Ted Arcidi
| Ted Arcidi | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Theodore Arcidi |
| Born |
June 16, 1958 Buffalo, New York |
| Professional wrestling career | |
| Ring name(s) | Ted Arcidi |
| Billed height | 181 cm (5 ft 11 in) |
| Billed weight | 285 lb (129 kg) |
| Billed from | Boston, Massachusetts |
| Trained by | Tony Altomare |
Theodore "Ted" Arcidi is a former professional wrestler, actor and powerlifter from the United States. He is known to be the first man in history to bench press over 700 pounds in competition.
The son of a nurse and doctor and one of seven children, Ted was born in Buffalo, New York, and took a different route from the family's academia tradition. He left Tufts University dental school to pursue the sport of powerlifting. When Ted graduated high school, he claims to have weighed in at 165 lbs. As he put it, "I was not born big".
Ted Arcidi bench pressed 705.5 pounds (320 kg) on March 3, 1985 at Gus Rethwisch's Budweiser World Record Breakers in Honolulu, Hawaii for an APF & USPF world record, to become the first man to bench 700 pounds in an officially recognized powerlifting competition. Then, after being 5 1/2 years away from competition due to his wrestling career, he made the comeback of the decade. Weighing 291 pounds, Arcidi set another world record with an amazing 718.1 lbs bench press at the APF Bench Press Invitational on September 30, 1990, in Keene, New Hampshire. On September 14, 1991, at a Mr. Olympia contest, he squared off face to face with his greatest rival Anthony Clark to determine who the greatest bench presser of the world was. Arcidi defeated the much bigger Clark (5'8", 375 lbs) by pressing 725 pounds off his chest to establish yet a new, but controversial, world record. That attempt was later disqualified after it was revealed that Arcidi had failed to lock out his arms due to bone spurs in his elbows which he had corrected with surgery.
Arcidi's 705 pound all-time world record bench press was performed in one of the earliest bench shirts - an original prototype supportive bench press shirt, which was 50% polyester and 50% cotton and only one layer thick. It was thus later categorized as "equipped", although it did not improve his bench by much, if anything. In 1984 Arcidi had benched an official 666.9 pounds (302.5 kg) at 286.0 pounds bodyweight completely raw, without a bench shirt in Honolulu, Hawaii as well. He can be considered as arguably one of the greatest bench pressers of all time.
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