Notes from the Autobiography of Paul Pons

One of the legendary French pro wrestling stars tells his story.

In late 1907 through early 1908 the French sports magazine "La Vie au grand air" published a series of articles by Paul Pons called "Twenty Years of Wrestling", where the multi-time World Greco-Roman pro wrestling champion Pons shared some stories and memories from his 20-year career as a professional wrestler. The whole series is 26 pages long. Below I'll share some notes from said series of articles, summarizing what Pons wrote. For those who don't know, Paul Pons was a major pro wrestling star in Europe and the most popular French wrestler of the late 1890s and early 1900s.

Sidenote: The notes below are based on the magazine articles from 1907-1908. In 1909 there was an expanded version of the Pons memoirs published as a standalone book. Plus, in 1904 and 1912 Pons wrote another two books too. In other words, there are plenty more stories by Pons that can be shared, but here I'll focus only on those from the aforementioned magazine series.

Paul Pons

Notes from the memoirs of Paul Pons

Paul Pons was born in Sorgues, France, but he got his start in wrestling in Bordeaux. He got consent from his family to leave Sorgues and then followed the popular wrestlers Pietro Dalmasso and Felix Bernard to Bordeaux.

His debut in Bordeaux was at the local fair where Pons, as an amateur, challenged a pro wrestler. His opponent was Aimable de la Calmette Sr. The promoter was Mange-Matin. Pons was put into the crowd as a plant. Aimable was challenging audience members to wrestle him and when Aimable gave him the signal (which had been agreed to beforehand) Pons accepted the challenge. Pons lost the match. The outcome of the match was predetermined - in the match Pons was told exactly when to lose. The crowd liked Pons and so Mange-Matin started using him regularly going forward.

At that point Felix Bernard and Pietro Dalmasso gave him his first wrestling lessons.

His first match as a pro wrestler was against an amateur from the audience, who he defeated. This amateur was nicknamed Rogneux.

Pons spoke very highly of Felix Bernard, Pietro Dalmasso, Faouet, Maurice Gambier and Fernand Sabes.

Eventually the fair in Bordeaux ended and Magne-Matin went to Pessac. Pons stayed in Bordeaux and worked in a wine warehouse. One day he wrestled Fenelon in a small gym and there he met a wrestler who was part of a wrestling troupe headed to Marseille. That wrestler offered him a spot in the troupe and Pons accepted. The popular wrestler Auguste Robinet was in Mersaille as well.

While in Marseille Pons met a woman. He thought he was in love. But then the woman robbed him. She stole all his savings, which he was carrying in the pocket of his jacket, and disappeared never to be seen again.

From Marseille Pons and Robinet went to Paris. It was Robinet's suggestion that they go there. Robinet thought they'd get their big break there. At first they struggled. They lived in cheap hotels and ate at cheap restaurants. Money was tight and their big break was slow to come.

Pons considered his win over the Englishman Tom Cannon in 1890 at Nouveau Theatre in Paris to be one of the most important matches of his career. He thought very highly of Cannon. He said wrestlers were elevated when wrestling Cannon, because of his great reputation.

Pons said that during the 1891-1894 period the French public lost interest in wrestling. The directors of the big music halls lost interest as well. Business was way down. This was also a period of transition as older wrestlers were retiring and some new wrestlers were arriving in Paris from Bordeaux - Maurice Gambier, Fernand Sabes, Fenelon.

It was the arrival of the Turk wrestlers (Yousouf, Nouroulah and Mehmed) in 1895 which made the public interested in wrestling again, brought wrestling back to the music halls and set wrestling up for an era of prosperity. The Turks arrived in Paris with Joseph Doublier and Nicolai Petroff. Pons said Doublier found Petroff first and then Petroff "gave him" the Turks. Yousouf was the Turks' leader. Yousouf's first opponent in Paris, and his first win, was Fenelon.

In Pons' opinion of all the Turks to wrestle in Paris since 1895, Kara Ahmed was the one who became the best Greco-Roman wrestler.

Alexandre de Lucenski (the editor of  "Journal des Sports" newspaper) was the creator of the first World Championship tournament at Casino de Paris in 1898, which Pons won.

Pons said that when he wrestled in Berlin for the World Championship the crowd there was just as enthusiastic as the Paris crowd. He liked it there.

Pons did not like wrestling Ernest Roeber in the United States. He felt the crowd there was more passionate about boxing than about wrestling.

Pons seemed to be somewhat critical of the wrestling game today (today as in 1907) and nostalgic about the good old days. When he first started wrestling 20 years ago in Bordeaux wrestling was in smaller venues and gyms and it was about, in his own words, great honorable wrestling. Now it was in bigger music halls and in the music halls often wrestlers with an impressive appearance were preferred over skilled wrestlers and that had changed the design of wrestling. It was still very much a sport, but now it was also about business. "The wrestlers have gained a lot in the music halls, but the wrestling game itself has lost a lot", he said.

Pons considered George Hackenschmidt, Jakob Koch, Raoul le Boucher, Ivan Poddubny and Jess Pedersen to be the most outstanding wrestlers from the past decade. He thought le Boucher was the best French wrestler and a future World champion, but sadly he died too young.

Pons loved hunting.

There's a lot more to the memoirs than that, but these were the things that caught my attention the most. There's also this ridiculous story in there where a French promoter had advertised a black wrestler for his outdoor show, but the wrestler no-showed so the promoter had the genius idea to paint a white wrestler with black paint and present him as the black wrestler. But then it started raining...