Aloysius Martin Thesz, known by the ring name Lou Thesz, was an American professional wrestler. Considered to be one of the last true shooters in professional wrestling and described as the "quintessential athlete" and a "polished warrior who could break a man in two if pushed the wrong way", Thesz is widely regarded as one of the greatest wrestlers and wrestling world champions in history, and possibly the last globally accepted world champion.
Laverne Clarence "Verne" Gagne was an American amateur and professional wrestler, football player, wrestling trainer and wrestling promoter. He was the owner and promoter of the Minneapolis-based American Wrestling Association (AWA), the predominant promotion throughout the Midwest and Manitoba for many years. He remained in this position until 1991, when the company folded.
James Donald Raschke is an American retired professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, Baron von Raschke.
Patrick John O'Connor, was a New Zealand/American amateur wrestler and professional wrestler. Regarded as one of the premier workers of his era, O'Connor held the AWA World Heavyweight Championship and NWA World Heavyweight Championship simultaneously, the latter of which he held for approximately two years. He was also the inaugural AWA World Heavyweight Champion. He is an overall two-time world champion.
Eugene Nicholas Kiniski was a Canadian athlete who played football for the Edmonton Eskimos and then became a three-time professional wrestling world heavyweight champion. "Canada's Greatest Athlete", as he billed himself for promotional purposes, was born in Edmonton, Alberta. Like Bronko Nagurski before him, Kiniski was one of the first world champions in professional wrestling to have a previous background in football. He is the father of professional wrestler Kelly Kiniski and international amateur and professional wrestler Nick Kiniski.
Robert Herman Julius Friedrich, better known by the ring name Ed "Strangler" Lewis, was an American professional wrestler and trainer. During his wrestling career, which spanned four decades, Lewis was a four-time World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion and overall recognized officially as a five-time world champion. Considered to be one of the most iconic and recognizable sports stars of the 1920s, often alongside boxer Jack Dempsey and baseball player Babe Ruth, Lewis notably wrestled in over 6,000 matches and lost only 32 of them.
Martin Burns, nicknamed Farmer Burns, was an American catch wrestler, wrestling coach, and teacher. Born in Cedar County, Iowa, he started wrestling as a teenager and made money traveling around the Midwest wrestling in carnivals and fairs. As a professional wrestler, he claimed the American Heavyweight Championship by defeating Evan "Strangler" Lewis in 1895 and held the title for two years, during the time when contests were legitimate. At this time, Martin Burns himself claimed to have wrestled in more than 6,000 matches and is said to have lost only seven. After the end of his active wrestling career he started a successful wrestling school in Omaha and later coached Cedar Rapids' Washington high school to the first Iowa high school state wrestling tournament title. He died in Council Bluffs in 1937. In 2001 Martin "Farmer" Burns was inducted into the International Wrestling Institute and Museum Hall of Fame. He was also inducted into the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame in 2002. The Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame inducted Martin Burns in 2003 and Burns was inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame in 2017. In 2024 he was inducted into the Nebraska Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame.
Daniel Allen Hodge was an American amateur and professional wrestler, who also had a brief professional boxing career. He is in both the U.S. amateur wrestling Hall of Fame, for his three NCAA titles and Olympic silver medal, and the pro wrestling Hall of Fame, as a seven-time NWA World Junior Heavyweight Champion. The Dan Hodge Trophy is the college wrestling equivalent of the Heisman Trophy.
Earl Caddock was an American professional wrestler and World Heavyweight Champion who was active in the early portion of the twentieth century. As the first man to bill himself as "The Man of 1,000 Holds", Caddock was one of professional wrestling's biggest stars between the years of 1915 and 1922.
William Alfred Robinson was an English professional wrestler, amateur wrestler, and coach. Having trained at Riley's Gym, better known as "the Snake Pit", he was one of the leading practitioners of catch wrestling, a national champion in freestyle wrestling, and a professional wrestling world champion. He had a successful career in Britain and internationally, especially in Japan.
Christos Theofilou, better known as "The Golden Greek" Jim Londos, was a Greek American professional wrestler. Londos was one of the most popular stars on the professional wrestling circuit in the 1930s and 1940s.
Gustave Adolph Sonnenberg was an American football player and professional wrestler of German descent and World Heavyweight Champion. As a wrestler, he was National Wrestling Association (NWA) world heavyweight champion. He played in the National Football League (NFL) from 1923 until 1930, for the Buffalo All-Americans, Columbus Tigers, Detroit Panthers, and Providence Steam Roller, where he was a member of the 1928 NFL championship team.
Władysław Cyganiewicz, better known by the ring name Władek Zbyszko, was a Polish catch wrestler, professional wrestler and strongman. "Zbyszko" was his older brother Stanislaus's childhood nickname, borrowed from a fictional medieval knight in the novel Krzyżacy; both brothers used it as their ring name.
Frank Sexton was an American professional wrestler in the early to mid-twentieth century. Along with Orville Brown, Bill Longson, and Lou Thesz, he was one of the biggest stars of the 1940s. A multiple-time world champion, his most significant run was as the Boston American Wrestling Association (AWA) World Heavyweight Champion from June 27, 1945 until May 23, 1950, when he lost the championship to Don Eagle in Cleveland, Ohio. Sexton died in 1990.
John Pesek was an American professional wrestler and greyhound racing dog breeder. Nicknamed 'The Nebraska Tiger Man' for his ferocity, aggression and catlike dexterity, Olympic freestyle wrestling gold medallists Robin Reed and Russell Vis both regarded Pesek as the greatest wrestler they ever met. He was a one-time National Wrestling Association World Heavyweight Champion.
William M. Miller was an American professional wrestler. He was a one time American Wrestling Association world champion and also wrestled in the National Wrestling Alliance, the World Wrestling Association and the World Wide Wrestling Federation.
The Dusek family was a professional wrestling family. Its real surname was Hason. It started with four brothers, Ernie, Emil, Joe and Rudy, often billed as the Dusek Riot Squad and well known in the Omaha, Nebraska territory.
Henri Deglane was a French wrestler. He was an Olympic Champion in Greco-Roman wrestling and AWA World Champion.
The AWA World Heavyweight Championship was a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship promoted by Paul Bowser in Boston.
The World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship was the first recognized professional wrestling world heavyweight championship created in 1905 to identify the best catch as catch can wrestler in the world.
