Shooters

by Jonathan Snowden

  The trial became moot when Shikat dropped the title to gimmick wrestler Ali Baba in Detroit, Michigan. To satisfy the New York Commission, he repeated the spectacle a couple of weeks later in Madison Square Garden. Soon half a dozen men were once again claiming to be world champion. It would take a special performer to reunite the fractured wrestling world — luckily one was being groomed by Tom Packs in St. Louis, waiting for his opportunity to shine.

  10

  THESZ

  The greatest professional wrestling champion in history was the son of a Hungarian shoemaker, from St. Louis, Missouri. His father, Martin, schooled Aloysius “Lou” Thesz in the fundamentals of wrestling. Thesz was no schoolboy star. The Theszes were immigrants with traditional values. Where they came from in Hungary, a man worked, so when Lou was just 14 he dropped out of school to start full-time in his father’s shop. But he dreamed of wrestling, of being one of the greats he and his father watched at the St. Louis Coliseum every week. In the evenings Thesz worked out with the local high school wrestling team, eventually catching the eye of one of the city’s wrestling stalwarts. Soon young Thesz was living his dream.

  Tom Packs, the wrestling promoter in St. Louis, liked what he saw in Thesz. Good looking and tall with a muscular physique, Thesz had the makings of a good young wrestler. Packs sent him to George Tragos for seasoning. A former Olympian who competed for Greece, Tragos was one of the most feared men of his time. He was a ripper, a wrestler who wouldn’t just beat you, he’d look to hurt you. In the gym they called him “Icewater,” thinking that must be what ran in his veins for him to cruelly end so many careers. But Tragos took a liking to Thesz, respecting the boy’s willingness to work hard and follow instruction. For two years Thesz learned from the veteran, not just strategies to succeed on the mats but also some carny tricks to make a few bucks.

  As a young wrestler, Thesz was making his way in the business, advancing to the main event in his hometown of St. Louis. It was there he would make a connection that would change his life. When Ed Lewis, the legendary former champion, was in town on his way to a booking in the Midwest, Thesz was encouraged to challenge him to a friendly contest. Thesz was fast, young, and a strong 220 pounds. Lewis, despite his formidable reputation, was 46 years old, fat, and nearly blind. The “boys” convinced Thesz it wouldn’t be close — and it wasn’t, only not in the way young Lou had imagined.

  “It was the longest 15 minutes of my life. . . . I was absolutely humiliated,” Thesz remembered. “I shouldn’t have been, of course, because this was Ed Lewis, but I didn’t see it that way at the time. I was so discouraged and embarrassed that I packed my gear immediately after the workout and headed home to brood. The next day I dropped by promoter Tom Packs’ office and told him I was quitting.”

  THE LEGENDARY NWA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION LOU THESZ

  SPECIAL COLLECTIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES OF NOTRE DAME

  It was Lewis who called the Thesz house and spoke to Lou’s father, telling the elder Thesz that Lou had a real future as a wrestler. Recalled Thesz, “He called my father, which would be like the President of the United States calling you to say ‘Hello’ because my father had never talked with him. Anyway he said to my father, ‘Tell that guy to get back up here.’ He said, ‘Tell the boy to come back, he did very, very well.’ He said, ‘But he forgot that he was wrestling me, and I’ve traveled the world and learned to take care of myself and that’s what we were trying to teach him to do.’ So I mulled that over a day or two and when I looked at the shoe repair shop again, compared to the fantastic hype you get with the wrestling, I said, ‘I think I’m going back to the gym.’”

  Lewis would mentor Thesz throughout his career, often traveling with him as a manager. The other great influence on Lou’s career was Ad Santel, the tough German wrestler and “judo conquerer” of the early 1920s who contemporaries say gave even heavyweights fits despite weighing just 175 pounds. Thesz already knew some hooks thanks to his early training with George Tragos. But it was Santel who really let him in on the trade, making Thesz one of the most dangerous grapplers in the world.

