Paul Pons vs. Ivan Poddubny... in Court (Paris, 1908)

One big wrestling star takes another to court for unfair competition and defamation of character.

In late 1907 the Apollo Theatre, "L'Auto" newspaper and businessman Marius Dubonnet promoted a World Championship tournament in Greco-Roman pro wrestling at the Apollo Theatre. It featured Paul Pons, Jakob Koch, Constant le Marin, Omer de Bouillon and other stars. At the same time Folies Bergere music hall and "Les Sports" newspaper promoted a World Championship tournament of their own with Giovanni Raicevich, Laurent le Beaucairois, Simon Antonitch, Wladyslaw Pytlasinski and others. For context it's important to note those two venues were rival venues competing for paying customers, and the two popular sports newspapers were kind of rivals as well.

The storyline for the tournament was that it came about because the top French pro wrestling star Paul Pons, who had been absent from Paris for a few years, put out an open challenge to all wrestlers to face him when he returned to Paris. Back in 1898 Pons had won the first World Championship tournament in Paris and since then he had established himself as one of the major stars of European pro wrestling. Him returning to Paris to participate in a World Championship was a big deal, especially since he hadn't been part of a World Championship tournament in Paris since the aforementioned 1898 World Championship. He had won other big tournaments in Paris, backed by "L'Auto", such as the three Gold Belt tournaments and the Cup of France tournament, but he hadn't participated in a World Championship in Paris since the first one in 1898.

In 1903 the Russian Ivan Poddubny really started making a name for himself in Russia. That same year he wrestled outside of the Russian Empire for the first time and competed in the 1903 World Championship in Paris (co-promoted by "L'Auto"). He came very close to reaching the final stage of the tournament, but lost to Raoul le Boucher (a Pons protege) on points in a controversial match (the match had to be stopped at one point because le Boucher had put oil on his body). In 1904 there was a big tournament in St. Petersburg which featured, among others, Paul Pons and Raoul le Boucher. Poddubny won the tournament by defeating Pons in the final. That match was the only Poddubny vs. Pons to ever take place. In 1905 and 1906 Poddubny returned to Paris to win the World Championship tournaments co-promoted by "Les Sports" and in doing so he made a name for himself as one of the top stars in Europe.

It should also be said that when Poddubny won his first World Championship in 1905 he issued a challenge for 25,000 francs to the top three wrestlers from "L'Auto"'s Cup of France tournament that was taking place in Paris at the same time as the World Championship. Pons was one of those three wrestlers and at that point Pons sidestepped the challenge saying he wanted to wrestle for honor, not for money. Poddubny then offered Pons to wrestle him in a private gym instead of in front of the public in a music hall, but Pons never responded to that challenge. A couple of weeks later in Toulouse it was Pons who issued a challenge to Poddubny and Poddubny responded with reminding everyone how Pons had already dodged him earlier. Nothing further happened.

Fast forward to 1907 and Pons' open challenge to the world. The challenge went out on 11 October 11 "L'Auto" and the World Championship tournament was set to begin on 1 November. Wrestlers began to publicly sign up for the tournament and the field was set. And then just as the tournament was about to start Ivan Poddubny entered the picture. Poddubny was currently in England, where he had become one of the top three wrestling stars along with George Hackenschdmidt and Stanislaus Zbyszko, and he sent word that he was accepting Pons' open challenge. Poddubny said he had a contract with a London music hall to wrestle there, but he was willing to break said contract and pay whatever fine he needed to just so that he could get out of the London contract and come to Paris to face Pons and prove that he [Poddubny] was the World champion. Poddubny offered to put up 20,000 French francs as a side bet. There's no doubt Poddubny vs. Pons at that point in Paris would have been a major match. Not only were they both big stars, not only had they both previously won big tournaments in Paris, but also neither man had been pinned in Paris (in the case of Poddubny ever while Pons may had lost in Paris before but that would have been over 10 years ago so no one would even remember it). So, did Pons accept Poddubny's 20,000 franc challenge? No. In fact, he did not even respond to it. Poddubny then offered to do the match with no side bet, if needed, but there was no response from Pons again.

On 13 November as part of the World Championship at the Apollo, Pons was to wrestle Heinrich Winzer. Ivan Poddubny and two of his managers turned up at the show unannounced. When Pons was being introduced for his match he was announced as a World champion and when that happened one of Poddubny's managers stepped forward and issued a challenge. He said that Poddubny was the only World champion, brought up the 20,000 franc challenge, and wanted Pons to wrestle Poddubny right now on the spot. There's conflicting reports about this, but either Pons said that he was willing to do it once the tournament was finished or a few other wrestlers from the tournament stepped up to accept the challenge instead for after the tournament ended. Or perhaps it was both.

