"The lovers of this manly exercise had a rich treat on Wesnesday last, in a Match beween the worthy hosts of the Victory and Acorn Inns in this city, The match was for a crown aside, and came off in a field behind the Cavalry Barracks.
"At setting too (sic) Boniface of the Acorn had the best of it, not being encumbered with so much flesh as his antagonist of the Victory, who exhibited strong signs of piping in the first and second bouts, suffering from the heavy falls he received, but being decidedly the most scientific man, he gave the man of oak such a crossbussler that he came to the ground flat as a pancake, which the referees decided won the wager."
In the merry month of May, two well-set Exeter innkeepers wrestled each other to win or lose a crown (five shillings). They met in a field behind the Cavalry Barracks and no doubt, among others, their regulars turned up to cheer for them and someone would no doubt have made a book.
Mine host of the Victory , the heavier man, won the wager.
The other was the man of oak, i.e. of the Acorn - very witty! Was his name really Boniface? (Saint Boniface, who went to the schools in Exeter, has been revered locally for some thirteen hundred years and is, but only since 2019, officially the patron of Devon in the courts of heaven) Perhaps it was just that this host had a bony face.
Piping here means gasping for breath. It is used thus, I gather, only for boxers and wrestlers.
A crossbussler is a cross-buttock, a throw across the hip.
Encumbered with flesh might prove a useful euphemism for sensitivity readers.
Flat as a pancake has been around since, at least, the sixteenth century.
Innkeepers nowadays aren't as sporting as once they were.
Source: The Western Times, 23rd May, 1840.
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