Wrestlers Walk Out Over Money, Promoter Then Exposes the Business

An interesting incident from Budapest, Hungary, in 1926.

From 1 October to 15 October 1926 there was a Greco-Roman pro wrestling tournament held at Schmidt Arena (previously known as Jancsi Cirkus, but then Michael Schmidt bought it so it got renamed) in Budapest. And on that final night of said tournament a big scandal broke out. Here's what happened or rather here are the two sides of the story.

For the one side there's a couple of different versions mentioned in the press, and this is the most common one. According to the circus director and promoter of the tournament Rezső Árvái based on the contract they had signed Josef Czaja (one of the two most popular Hungarian pro wrestlers at the time, the other one being his brother Janos Czaja) was to receive 70% of the net income of the circus' third performance each day, i.e. the evening performance where the wrestling matches took place. Each night after the matches the director would pay the money to Czaja, who would then divide it between the wrestlers. According to the director for two weeks of matches Czaja was paid 2.8 million Hungarian korona. On the final day Czaja went to the director and demanded the money upfront and said he wanted not 70% of the net income for the third performance, but rather 70% of the gate for the entire day. The director also claimed that he had found out that during the final night's matches Czaja was planning on advertising that the final two days of the tournament would instead take place at Circus Beketow. The director refused to pay so the wrestlers refused to go out and wrestle (likely instructed to do so by Czaja). So, the director went out in front of the packed circus and told the fans about this, but he also took it a step further. He told the audience they would not be missing much anyway, because the matches had been fake. The director revealed that Josef Czaja was the one in charge of the wrestlers and Czaja alone had been deciding who won and who lost. The crowd became furious and a dozen or so policeman had to intervene and clear out the circus.

Josef Czaja

In the days that followed Czaja completely denied the claims about predetermined matches, stating he had always been a legitimate wrestler and won all of his matches fairly. He also denied asking for more money. Czaja also claimed that the wrestlers' intention was to hold the finals of the tournament at the bigger Circus Beketow and that they were contracted to Schmidt Arena only until 13 October (and not indefinitely like the director had claimed) so in order to prevent them from going over to Beketow the director told these lies and tried to damage their reputation.

There was talk of both sides suing each other afterwards, but I'm not sure if anything came out of that.

Hungarian article about the incident: "Professional wrestling tournament drowns in scandal. Josef Czaja paid all the wrestlers and decided the results in advance."