Choki Motobu, Boxing, and Jen Kentel - 3 (A)

[emattson]

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By Graham Noble

Unfortunately there do not seem to be any contemporary reports of the Motobu – boxer match. Takao Nakaya, the author of “Karate Do History and Philosophy”), told me that “about twenty five years ago I contacted Kyoto Newspaper Company (Kyoto Shimbun) for this story. The answer was that there were no materials about this story.” (email, 16 April, 2012). So we have no actual documentation on the contest: pretty much everything that has been written about it is speculation.

Who was the boxer? The “Kingu” article does not give a full name or nationality but the tradition is that he was a Russian or German. Richard Kim wrote not only that the boxer was German, but that he was the German champion who was unbeaten in Europe and intended to go to America to fight for the title there. Presumably that would have been the world heavyweight championship which was then held by Jack Dempsey.

It strains credulity, though, that a contender for the world heavyweight boxing championship would be fighting judoka in Kyoto or Tokyo. The actual European champion at that time was Georges Carpentier and he did fight Jack Dempsey for the World’s Championship at Boyles Thirty Acres in New York in July 1921, in front of the first “million dollar gate.” That was a match which generated huge public interest, and as a matter of fact the fight films were shown in Japan. According to “The Ring” magazine of 15 February 1922, the current German heavyweight champion was Hans Breitenstaater, who, the magazine thought, would be blown away quickly by Dempsey if they ever met. Breitenstaater, however, does not feature at all in the story of the world heavyweight boxing championship.

Germany actually became a strong boxing nation in the 1930s but around 1920 German boxers were probably not all that strong. That was only a couple of years after the end of the First World War and prior to that boxing had made little headway in Germany. “Health and Strength” magazine, for example, would occasionally comment on the general weakness of German boxing. “Health and Strength”, 18 January 1910, commented that “It seems a great pity that in such a manly sporting country as Germany is becoming, boxing has made so little headway.”

Since there were problems with the idea of a champion German heavyweight boxer in 1921 or ’22 I wrote to Richard Kim about the Motobu chapter in his book. He back-tracked a little again and in his reply (6 August 1985) he wrote: “I should have qualified the statement in my book that the boxer was the European heavyweight (champion). He claimed to be the Champion. I should have stressed that. But the fact is Motobu beat him. Previous to this no karate expert had ever faced a boxer.”

There is no proof that the boxer was German, though he could have been, and there are similar problems in trying to prove that Motobu’s opponent was a Russian. Again, Russia was not much of a presence in boxing at that time. Boxing was really only introduced in Russia by the Communist government in the 1920s, and that was on an amateur basis. I’m not too sure about the history of boxing in Russia, but it’s telling that Jack Hare, in his 1925 book “Gladiators of the Prize Ring and My World Travels”, included a comprehensive, fifty-two page record section which listed the current champions at all weights for the following countries: Great Britain, France, Belgium, Italy Holland, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, South America, and Canada. Nothing is listed for Russia.

There were however, White Russians who had left the country after the civil war with the communists and who settled for a time in Japan. A few of these may have learned some boxing, although their skill level wasn’t very high. Joe Svinth noted that any Russian boxers in early 1920s Japan were mostly White Russians and Czech refugees. Apparently Yujiro Watanabe, the “father of Japanese professional boxing” had fought several of these men and said they were not real boxers, and had never put on a pair of boxing gloves before coming to Japan. As an example, “The Ring” of November 1924 included a feature about a Russian heavyweight prospect called Ivan Karloff, a Cossack. Karloff was then boxing out of Seattle but he had spent some time in Yokohama in Japan after being evacuated from Vladivostock in October 1922, and that is where he had learned the basics of boxing, (and “jiu jitsu” too, according to the article). Karloff was described as “a crack athlete in Russia,” but his ring tactics were “by no means polished” and he was never heard of again, but it’s interesting that he was in Japan for a time and was introduced to boxing there: it shows that a Russian opponent for Motobu was possible. Of course, Motobu’s opponent could have been any foreigner, or possibly a foreign sailor, as was the case for the fights that E. J. Harrison was involved with.

