famous wrestlers from the 50s and 60s

Privacy No, not dem Boys. But as far as wrestlers wrestlers and old school tough guys go, theres are no better men than Jack and Jerry Brisco. * Championships in parentheses ( ) are noted according to the approximate date of the information, usually three or four months prior to the publishing date, in order to give a better idea of why the wrestlers may be ranked. It's normal because he was like the main attraction for all those years. Taro would go on to try his giant-sized hand at kickboxing and MMA, but his size didn't translate to success in either case. Titanes also had a cheating referee Hctor Oscar Brea as William Boo. Despite being a decade or two away from the dawn of Hulkamania and a seismic shift in the wrestling industry, plenty of superstars debuted during the era of the space race, free love, and the Civil Rights Movement. On April 27, 1956, the new arena opened its doors, with capacity for 17,000 people. Dwarfing a man the size of Mason Ryan is accomplishment a rare few can claim. There's no Buddy Rogers WWWF footage available but click here to watch a little gem from the '50s between him and Johnny Valentine. He used his tree-sized arms to lariat his opponents down to the mat. His biggest accomplishments were in the tag team division. His profile on thetallestman.com lists him at "only" 7'3'' but anything between that range is super tall. His wrestling career didn't last long. Kane, like his storyline brother, is so skilled and deft in the ring that one can sometimes forget how big he is. Satiating its obsession for girth, wrestling's promoters have found real-life Goliaths and showcased them for fans. Now, with no more introduction, let's travel back in time when pro wrestling was absent from the mainstream media and when it caused actual riots on many occasions. They experimented with a few gimmicks for him, including the poorly conceived Sultan, who resided in mid-card status. For most Bleacher Report readers, Mr. Fuji is that iconic manager of the '80s and '90s who led Yokozuna and Demolition to the gold. From 1963 to 1971, the man held the WWWF Championship for an astonishing first reign of 2,803 days. Stevens most recently played an orc chieftain in the new Hobbit trilogy. Assistir Fulham X Leeds - Ao Vivo Grtis HD sem travar, sem anncios. In addition, you can see the most watched/liked stuff amongst your friends. During the '60s and '70s, Andre wrestled all over the world, and yes, he was big in Japan and wrestled huge matches against the likes of fellow list members who we will see in upcoming entries. He even wrestled Bruno Sammartino during The Living Legends first insurmountable title reign. Vicious in contrast, became a world champion several times over. While Juan Manuel Figueroa would be La Momia between 1975 and 1988. 1963-09 - Boxing Illustrated Wrestling News, 1967-10 - The Wrestler (credit: @wrestlerweekly), 1968-12 - Wrestling Revue "Official Wrestling Ratings" (credit: Tom Burke), 1968-12 - Ring Wrestling: "Official World Ratings". 1 Lou Thesz 2 Karl Gotch 3 Sailor Art Thomas 4 Brute Bernard 5 Judy Grable 6 Chief Don Eagle 7 Johnny Valentine 8 Primo Carnera 9 El Santo 10 "Killer" Buddy Austin 11 Mark Lewin 12 The Great Bolo 13 "Butcher" Vachon 14 Wilbur Snyder 15 "Mad Dog" Vachon 16 Ray Gunkel 17 Sputnik Monroa 18 "Wild" Red Berry 19 Mildred Burke 20 The Sicilians 21 If there were some great female wrestlers back in the '60s and in the '70s, none of them could overshadow her, and that's why she's the only woman featured on the current list. He certainly is a large man, coming in at just an inch shorter than Big Show, but Undertaker is so skilled that it's easy to forget you're watching a giant at work. It was that physique that helped him land the role of Bane in Batman and Robin. to these sites/people. He won the WWWF World Tag Team Championship in 1976 with one of his students, Big John Studd. Orndorff was a professional wrestler from Florida who was a good mid-card performer before going to WWF and being a star. 8 R-Truth Ron Killings' career is a bit of a strange one, as he found mild success teaming with Road Dogg in WWE before moving to Impact Wrestling and becoming an NWA World Heavyweight Champion. Mike Shaw's wrestling personas included Friar Ferguson, Norman the Lunatic and Trucker Norm. Afterwards, he worked for Gallo Wine as a distributor. There is a trio of wrestlers who perhaps have not been given enough credit, they are Tito Santana, who won a pair of