The first American to win the freestyle wrestling world championship, he defeated Georg Hackenschmidt (shown later in today's series) in 1908. The Hackenschmidt match was widely described has having been stolen by Gotch via fouls ignored by the referee. He died at age 40 in 1917, allegedly of syphillis, athough the coroner said it was uremic poisoning.
Back when there were no miracle drugs like we have today. People would die from simple infections and childhood diseases we take for granted today….:(
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