“KIngu” magazine simply called the boxer “George”. Motobu himself remembered only that he was called “John Somebody.” Other versions of his name are Johnson, (Chozo Nakama), John Nicholaiski, (Eizo Shimabuku), John Mette (Frank Hargrove) or John Kentaro.

Those names mean nothing - with the exception of John Kentaro. I can’t actually remember where I saw that name, but it rang a bell, because there was an old time Russian – Estonian actually - weight lifter and wrestler called Jan (or John) Kentel. That could easily have been read as “John Kentaro” in Japanese, and the interesting thing is that Jan Kentel did actually spend a part of his life in Japan in the 1920s.

Russia may not have been known for producing boxers in the early part of the 20th Century, but it was certainly known for its strongmen and wrestlers. Estonia in particular produced such great athletes and wrestlers as George Hackenschmidt, George Lurich, and Alexander Aberg. Jan Kentel came a little after them and apparently he was even called “Young Lurich” or “The Second Lurich”, but unfortunately there is little information available on him: he is not mentioned in any of the histories of strongmen and wrestling, such as Desbonnet’s “Les Rois de la Force” and “Les Rois de la Lutte”, David Willoughby’s “The Super Athletes”, Leo Gaudreau’s “Anvils, Horseshoes and Cannons” and David Webster’s “Sons of Samson”.

I wrote to strength historian Josef Svub to ask if he knew anything about Kentel. Josef had written a series of nice articles on Russian and East European strongmen for “Milo” magazine, and I thought he might be able to help. Unfortunately he too could find little about Kentel, apart from a couple of fragments. Olaf Langsepp’s 1968 biography of George Hackenschmidt contained a photograph of Kentel and a very brief reference to him in the context of the wrestling and weightlifting scene of the time: “Three athletes from Estonia who took home laurels of world fame were Lurich, Hackenschmidt and Aberg. In addition to them was a large number of other professionals who were talked about in Russia and Europe. The best wrestlers came from the group of Lurich – Gustav Vachar, Jan Jaago, and Johann Tigane, plus lifters Gustav Vain, Jan Kentel, Gustav Boesberg, and Johann Kalla.” Josef also found a couple of references in old magazines to Kentel coming second in a 1915 wrestling championship in Pskov, Russia, and to being the one time European Wrestling Champion.

Michael Murphy, a great collector of old wrestling and weightlifting material sent me a postcard of Jan Kentel. Interestingly, it was a Japanese postcard and it read (in Japanese) “Jan Kentel. Strongest Man in the World.” Information relating to the card stated that Kentel was “Hired in Japan as a teacher of heavy athletics for students and army. Worked there for ten years. After Japan went to Australia and worked as a weightlifting and wrestling teacher.”

There were a few other other brief references. David Webster, in”Barbells and Beefcake”, his 1979 history of bodybuilding, wrote that “During the Taisho era (1912 – 1925) many professional strong men went to Japan . . . John Kental was one of the most popular of these and his largest weight which he put overhead easily with both hands was said to weigh 250 pounds.” An internet kettlebell site had a photo of Japanese amateur wrestler Kitahata Kanetaka doing a neck bridge with a 32kg (70 pound) kettlebell in each hand, circa 1937, and the caption to the photo read that Kitahata was taught kettlebell lifting by the Estonian strongman, wrestler and boxer Jan Kentel, who introduced kettlebell training to Japan: kettlebells were a characteristic piece of training equipment in early 20th Century Russian and Eastern Europe. And Joe Svinth, in a note to a 1919 article on the Dewanoumi sumo school wrote that “Its first foreign student was probably the strongman John Kentel, who trained at the club in January 1920.” It’s not clear how long Kentel trained there but Joe added a note that on August 3, 1922, “The Japan Times” reported that “the wife of John Kentel, a Spanish (sic) pugilist, was robbed of her hand bag containing Y5,200 in. cash, while out for a walk with her husband. A party of 200 persons gave chase and captured the alleged culprit, handing him over to police.” “Spanish” is clearly a mistake; the reference to Kentel being a pugilist may mean that he was trying out boxing at that stage or it may just be a shorthand for fighter or wrestler.