Intercontinental Championships and the same amount of gold in pairs; there is also Essa Rios, who today is better known as Mr. Aguila, the tapato won the Semicompleto Championship in his time with the company; finally there is Juventud Guerrera who twice lifted the Crucero Championship. He crushed foes by landing his near-400 lb frame on them, sailor stripes and all. Despite his runs as a heel in the '70s, he managed to have a huge fanbase because of his revolutionary style. However, he was not alone and this top 25 is the proof. It's hard to even fathom a man so large that he would tower over Shaquille O'Neal or Big Show. Iron Sheik. To make things more even for his foes, Bundy insisted on winning his matches with a five-count rather than the standard three-count. Click here to watch Zbyszko turning on his mentor at the end of 1979; then, treat yourself by clicking here to watch their classic cage match in August 1980. 1. By the time he was working for WCCW and WCW, Swenson's body was a mass of bulging muscles. English wrestler Martin Ruane made opponents as large as Big Daddy look like children. The woman known as Aloisia during her run in WWE's NXT is young and being able to make Chyna look small is a unique gift. After his face run, he ended his stint with WWWF as a heel, but it was not before earning the 1975 PWI Match of the Year award against Bruno Sammartino and to win a long feud against Jay Strongbow. Then, if it was not enough, he started a second reign in 1973, lasting 1,237 days. He can also brag to. Copyright 1995-2023 puroresu.com. This cannot be undone. Top 50 professional wrestlers. Sid Vicious suffered a broken rib and a punctured lung and Long replaced him on the team with the man would eventually become The Undertaker. When he was not in singles competition, he teamed up with many other villains, and with Gorilla Monsoon, he won the WWWF United States Tag Team Championship in 1963. Darren Matthews Actor | WWE: OMG! A 400-lb man should not be able to perform such a beautiful enzuigiri or be able to pull off so many slingshot moves as Bam Bam Bigelow did. He held the new championship 233 days, then he hung his boots a couple years after his historic reign. Antonio Posa - World Champion Several years late Baba along with Rikidozans sons left the Japanese Wrestling Alliance to form All Japan. The Fabulous Moolah is the longest reigning champion in pro wrestling history. My 4 Favorite 1950s Wrestlers Looking back on all these years, these four pro wrestlers were my favorite stars. Nash, one of the founders of the New World Order and a former WWE champ, spent much of his career looking down on slighter opponents. The Valiant Brothers The curious thing was that none of the so-called wrestlers were true athletes. When the former baseball player met the Rising Suns first legend, Rikidozan, that was it for Baba, and he began training to become a pro wrestler. He once was a fierce wrestler, with a heel character back in the '60s. Yokozuna's weight was his greatest attraction, but it was also ultimately his downfall. In real life Ricki Starr was also an accomplished ballet dancer which comes into play during the episode as his character Tiger Davis takes up ballet . In films like Troy, The Protector and Conan the Barbarian, Jones played monstrous men, roles that didn't take much work from the special effects department. And, when we take a look at everything he did in 1980 and after he left, he is clearly one of the most misused talents in WWE's history. He was also a great brawler so he had everything to deliver many classic encounters, which he did with panache, especially in 1972 when he was named the PWI Wrestler of the Year. DeNucci, who trained Mick Foley and Shane Douglas among others, was mainly a tag team specialist and a great brawler. His reign only lasted 21 days, but with only six different WWWF Champions in the '70s, it means a lot. He has spent much of his career with TNA, delivering Black Hole Slams and overpowering many of his foes. If it was not really his fault, it was still the birth of a legend. Jobbers soon found out what a chokeslam felt like from an incredible height. In 1994, Bundy returned from a long hiatus, only to become The Undertaker's fourth victim during his famed WrestleMania undefeated streak. Harley Race - The Top 50 Incidents in WWE History Darren Matthews was born on May 10, 1968 in Staffordshire, England, UK. As the wresting worlds first ever global superstar, Andre the Giant has been wrestling since the '60s