From the following day onward Ivan Poddubny started wrestling at Casino de Paris in what was billed as a "Poddubny against all" series of events. He had issued an open challenge: 200 francs to anyone who could last 15 minutes with him and 8,000 francs to anyone who could defeat him. The first man to accept Poddubny's challenge was quite an interesting one: the American Sam McVea (one of the boxing greats of the era). McVea, who was in Paris for a boxing fight, was set to wrestle Poddubny on 14 November, but ultimately did not (depending on which reports you believe he either didn't turn up because he found out the money involved was nowhere near as advertised or he didn't turn up because he had a change of heart when it came to facing a top wrestler such as Poddubny). Over the next three weeks at Casino de Paris Poddubny wrestled various wrestlers such as Chambers Zipps, Nikolai Vahturov, Pierre le Colosse, Ali Ahmet, Alec Bain, Max Oster, Leonardt Reiber, Favouet, Julius Cochard, Karl Cillis, etc. Among his opponents was also Edouard Miller, who left the World Championship at the Apollo without officially being eliminated from the tournament and came over to Casino de Paris to wrestle Poddubny in a pair of matches under catch-as-catch-can rules.

As Poddubny was going through opponent after opponent at Casino de Paris, the venue used an interesting tactic in advertising his daily performances. They put up posters all over Paris referencing Poddubny's 20,000 franc challenge to Pons, saying that Pons was afraid of Poddubny, and calling for wrestlers to not spend a whole month wrestling in the World Championship tournament at the Apollo just so they could lie down in front of Pons (i.e. they were basically saying Pons' matches were rigged) but instead to come to Casino de Paris where they could win 8,000 francs in just one night if they managed to defeat Poddubny. Briefly there were also newspaper adverts dubbing Poddubny as "the terror of Pons".

This went on a for a while and then on 29 November there was another challenge by Poddubny. There had been some recent floods in Southern France (which is where Pons was from) and Poddubny offered to wrestle Pons in a charity match with all proceeds going to those affected by the floods. The Casino de Paris director offered his venue, rent free, to host the match. Pons, again, did not respond. It's good to mention here that about a week later one of the shows at the Apollo ended up being a benefit show for those affected by the floods.

Poddubny finished up his run at Casino de Paris on 4 December and then went back to London for a big match with Zbyszko. The World Championship tournament at the Apollo finished on 9 December. Pons was the winner, of course. That seemed to be the end of the Poddubny vs. Pons talk in Paris, but a few months later there was an interesting development.

In early May 1908 Paul Pons ended up suing Ivan Poddubny, the Casino de Paris director Gustave Zittel and the two newspapers that had pushed Poddubny's 20,000 franc challenge forward ("Les Sports" and "Le Journal"). Pons was suing for unfair competition and defamation of character. He was asking for 40,000 francs in damages. Pons felt the actions of Poddubny, Zittel and the two newspapers, particularly the posters around town Zittel had put up, had damaged his reputation. Pons' defense for not accepting Poddubny's challenge was that Poddubny had waited for the field for the World Championship to be fully finalized before he challenged Pons knowing full well this wasn't acceptable and Pons couldn't take him on while being contracted to wrestle in the World Championship.

Ivan Poddubny (left), Paul Pons (right) and an article about the lawsuit

In the trial, which was very quick, all parties involved had their own separate lawyers. Ultimately Poddubny was exonerated, but Zittel and the newspapers were found guilty. The court ruled there couldn't be any unfair competition since Poddubny and Pons weren't merchants, but there was defamation of character because of how Zittel and the newspapers presented Pons. Zittel and the two newspapers were ordered to pay 3,000 francs in damages and the newspapers were also ordered to issue five retractions (one by "Le Journal" and four by "Les Sports"). Zittel was also ordered to take down all of the "Pons is afraid of Poddubny" posters from the walls of his venue or pay a fine of 50 francs per day for every day they weren't taken down, but even the newspaper reports covering the trial said that fine was a bit of a joke, because the posters had been put up way back in November and had been taken down a long time ago.

And that's where the Poddubny/Pons story ended. Poddubny had a habit of calling out other wrestlers he wasn't working directly with (in what I assume were shoot challenges), and this was one of the more high-profile instances of him doing so. Ultimately, other than that one match in Russia, Pons and Poddubny never wrestled each other. Both returned to Paris in late 1908 to compete in rival World Championship tournaments, and that may have been the last time they were ever in the same city at the same time.

Sidenote: The lawsuit received a little bit of press in the United States too.

American article about the Pons vs. Poddubny lawsuit