Dead Man in the Ring: Part Two

This year, 2025, marks the 100th anniversary of Fairbury native and wrestling pioneer “Big” Wayne Munn winning the wrestling championship title from Ed “Strangler Lewis, and just a few months later, losing the title. It also marks the 100th anniversary of a lesser known but historically significant incident in Munn's life, his brief flirtation with prize fighting that resulted in humiliation, a brutal mob murder and a literary classic. The Fight of “Agile” Andre Anderson By Gordon Hopkins While known far and wide as a wrestler, “Big” Wayne Munn (or Wayne “Big” Munn, there is little consistency in the news accounts of his career) had tried his fists at boxing once before. It did not go well. Nevertheless, by the end of 1925, Munn’s wrestling career seemed to be on a downward slide. His short reign as champ was over, having never even gotten to wear the belt. So, Munn decided to slip the gloves back on and give boxing another shot.Actually, it wasn’t exactly Munn’s idea. Chicago promoter Ed White of the Lewis-Sandow syndicate bought Munn’s contract from Gabe Kaufman. According to a report in the Sedalia-Democrat of Missouri, it was actually White’s idea, “White decided to turn the big Nebraskan into a boxer.”Other news accounts at the time suggest the Sedalia-Democrat was not the only newspaper apparently unaware that Munn had been a boxer once before.The Sedalia-Democrat also reported that Munn would not be abandoning the grappling arts altogether, “His new pilot intimates that no wrestling offers will be turned down, but in the future it will be boxing matches which have first call.”Not everyone felt Munn’s return to boxing was worth the ink the sports pages were giving it.“Wayne Munn’s scheduled appearance in the fistic ring,” wrote Clyde McBride of theKansas City Star, “carries a far greater appeal than the worth of the boutas a genuine pugilistic attraction really merits.” The big man’s first boxing match would be against Andre Anderson.Interestingly enough, this was not the first time Munn and Anderson had done battle. During his stint as a wrestler the previous year, Anderson took on Munn in Chicago. Tuesday night, April 29, Munn defeated Anderson in six minutes and 10 seconds with a toehold.Munn’s victory earned just a single sentence in the Racine Journal-News. Most of the inches in the newspaper’s account of that night went to “Strangler” Lewis.The Strangler’s primary opponent that night was not Italian grappler Mike Romano, whom Lewis defeated in two out of three falls. Instead, it was the audience. Thousands of spectators were incensed at Lewis and referee Charles Lavine for giving Lewis a second fall. The ref also had to take on Romano’s manager, who climbed into the ring and started a fistfight with him.Feeling that merely booing did not sufficiently express their displeasure, the audience began pelting the ring with pop bottles. Police surrounded the ring to stop the fight. Lewis was escorted from the ring by a cordon of police and taken to his hotel via patrol wagon.A woman who threw a bottle, and missed Lewis’ head “by a fraction of an inch,” got more inches in that newspaper story than Munn’s defeat of Anderson, which had to be galling for Munn, and possibly for Lewis as well. On Wednesday night, December 23, 2025, at the new memorial in Kansas City, Munn faced Anderson with the gloves on. Newspapers expressed some optimism on behalf of the massive Nebraskan. An unnamed sports writer for the Lincoln Evening State Journal wrote the day of the fight, “This is a trial trip for Munn. Should he beat Anderson he will remain in the ring for several more battles at least. While he has no thoughts that he will ever become heavyweight champion of the world and is not seeking Jack Dempsey’s title as heavyweight appear to be to hear them talk, he believes he will be able to mix in boxing with wrestling and be a very busy athlete from now on.”Despite the tone of optimism, the writer acknowledged the unlikelihood of such a career, “If he does he is the only man that ever combined the two with any degree of success.”That optimism was based not so much on Munn’s largely unknown boxing history but on Anderson’s own, “Anderson is a big fellow but his record is not well crowded with victories. He is a good trial horse for the former University of Nebraska athlete.”At 259, Munn had a 20-pound advantage over Anderson. Munn’s performance in the ring was a disaster. For Anderson, it would be much, much worse.The fight lasted just one minute and 56 seconds.Anderson knocked Munn into a neutral corner seconds after the bell rang. It took Munn to the count of nine to recover. Munn approached his opponent but was unable to defend himself against the short, straight jabs of Anderson, who landed an uppercut that sent Munn off his feet and ended the fight.The sport writers covering the match were predictably unsympathetic and, occasionally, even cruel.Headlines read: “Big Munn Kayoed During First Round” and “Big Wayne Munn ‘Flops’ and Boxer” and “Big Munn Proves That Wrestlers Can Not Become Good Pugilists.”“Munn, in the opinion of fight fans here, as a box fighter, is a pretty good wrestler,” wrote one commentator in the Denton Record Chronicle. “The former Nebraska football star didn’t have a chance from the moment he stepped in the ring.”A wire story from the Associated Press wrote the epitaph to Munn’s hoped-for boxing career, “Nursing a battered chin, Wayne ‘Big’ Munn today had given up his dreams of a career in the prize ring.”Munn seemed to agree. He told a reporter after the bout, “I guess I wasn’t cut out for boxing. I guess I’ll stick to wrestling.” As predicted, it was Wayne Munn’s last boxing match. Andre Anderson would have just one more fight before his boxing career ended as well, but for very different reasons. To be continued…

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