  Thesz explains in Hooker, “Once he’d become satisfied that I was serious about my wrestling, Ad decided to induct me into the club. That’s exactly how I thought of it too, like an initiation into a very small fraternity, and I was honored this wonderful old man thought enough of me to pass along his secrets. What can I tell you about hooking? Well, all I can say is that no matter where I put my hands on him, Ad could hurt me. And I mean hurt me too. Once, when Joe Malcewicz had dropped by and was watching one of our workouts, I had Ad face down on he mat and was behind him hovering over him; I reached between his legs, trying to turn him over for a possible pin, and he hooked me so quickly and forcefully that he almost broke my arm. ‘What are you doing?’ Joe screamed at Ad, rushing onto the mat. ‘I finally get a boy that I can make some money with and here you go trying to cripple him.’”

  The summer he spent with Santel was priceless. Wrestling had changed, and an ability to actually wrestle was barely on the list of necessary skills to make it in the business. But for Thesz, a reputation as a tough guy, as he called it a “dangerous gunslinger,” meant everything. It meant promoters could trust him as champion, sending him to foreign lands and all over North America, confident he would come home with the belt if push came to shove.

  It also allowed Thesz leverage — the bottom line was, if he didn’t want to lose, very few men were going to be able to force him to. And that meant something in the fierce political battles behind the scenes. In an era when most promoters were pushing charismatic characters, Thesz was a firm believer in promoting real wrestlers.

  “I never had any illusions that it was anything but a business,” Thesz wrote at WrestlingClassics.com. “As I said in my book, any time you sell tickets, it is a business. However, I preferred to see professional wrestling as it was in the gym and in public workouts. I was naive enough to believe it could be that exciting and still involve the audience . . . and still sell tickets.”

  He often refused to put over showmen on principle, instead making several careers by agreeing to do strategic jobs, turning midcard wrestlers with real credentials into stars overnight. Wrote Dave Meltzer, “Thesz, at least during the prime when he had that power, only waved the magic wand of stardom on occasion and for those who he personally believed deserved it. A believer in wrestling ability as paramount . . . he refused when he was champion to make what he considered subpar wrestlers look good, even if they were drawing big money at the time.”

  Thesz didn’t just refuse to put non-wrestlers over, he would embarrass them in the ring. Thesz held grudges for years, often for reasons known only to him. A run-in with promoter Toots Mondt infuriated Thesz early in his career and it was something Thesz never forgot. He didn’t just take it out on Mondt — he took it out on anyone Mondt was associated with, including Antonino Rocca. Rocca was one of the biggest stars in the industry, but Thesz wouldn’t work cooperatively with him in the 1950s, costing promoters around the country big bucks.

  Angry that Rocca had left the Houston territory for big money in New York, skipping out on dates in the process, Thesz made the Argentinean pay in the ring. Rocca was scared out of his wits when Thesz informed his manager that “tonight, we’re wrestling.” Refusing to lock up, Rocca tried to escape to the back for a count-out loss. Thesz grabbed him by the throat and forced him back in the ring where he knocked him unconscious with a back suplex.

  “Rocca was Toots’ property,” Thesz wrote in his autobiography Hooker. “And I wasn’t about to help put money in his pocket. Beating Rocca was my way of paying Toots back for the way he had treated us years earlier.”

  Today Thesz is most associated with the National Wrestling Alliance and rightfully so — he was the world champion for the promotion for more than 10 years. But before he was the promotion’s flag bearer, Thesz had b
een its fierce rival. Like many top wrestlers, he realized that the big money was in promoting, buying Tom Packs’ St. Louis territory with a group of Canadian promoters and fellow wrestler Bill Longson in 1946.