There was a book published in Estonia in 1973, “Eesti Raskejõustiku Ajaloost”, (“Heavy Athletics in Estonia”, apparently) by Georg Kristjanson. It contains biographies of eighty Estonian athletes, wrestlers, boxers and strongmen going back to the late 19th Century and it has a brief entry on Jan Kentel. His birth date is given as 1881, so he was roughly contemporary with Lurich, Hackenschmidt and Aberg. He was five years younger than Lurich, hence his nickname of “The Young Lurich”, and he would have been forty or so at the time of Motobu’s match with the foreign boxer. Kentel’s entry is brief, just several lines. It’s in Estonian, of course, but it appears to say that Kentel was born in Talin in 1881 and died in Australia in 1936, and it also repeats the information about him working in Japan and Australia. (The Australian newspapers reported his funeral taking place on June 6, 1938, and not 1936).

The exact dates of his Japanese and Australian stays are not clear, but he appears in a couple of Australian newspaper reports in the late 1920s. An undated clipping refers to the imminent arrival of Kentel in Australia. Headed “Kentel’s Claim” it reads:

“The following letter has been received from John Kentel of Real, Esthonia, who signs himself ‘Champion of the World.’

“Let John introduce himself to the Australian public in his own words: -

“Being on my world tour, I hope to be in Australia in December this year, in order to meet the Australian champions. As Zbyszko-Zyganevitch is in Australia just now, I challenge him, and all other champions who are in Australia now, to wrestle with me for any side bet.”

As to Kentel being World Champion – he doesn’t feature in any of the professional-wrestling histories as world champion, but there have been many wrestlers who have made that claim, just to promote themselves. Zbyszko-Zyganevitch was Stanislaus Zbyszko, a famous pro-wrestler and one time world champion. He was born in 1879, a couple of years before Kentel, so by that point, the second half of the 1920s, both men were old timers in sporting terms.

A Melbourne paper, “The Argus”, carried a couple of mentions of Kentel wrestling bouts in Australia. The edition of 24 October, 1927 had a report of his match with George Zarynoff, headed “Science versus Strength.” Zarynoff was a well-known light heavyweight pro wrestler weighing in at 13 stone (182 pounds). Kentel was described as a strongman from Estonia weighing 3 stone 5 pounds more, or 229 pounds. Zarynoff won the bout by 2 falls to 1. The report noted that “Kentel relied almost entirely on his strength and his great bulk made it difficult for his opponent to move him.” He was warned several times about striking Zarynoff on the back of the neck. “The spectators were frequently roused to great wrath” by his behaviour: he wouldn’t release holds when told, frequently pushed the referee away, “hung on the ropes when pressed and twice grasped the referee by the legs while struggling on the mat.” Kentel won the first fall with a body press in four minutes but then seemed to weaken as the match went on and Zarynoff got the next fall with a double arm scissors, arm bar and body press. After this Kentel was “dazed by being thrown heavily several times in succession. Zarynoff’s speed was too great and he obtained the deciding fall – a submission - with a hammerlock.”

Three weeks later Kentel fought the well-known American light-heavyweight Ad Santel (183 pounds) in a bout described by the paper as “a burlesque”, (“The Argus”, 14 November 1927.) In a similar vein to the previous report, the newspapaper commented that “Kentel has only a vague knowledge of English, and knows very little about the science of wrestling, relying almost entirely on his great strength for offence and defence. His mannerisms aroused the crowd, who laughed at his annoyance when his opponent escaped from what he considered a good hold. Kentel objected strenuously to holds that hurt him, and called out loudly. ‘Nose, nose, my nose!’ when face-bars or headlocks were applied. In the second round Kentel rolled Santel, whose shoulders were on the mat for perhaps half a second. Kentel turned to the referee and invited him to award the fall to him. While so occupied Santel rushed in, and after throwing him several times, applied the ‘Boston Crab’, to which Kentel quickly capitulated. At the end of the third round Kentel objected to the gong ringing when he was in an advantageous position, but could not induce the referee to order the bout to proceed. Kentel wriggled out of a double arm scissors in the fourth round, and applied a hammerlock. Santel at length broke loose, and Kentel was so disappointed that he raised his arm as if to strike.”

