The Wrestling Truth: The Lou Thesz Press

The Wrestling Truth

The Lou Thesz Press

Hey again, and welcome to the wrestling truth where I tell you about the history of pro wrestling one piece at a time.

This week I wanted to talk about one of the biggest names in wrestling history, I’m of course talking about the pioneer Lou Thesz.

Lou Thesz born in Michigan in 1916, he moved to St. Louis as a young boy and was a child of two working class immigrants from old Austro-Hungarian Empire and even at a young age his father broke him into the old art of Greco-Roman wrestling and he had a successful career in highschool in free-style American wrestling and amateur style.

Around the age of 16 he trained with Ad Santel and made his debut in the ring in 1932 and made friends with fellow legend Ed “the Strangler” Lewis.

Thesz became the biggest name in St. Louis when he won his first NWA World Title in 1937 against Everett Marshall but lost the title 6 weeks later.

He was best known for his time in the National Wrestling Alliance (see previous articles) and in 1948 NWA formed, Thesz was of course considered one of the top draws by this time and purpose was to try to create one world champion…yeah I know how that turned out (rolls eyes).

Between 1949 and 1956 was set out to unify ALL the titles under the NWA World Title banner and ne became the first undisputed world champion since the old days of George Hackenschimidt about 45 years ago at the time and after he unified the titles he dropped it to Whipper Billy Watson in 1956.

After taking some time off he returned and won the belt back off Watson but in 1957 was a significant year in his career; on June 14^th became the first and probably only black mark on his claim to wrestling fame when he wrestled Edourd Carpentier and when the wrestled they went to 2 falls a piece but after those matches Thesz claimed back injury and thus Carpentier was named the champion but here is where that whole title change issue started….The NWA choose not to recognize Carpentier as champion and claimed that the belt cannot be changed due to injury, but what really what happened was that Carpentier was not supposed to win and the NWA didn’t want him as the champ.

Even with the dispute other promotions within the alliance still saw Carpentier as their champion but I already went into detail on this a few weeks back in my NWA articles.

Another important mark on Thesz’s career was when he became the first holder of the NWA World Title to defend the title in Japan with Rikidozan in a series of great 60 minute draws and after he realized that wrestling at the time was bigger in Japan and that there was big money there he petitioned to the other promoters to let him defend the belt there all the time though he was eventually turned down and then he asked to drop the title to a handpicked opponent he choose to drop the title to Dick Hutton over the more obvious choice.

He still continued to tour in Japan and in Europe and named himself the NWA International Champion and to this day the International title is still recognized by Japan in their Triple Crown Championship.

In 1963 he came out of semi-retirement to claim his 6^th World Champion against his arch rival Buddy Rogers at the age of 46 and defended it until 1966 and dropped it too Gene Kiniski.

For the next 13 years he wrestled on a part time basis and won his last major title in 1978 in Mexico when he won the inaugural Universal Wrestling Alliance Championship at the ripe age of 62.

He went back into retirement in 1979 but did wrestle his very last match in 1990 against his protégé Masahiro Chono in Japan at the age of 74 and became the only male wrestle to wrestle in seven consecutive decades.

In 1992 after he officially left the ring he became a referee and promoter as well as being the president of the Cauliflower Alley Club and organization run by retired wrestler and he help the position until 2000.

In 1999 his named was used to describe an award for wrestling stars that were successful in amateur wrestling at the International Institute and Museum in Waterloo, Iowa.

He still holds the record of being the youngest AND the oldest world champion (21 and 50).

Well that was his career kept as brief as possible but what is the thing that made him the most recognized.

Well it’s his finishing manoeuver of course….The Lou Thesz Press  which was later popularized by Stone Cold Steve Austin which consisted of jump on a an opponent and hitting them repeatedly on the head.

This move is one of the most well-known and is still used as a basic move especially among female wrestlers ….sorry entertainers.

In 2001 he underwent a triple bypass but died later that month from complications of the surgery in Orlando, Florida.

Ok so, I don’t see wrestling for months and then when I turn it one like a month ago and what did I see?

WWE RAW becoming TNA and TNA becoming RAW…..WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON!.....is wrestling really that crappy these days, in McMahon sliding that much?.

I love pro wrestling, it’s a big part of my life but with all this TERRIBLE booking how can we as fans possibly enjoy this?

The ratings are dropping on Raw and on SD!, while people are jumping ships to TNA!....THATS WHEN YOU KNOW THERES IS A PROBLEM WWE !

Sigh.

I don’t want to get into this too much, im just going back to not watching for a while and hope it returns to normal.

Well that was TWT, and I am as usual Ed Roland and I hope you liked reading, next week I look at another well-known old school name I am of course talking about Lou Thesz’ arch rival for 20 years…Buddy Rogers.

Until next time, take it sleazy. 

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