Also known as

The Roosevelt-Arranged Private Match (1905)

Description

A private match arranged by President Theodore Roosevelt on 23 February 1905 between Yamashita Yoshiaki and Joseph Grant, a middleweight catch-as-catch-can wrestler. Roosevelt wanted a firsthand answer to the jujutsu-vs-wrestling question that journalists and Russo-Japanese War propaganda had made fashionable. In Roosevelt's account, Yamashita choked Grant inside a minute and applied an elbow hold two minutes later, though Grant's strength plainly wore Yamashita down.

Part of

Participants (1)

• Yamashita YoshitsuguCompetitor

  fact_checkassessed by FSMverified

  Frederico Muñoz

  Researcher, Martialis

  2 sources expand_more

  fact_check

  Roosevelt's own letter to his son Kermit (quoted in Svinth) describes the match and its outcome in detail.

  “Wanting to know the answer for himself, on Thursday, February 23, 1905 the President arranged a private match between Professor Yamashita and a middleweight catch-as-catch-can wrestler named Joseph Grant.”

  — Joseph R. Svinth, "Professor Yamashita Goes to Washington", Journal of Combative Sport, Oct 2000link

  visibilityFirst-hand

  “Inside of a minute Yamashita had choked Grant, and inside of two minutes more he had got an elbow hold on him... [Still,] Grant in the actual wrestling and throwing was about as good as the Japanese, and he was so much stronger that he evidently hurt and wore out the little Japanese.”

  — Joseph R. Svinth, "Professor Yamashita Goes to Washington", Journal of Combative Sport, Oct 2000link

Styles (1)

Kōdōkan Jūdō

講道館柔道 · founded 1882, Tokyo

Tags

kodokan · catch-wrestling

Sources