We can’t make much, if anything, of the reports because these were “worked” (pre-arranged) pro-wrestling matches where Kentel played the foreign heel, the bad guy. He was quite a big heavyweight for that time so he would have played up to his size and strength and actually he may have been a better wrestler than he appeared in the professional ring. He was well known as a strongman too, of course - in the earlier part of the 20th Century there used to be quite a bit of crossover between wrestling and strong man performances – and he appears in that role too in the old Australian papers. “The Inverell Times” of 29 May 1929, for example, had this:

“An Amazing Russian

“Accompanied by his smiling wife, John Kentel, who claims to be the strongest man in the world, visited the “Times” office yesterday and quite agreeably interrupted the monotony of office work. He first selected a couple of seven inch nails and, as a striking introduction, twisted and twined them, without much apparent effort, into the form of an anchor. Next he snapped with his fingers a big iron chain, giving the editor of this paper the choice as to the particular link he would like broken. Warming to the game, Kentel produced a solid length of steel and put all sorts of twists and turns in it and, finally, placing a substantial piece of timber at least an inch thick on two chairs, drove two seven inch nails into it in two blows from the palm of his hand. The nails did not merely penetrate the wood but protruded about an inch and a half through. It was certainly an exhibition of phenomenal strength. Like most modern Samsons, Mr. Kentel is agreeable and pleasant in his manner and, after seeing his performance with the nails and solid steel nobody was tempted to be otherwise than remarkably genial. Kentel is the star attraction at the Theatre Inverell on Saturday night and should be worth coming far to see.”

This is the report of his performance in Brisbane, (“The Brisbane Courier”, 6 July, 1929):

“STRONG MAN AT MAJESTIC

“By his amazing feats of strength at the New Majestic Theatre, the Esthonian, John Kentel, provides an eloquent argument in support of his claim to be the world’s strongest man. Kentel, who appears on the stage of the theatre at the afternoon and evening sessions, is a powerfully built man whom one would expect to see juggling enormous weights. But he confines himself to efforts which, although not as spectacular, require a greater amount of concentrated strength. He uses his fingers, for instance, to tie two seven-inch nails into a knot, and to put an elongated twist on a short piece of iron three-eighths of an inch thick. He is equally effective with his chest, the expansion of which snaps a heavy iron chain and a thick piece of coiled wire. In driving two large nails through a block of wood three inches thick. Kentel uses the palm of his hand. This is regarded as his most astounding feat.”

This was a pretty orthodox strong man act for that time, but it is a little curious that it is echoed in the account given by Eizo Shimabuku in his 1964 book, of the time when the boxer John Nicholiaski visited Okinawa and performed a strong man act which included wrapping a steel bar round his wrist and pounding a five inch nail into a piece of wood and puling it out again.

It’s interesting too that Kentel’s weight for those wrestling bouts was given as over sixteen stone, around 230 pounds. In his younger days he had been called a Second (George) Lurich, and in his earlier photos he has quite a lean, muscular physique similar to Lurich; in fact he copies a couple of Lurich’s characteristic poses. But obviously by the time he was performing in Australia in the late 1920s he had put on quite a bit of weight. A few years earlier, in Japan, he may have been a little lighter, but in any case he would still have been much bigger and heavier than a Choki Motobu.

Anyway, it seems that, after leaving Russia, Jan Kentel had to travel around to make a living following the decline of the golden age of strong men around the turn of the century. There were others in a similar position. For example, the January 1954 edition of “Strength and Health” carried a paragraph on a Russian strongman and athlete, Basil Korolev, who had immigrated to the USA a couple of years before. The short feature stated that “His career as a professional athlete started in Japan in 1919 after leaving his native Russia at the start of the Revolution. For 17 years he was undefeated in judo and boxing contests in Japan and ranked as the heavyweight title holder until his retirement in 1934. Weight lifting demonstrations played an equally important role in his athletic achievements.” A photograph was appended of Korolev curling a pair of kettlebells, said to be 80 pounds each, in front of a large Japanese crowd.

