Stanislaus Cyganiewicz was an educated man. He was a lawyer, poet and musician, and he spoke eleven languages. He was also a professional wrestler, and in order to make his name easier to pronounce, he changed it to Zbysco.
For several years, Zbysco had a feud with another wrestler named Alex Aberg. Zbysco was from Poland an Aberg was from Estonia. They had met twice in the ring, and both times had wrestled to a draw. During those matches the wrestlers had used a number of illegal holds, and as a result there was no love lost between them. To be truthful, they hated each other!
During World War I, the wrestlers agreed to another match, to be held in Petrograd, Russia. The spectators were to be mostly Russian soldiers, friends of Aberg. Aberg hated Zbysco so much that he began to spread rumors that his opponent was really a spy. Hadn’t he graduated from the University of Vienna, which was in Austria, one of Russia’s enemies? Was it normal for a man to speak so many languages? Why would he learn them all if he wasn’t a spy? The Russian authorities believed Aberg. When Zbysco showed up he was arrested and thrown into prison.
On the day of the match Zbysco was taken into court. The judges gave him an incredible choice: If he won the match he would be given his purse and allowed to go free. If he lost, he would be executed as a spy. For Zbysco it was a terrible situation. Even if he did win, Aberg’s friends might not let him get out of the ring and out of Russia.
The wrestlers tore into each other savagely. For 2 hours 43 minutes they strained against each other. Finally, Zbysco threw his opponent to the mat and pinned him.
As he stood in the ring and was handed the purse of gold coins, Zbysco could see the rage on the faces of the spectators. Calmly he reached into the pouch, took out the gold coins and threw them into the crowd.
Immediately, there was a mad scramble for the gold. Zbysco took advantage of the free-for-all to slip out of the arena and make his getaway.
Later, Zbysco went to America and became a nationally famous pro wrestler. When he had made enough money, he returned to his native land, bought a large piece of land and became a prosperous farmer.
From The Giant Book of Strange But True Sports Stories by Howard Liss. Illustrations by Joe Mathieu.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislaus_Zbyszko
I’m going to be on vacation for the rest of the week, so it’s likely I won’t be able to post another one of these until Monday.
Have a great week!
Stanislaus Cyganiewicz is what we would call maximum points in Scrabble.
That’s a crazy story! Smart guy tossing coins to the crowd. It’s like something from an action flick.
Aberg’s innuendos to get Stan arrested as a spy reminds me of your average Fox idiot: “Hey, I’m just asking questions here.”
That’s nothing. The Undertaker buried AJ Styles alive at Wrestlemania.
Sounds a little bit like the end of Victory, a movie about a bunch of POWs during WW2 who get challenged to play soccer against an all star team of Germans, and POWs try to figure out how to use the game to cover their escape.
It’s not a great movie, but it’s fun to watch Pele try to act, Sylvester Stallone try to play soccer, and so on.
michael caine coached and played too!