On the Mat-And Off: Memoirs of a Wrestler Hjalmar Lundin

Lundin arrived in the U.S. in 1893 and was touring as a strongman by 1894. For decades following, he toured the U.S. and other countries as an exceptional wrestler. Lundin documents his associations with the most famous wrestlers of his time, such as Farmer Burns, Frank Gotch, Mitsuyo Maeda (Konde Koma), Ed "Strangler" Lewis, Tom Jenkins, George Hackenschmidt, Jim Londos, and many others. Lundin describes the differences between the "shooting" matches and the "works" that came later. He tells who could wrestle and who couldn't, and discusses everyone from Olympians to those who made their living purely as entertainers in the rasslin' ring. Included is Lundin's account of his defeat of Mitsuyo Maeda, the man responsible for Brazilian jiu-jitsu.