I don’t know when the name of Jan Kentel came up as Choki Motobu’s opponent. Surprisingly, Choki Motobu never talked about the match against the boxer with his son Chosei, but Chosei did say that he had been told by his father’s students that Choki had fought a foreign boxer named John Kentel. In his article on Choki Motobu, Charles Goodin wrote that Seikichi Uehara had told Chosei Motobu that a man named Keishi Tsunegawa had been there when his father fought the boxer. Chosei investigated and found that in fact it wasn’t Tsunegawa but another man who had worked with him, a Mr Hamakawa. Hamakawa had said that he had been visiting Japan at the time of the match, the boxer was called John Kentel and he (Kentel) had come to Japan accompanied by two students. They went to Tokyo – not Kyoto – where they fought challenges and defeated several judoka. According to this story, Kentel took Choki Motobu lightly, but “Finally Kentel agreed and the two assumed fighting postures. But even before Kentel could throw a punch, Motobu kicked him in the back of the ear. Kentel dropped dead on the spot.” Hmmm.

Charles had problems with this account, not least the Tokyo location and the assertion that Choki Motobu had kicked his opponent behind the ear: high kicks were not a feature of Motobu’s karate, or in fact, of any karate style at that time and in fact Motobu advised against the over-use of kicks. Also, almost all other accounts, including that of Choki Motobu himself, say that the match took place in Kyoto. And of course Jan Kentel wasn’t killed by Motobu’s attack: as the Australian newspapers show, he was very much alive in the late 1920s.

The only other account that gives a Tokyo location is Eizo Shimabuku’s – and he also says that Motobu used a kicking attack with both feet, and that the boxer was killed. It seems quite plausible that Hamakawa was just spinning a yarn, that he had never seen the contest but had mangled a few versions of the contest, including Shimabuku’s, to produce his own “eye witness account.”

In any case, there is another problem. This may have arisen from interpretation or translation or something, but when I met Chosei Motobu in 1998 I asked about the match against the boxer. Chosei replied, and the translation by Kiko Ferreira on the interview tape is: “Inaba Sensei and Chosei Sensei say that many years ago, they don’t remember exactly what year, they made a special trip to Okinawa because they found out that somebody was supposed to know the whole truth about Choki and John Kentel. So they went to visit one person who notified them that somebody knew the whole truth about it. So when they went to Okinawa, this man was the owner of an Okinawan noodle shop, and they talked to him and he said ‘I did not go to see the match myself, but I know the man who went to see that match.’ So this man gave them the name and the address of who they could see, but this other man lived in Tokyo. So they went back to Tokyo and tried to look for this address, and they found it but and then they asked if this Mr So- and-so lives here, it was someone else who was living there.”

Chosei and Inaba were unable to get a forwarding address and so the trail went dead; they were never able to trace the man in question and get his story.

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[Aymer974]

thank you sir for the work

[emattson]

"high kicks were not a feature of Motobu’s karate, or in fact, of any karate style at that time"

For good reason in my humble opinion. Uechi-ryu kicking exercises for beginners are always low enough to hit the knee or waist at the highest. Any higher requires excellent flexibility training which would probably be better spent on other techniques that can give more bang for the buck. No question high kicks are flashy and can give the opponent a sense of awe. There's the matter of speed. Legs, being heavier, can't move as fast as arms. A Hooking Kick takes a slow 0.117 of a second to hit a target. A Front Punch takes 0.03 of a second to knock the breath out of the bad guy. With arms in proper position, the fist didn't need to travel far to punch someone's face in. A foot needs to travel a lot further. Leo, one of my sinsei, commented that during kickboxing matches, the fighters try to use kicks as little as possible.
https://pacificinternationaltaekwondo.c ... taekwondo/