![]() Thesz credited Zastro for elevating his wrestling and became his regular sparring partner. At aged 16, Thesz then gained further training in freestyle wrestling under John Zastro. ![]() He quickly became an accomplished freestyle wrestler, competing in city-wide intramurals and regional tournaments in the 160 lb division. Thesz dropped out of high school by age 14 to work at his father's shoe repair business and began training in freestyle wrestling at Cleveland High School due to his father knowing the wrestling coaches. He trained in Greco-Roman wrestling under the guidance of his father for several years until transitioning to folkstyle wrestling at high school where he was a successful competitor on his school team. At eight years old, Lou began a tough and thorough education in Greco-Roman wrestling under his father, which provided the fundamentals for his later success. Thesz's father was a national Greco-Roman wrestling middleweight champion in his native Hungary and introduced Lou to the sport as a young boy. In addition to public school, he also had to attend German school every Saturday until he was eight. Hungarian was also spoken in the Thesz household but the children did not learn it. Thesz and his three sisters grew up speaking German at home and he did not start learning English until he entered kindergarten at age five. Louis in Missouri when he was a young boy. His father, Martin, was a working-class shoemaker of Hungarian and German descent his mother, Katherine ( née Schultz), also of German descent, hailed from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. ![]() Ī successful amateur wrestler in his youth and an ardent supporter of the sport in his later years, he helped establish, in addition to being a member of its inaugural class, the George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame, which honors successful professional wrestlers with a strong amateur wrestling background, and is a charter member of several other halls of fame, including: WCW, Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Professional Wrestling and WWE's Legacy Wing.Īlonysius Martin Thesz was born in Banat, Michigan on April 24, 1916. Alongside Karl Gotch and Billy Robinson, Thesz later helped train young Japanese wrestlers and mixed martial artists in catch wrestling. In Japan, Thesz was known as the " God of Wrestling'" (like his Belgian- German counterpart, Karl Gotch) and was called " Tetsujin", which means "Ironman", in respect for his speed, conditioning and expertise in catch wrestling. Thesz was a three-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion and held the championship for a combined total of ten years, three months and nine days (3,749 days) – longer than anyone else in history. Considered to be one of the last true shooters ( shoot fighters) 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 of all time and the single greatest wrestling world champion in history, and probably the last globally accepted world champion. Aloysius Martin Thesz (Ap– April 28, 2002), known by the ring name Lou Thesz, was an American professional wrestler.
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