Lou Thesz
| Lou Thesz | |
|---|---|
A photo of Lou Thesz
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| Birth name | Aloysius Martin Thesz |
| Born |
April 24, 1916 Banat, Michigan |
| Died | April 28, 2002 (aged 86) Orlando, Florida |
| Cause of death | Complications from triple bypass |
| Professional wrestling career | |
| Ring name(s) | Lou Thesz |
| Billed height | 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) |
| Billed weight | 225 lb (102 kg) |
| Billed from | St. Louis, Missouri |
| Trained by |
Ad Santel Ed Lewis George Tragos Peter Sauer Warren Bockwinkel |
| Debut | 1932 |
| Retired | 1990 |
Aloysius Martin "Lou" Thesz (April 24, 1916 – April 28, 2002) was an American professional wrestler.
A six-time world champion, he held the NWA World Heavyweight Championship three times, for a combined total of 10 years, three months and nine days (3,749 days) – longer than anyone else in history. Thesz is regarded as one of, if not the, greatest wrestler of all time. Among his many accomplishments, he is credited with inventing a number of professional wrestling techniques such as the belly to back waistlock suplex (later known as the German suplex due to its association with Karl Gotch), the Lou Thesz press, stepover toehold facelock (STF) and the original powerbomb.
Born in Banat, Michigan in 1916, Thesz's family moved to St. Louis when he was a young boy. His working-class immigrant parents hailed from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. Beginning in Thesz's early youth, his father personally gave him a tough and thorough education in Greco-Roman wrestling, which provided the fundamentals for his later success. While in high school, he was a successful freestyle wrestling competitor on his school team; as he recalled many years later, he and a friend once "worked" a dramatic match against each other at a tournament, and were amused when nobody could see how much they were faking. As a teenager, he also trained in amateur wrestling with legendary wrestler Ad Santel. Thesz made his professional wrestling debut in 1932, at the age of 16. He soon met Ed "Strangler" Lewis, the biggest wrestling star of the 1920s, who taught a young Lou the art of "hooking" (the ability to stretch your opponent with painful holds), and the two formed a lasting friendship. By 1937, Thesz had become one of the biggest stars in the St. Louis territory, and on December 29 he defeated Everett Marshall for the American Wrestling Association World Heavyweight Championship, the first of many world heavyweight titles, which also made Thesz became the youngest world heavyweight champion in history, at the age of 21. Thesz dropped the title to Steve "Crusher" Casey in Boston six weeks later. He won the National Wrestling Association World Heavyweight Championship in 1939, once again defeating Marshall, and again in 1948, defeating Bill Longson.
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