Bronko Nagurski Beat Lou Thesz That Night
Tonight, I am in search of clues
on how to be a man, not a man
like my father, who traded his motorcycle
for a job in the plane yards after
my mother left. Before my father tried
telling me wrestling was fake,
we watched men scrap with brass
knuckles and bull ropes. Back then,
a dude could get his jaw broke
calling the wrong guy a fake.
Lou Thesz was a bona fide grappler,
stretching men with that toehold
facelock, snapping men’s elbows
to protect his championship belt.
My grandfather saw him lose the title
to Bronko Nagurski, celebrated footballer
who stomped men into the turf on his way
to the end zone. Before my father died,
he insisted my grandfather never saw
that match, that men always invent things
when they have something genuine
to say. Today, everyone knows that fight
was fixed. Tonight, I am thinking about
all those shapes Lou Thesz could twist
out of a man’s skeleton, and how
some nights that just isn’t enough.
Copyright Credit: W. Todd Kaneko, "Bronko Nagurski Beat Lou Thesz That Night" from The Dead Wrestler Elegies. Copyright © 2014 by W. Todd Kaneko. Reprinted by permission of Curbside Splendor Publishing.