as well. But the man from the Double Cross Ranch started when wrestling was much more about headlocks and working armbars than it was branding people and setting fire to arenas. Famous Americans Who Wrestled. Related: John Cena's Career Told In Photos, Through The Years. Both men clashed on many occasions with no clear winner until that famous day in 1978 at the Madison Square Garden. When he joined the WWF in 1979, Patterson was an established heel who already accumulated 32 vhampionships in various territories. Danny Hodge - World Champion, Challengers (listed alphabetically): Wilbur and his neighbor Roger buy the contract of a professional wrestler Tiger Davis played by actual professional wrestler Ricki Starr. while others continued to bill Byers as the title holder. 10 Wrestling Legends You Didn't Know Competed In The 1960s, certainly included professional wrestling, as names like Gorgeous George became commonplace, John Cena's Career Told In Photos, Through The Years, New Zealand before traversing the globe as the ultra violent Sheepherders in the late 1970s, Every Wrestler To Body Slam Andre The Giant, the former baseball player met the Rising Suns first legend, Rikidozan, that was it for Baba, and he, former NWA World Champion Jack and the former Stooge Jerry both began in the late '60s, Antonio Inoki: The WWE Champion The Company Doesn't Recognize, ripping off Tosh Togo later in his career, The Devious One was a fearsome competitor, winning tag team gold several times during his career with Professor, one of the most feared men to walk on "Gods Green Earth. More than his tree-like stature, more than anything else in his career, fans will think of mustaches when they think of Eli Cottonwood. Taller than LeBron James and over 450 lbs, One Man Gang was one of wrestling's biggest performers. Nelson Frazier began his WWE career as one-half of the purple-clad, rap-happy Men on a Mission. And I invented nothing here; he was the 1974 PWI Wrestler of the Year, and he received the PWI award for Match of the Year on four occasions in the '70s. This enormous man performed for WWE, WCCW and AWA in a career that began in 1985 and ended only a few years later. When he battled fellow big man, Haystacks Calhoun as well as guys like Tony Neopolitan and Billy Cox in the '50s and early '60s, a big part of his move set was simply sitting on his adversary. Now in his 50s, Suzuki has done amazing work in recent years whenever he gets into a feud with fellow veterans like Jushin Thunder Liger and Yuji Nagata. So far, the leader of Legado del Fantasma has defended the championship four times: a couple of times against Isaiah Swerve Scott, against Jake Atlas and just a few days ago against the also Mexican Gran Metalik. Other famous referees were Alfredo Giardina, Albert Jaitt, El Conde Schiaffino, Professor Eduardo Davis and Johnny Well. In no particular order, here are wrestling's biggest competitors, the leviathans of the ring. Heavyweight: He was never just a physical oddity; he was a compelling performer in the ring. Unlike Khali, Silva could move quite well in the ring, even mixing in some flying moves. Brian Norton wrestled in his home country as Tron. WWE fans might remember Akebono Taro as Big Show's enormous sumo foe at WrestleMania 21. He began his movie career with roles like "Big Security Guard" in The Bodyguard 2 and as the titular character in Man-Thing. His girth made most moves impossible for both Humphrey and his opponent. Eddie Graham. According to the Chronicle-Telegram, Zehe "won several matches simply because his opponents couldn't get his arms around him.". According to PWInsider (via 24wrestling.com) WWE released Norton along with several other FCW wrestlers in 2011. As The Shockmaster, Typhoon or the ridiculously dressed Tugboat, Ottman was a powerful, wide mass. 60. From his debut in 1973 and for the rest of the decade (in fact until 1987), Andre was one of the most beloved wrestlers and the most well known across the planet. So, I took in consideration the impact, the popularity, the legacy and the "it" factor when I could. He was a rigid wrestler on redwood-like legs. Race was Humphrey's driver and occasional opponent in the very early '60s. Related: The Reason Lucha Underground Went Out Of Business Explained. Yokozuna's size made nearly every match a David-and-Goliath battle, even with a man as large as Hulk Hogan. We'll likely never see such a combination of greatness and size again. 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