamada lost, probably because his posture was not upright and he skirted the edges in retreat overly much. We respect the decision of course, but it is my feeling that we indirectly insulted Kotani Sensei by not allowing him full jurisdiction over the decision. The rules provide that the referee may be the sole judge. Also, perhaps we should amend the rules so that when there is no conclusive point scored in the over-all finals we may have co-champions. The Kodokan did this in 1949 when Ishikawa and Kimura locked horns. I agree a winner must be declared in the eliminations, but I submit that it may be manifestly unfair to a man who battles his way into the finals to lose by judges' decision. This final bout ought to be conclusive and the LeBell-Yamada go certainly was not. [cont.]"

-RW Smith

*******
I had to copy this manually (can't copy/paste from .PDF at least not to E-budo) so any errors not noted are most likely mine, and I apologize ahead of time. Now that I've done it, I think I did this once before, but I was half-way through when I realized that.

Interesting evaluation of what was really the second US championships, but the one in 1953 is not generally considered to be a (national) championship. The US tournament was next held in 1955, I believe, in what was then Gene's stepfather's Boxing/wrestling venue, the Olympic Auditorium, built in 1927 for the LA Olympics of 1932. On his stepfather's death, Aileen Eaton, Gene's mom, took over ownership and management and promoted boxing and wrestling herself part of the time. She was good at it, as rarely was there a bad match in the newly refurbished Olympic in the 1970s. It is called "The Grand Olympic (it is at the corner of Grand and 18th street, in LA) Auditorium today. Ms. Eaton died some years ago. Gene always did want to be a boxer, but his mom nixed that.

There is more to Smith's letter, but this was the end of his description and thoughts of/on the shiai in 1954 in San Francisco.

I will/have deleted my impression of Smith's words as they just do not convey the man's thoughts on LeBell and his winning of the grand championship (open-weight class).


Mark