  Together, the two men did big business for the territory they owned. Longson was Thesz’s opposite — Thesz was clean cut and a scientific wrestler, Longson was one of wrestling’s first wild brawlers. The two went head to head as the top stars of their own show for more than a year before Thesz won the National Wrestling Association title in Indianapolis. But it was the other NWA, the Alliance, which would end up ruling the wrestling world.

  The Alliance leader was Sam Muchnick. A former newspaper reporter in St. Louis, Muchnick was the publicist for Packs’ wrestling promotion. He got bit by the wrestling bug and was running opposition to Lou in St. Louis. Worse for Thesz and his partners, Muchnick was also instrumental in the formation of the NWA, a loose collection of promoters who looked to work together cooperatively. No one thought a national promotion was even possible. The previous decades had seen attempts to organize and work as teams fail when greed got the best of greedy men. But against the odds, Muchnick was making things work with the NWA.

  Eventually the two sides merged, with both men doing what they did best; Muchnick was wrestling to control his fellow promoters while Thesz wrestled challengers to his grappling supremacy all over the country. Working three or four nights a week, Thesz wrestled in 32 NWA territories in those early days. In an era of gimmicks, Muchnick and promoters liked having the steady Thesz at the helm. A clean-cut and imposing figure, he demanded respect and got it, even from skeptical promoters. He wasn’t the biggest star in wrestling but was solid enough at the box office. And he was a real shooter, capable of protecting himself in the event of a double cross and of coming into cities and challenging the champions of unaffiliated promotions.

  Although some old-timers dismiss Thesz’s legitimate credentials, pointing out his lack of any real competitive success, perceptions matter. And Thesz was thought to be a tough guy. No one wanted to meet Thesz head on in a real match, so he was able to make rival groups look weak. In National Wrestling Alliance, Tim Hornbaker explains, “The core of the Alliance understood that they needed to reestablish faith in a single titleholder among the wrestling fan base. Thesz ascended the throne, and from the moment the membership endorsed him as champion, until the day he lost the strap in March 1956, he brought honor to the title. Thesz led the NWA over innumerable hurdles with his hard work and dedication. He wasn’t a huge crowd favorite, but he easily set a high standard for a touring world champion. In a universe governed by gimmicks and scoundrels, Thesz was a principled man playing a dirty game. He faced them all on the mat and in the dressing room, exposed the weaknesses of those trying to test him, and protected the coveted championship internationally. He raised the NWA world heavyweight title onto a distinguished plateau and was admired by peers, promoters, and fans.”

  Thesz became the standard for all champions to follow, holding the title in his first reign for more than seven consecutive years. “He could enter a room and have an aura around him you knew he was somebody without having to say a word,” Terry Funk said. “He carried himself as a champion. He could walk into a room full of sportswriters or dignitaries and every one of them would say, ‘That son of a bitch is somebody.’”

  But by 1956, Thesz was wearing down. What had been three days a week had morphed into five matches a week, all over the country. The champion was supposed to have a week off every month to recover physically from the grueling matches and the grind of the road. More and more, however, Muchnick was booking the champion on his off week as well. Thesz and the NWA also disagreed about travel expenses, telling Muchnick in a 1956 letter that “a champion representing a sport needed to do it properly,” flying first class rather than coach. Thesz was placated, but he was nearing a breaking point, increasingly frustrated with the NWA’s promoters, men he had taken to calling “thieves.”

  The Search for an Heir

  After a bad ankle injury suffered skiing, Thesz’s seven-and-a-half year title reign was ended by “Whipper” Billy Watson in Toronto on March 15, 1956. While Thesz’s title run had been nearly eight years, Watson didn’t even make it eight months. Always a stopgap, he lost the title back to Thesz in November. The champion was looking for a more permanent heir apparent to turn the title over to, someone who represented his style of wrestling. He settled on George Gordienko, a Canadian wrestler considered by many to be the toughest man in the industry. Gordienko was one of the most intersting men in the grappling business, becoming a painter of note and eventually moving to Europe where he wrestled part time all over the continent. On rare occasions, he was able to combine his two passions. In Paris, he recounts,

  There were a couple of boys there who were into painting and had personal showings. They knew Picasso, since he watched wrestling on television and was said to be an avid fan. He would not be disturbed when the bouts were on.

  Eventually, and to my very good fortune, while I was in the company of the lads who painted we encountered Picasso, and had coffee together. What a polite, well-mannered person. He even insisted on paying. This was truly a high spot in my life.

  More than an artist, he was also a tough guy’s tough guy. “Cowboy” Dan Kroffat recalls a story of Gordienko’s rare strength and his flair for drawing attention, describing how the wrestler once walked into a gym with a full suit and top hat on: “He took 300-pound weights off the rack, these guys were doing them. Gordienko just picked the weights up, right off the rack, threw them up in the air over his head, put them down. He had his top-coat on, and quietly walked out the door. Everyone’s mouths were wide open.”

  Despite his strength and showmanship, Gordienko wasn’t the clear choice to be the mat champion. There was a catch — as a card-carrying communist, there was significant fear that George would bring wrestling negative attention it could ill afford. Stories varied, some claiming George had only had a dalliance with communism in his college days, his son later saying he was a lifelong Stalinist. Either way, in the heart of the McCarthy anti-communist crusade, it was clear Gordienko was dead in the water.

  The NWA put forward Buddy Rogers as the new face of wrestling, but Rogers was a Thesz nemesis from way back. Thesz steadfastly refused. Rogers had once insulted Ed Lewis in Thesz’s presence on the way to a match in Louisville in 1948. Nine years later, Thesz still refused the put Rogers over. Buddy, the original “Nature Boy,” was the biggest star in the country, and the NWA had high hopes for a Rogers title run.

  “I done more for wrestling than anyone,” Rogers said in a 1981 interview. “I’d say there’s two of us, Lou Thesz and myself. We were the top two wrestlers of the last 25 or 30 years. A lot of things I see in wrestling today are things I invented. I’m constantly being emulated.”

  He was also the kind of wrestler Thesz despised, a pure performer, a former police officer from Camden, New Jersey, who didn’t have any legitimate wrestling experience. “The shooters hated him because here was Buddy, no wrestling ability, yet he’s in the main event and they’re not. It all comes down to performance,” former three-time NCAA Champion Dick Hutton said, calling Rogers the best crowd manipulator he ever worked with. Wherever Rogers worked, he held the people in the palm of his hands. Thesz didn’t care about that at all — he wasn’t giving his title to a performer. “Get me a wrestler,” he told Muchnick, and the St. Louis promoter delivered. The three finalists were Hutton, rising star Verne Gagne, and respected New Zealand–born star Pat O’Connor. Wrestling Observer explains the debate:

  Thesz was gung-ho on Hutton as his replacement. He believed Hutton to be the best real wrestler in the industry at the time, since Thesz’s other pick, George Gordienko, couldn’t get into the United States because of McCarthyism since Gordienko was at one point in his life a communist. Thesz often remarked he believed Hutton was the best heavyweight wrestler he had ever seen . .
.

  Gagne was a far bigger and more marketable pro star than the quiet Hutton. While many would argue O’Connor was a superior performer and worker than Gagne, Gagne was a far bigger national name, a better promo and a more established drawing card than the New Zealander. He also had the better “real sports” qualifications and legitimate ability that most of the promoters liked the NWA champion to have. O’Connor’s strength was that he was far more unselfish in the ring, as Gagne always had a reputation among the wrestlers for always wanting to look good in the match, sometimes at the expense of the match.

  A Noble Failure

  Hutton was the eventual choice, a great amateur Thesz respected a lot. Two years earlier, the men had a match in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that had fallen under the watchful eye of an athletic commissioner bound and determined to prove wrestling was fake. But Hutton and Thesz were able to deliver a convincing performance, and Hutton earned Thesz’s esteem.