The Unbreakable Legacy of Ed "Strangler" Lewis: A Wrestling God Who Defined The Sport

You guys ready to talk about a straight-up beast—a man who didn’t just wrestle but dominated the squared circle like a force of nature. Ed "Strangler" Lewis wasn’t just a wrestler; he was a damn institution. A colossus of the early 20th century who made the world believe in the raw, unrelenting power of professional wrestling. If you’re ready to dive into the story of a legend who crushed opponents, revolutionized the game, had the endurance of a superhero and left a legacy that still echoes today, strap in. This is the tale of the one, the only, Ed "Strangler" Lewis. 💪

Born to Rule The Mat

Picture this: June 30, 1891, in Nekoosa, Wisconsin. Robert Herman Julius Friedrich enters the world, a kid who’d grow into a mountain of a man—250 pounds of pure strength and power with a chest measuring a monstrous 56 inches. This wasn’t just a guy; this was a gladiator in the making. By 14, he’s already tossing grown men around in Louisville, Kentucky, under the name Ed Lewis, a nod to 1890s star Evan "Strangler" Lewis and a sneaky way to keep his disapproving parents in the dark. Smart move, young champ. 😎

But where’d that "Strangler" nickname come from? Some say it was a tribute to Evan’s legacy. Others point to a wild story from a match in France where Lewis slapped on a sleeper hold so vicious the crowd thought he was choking his opponent out for real. Either way, the name stuck, and it fit like a glove. This man wasn’t just wrestling—he was shattering the competition’s hopes and dreams.

The Gold Dust Trio: Carving The Industry That Leads To An Ever Lasting Legacy

Lewis wasn’t just a grappler; he was a visionary, a mad scientist if you will. In the 1920s, he teamed up with promoters Toots Mondt and Billy Sandow to form the Gold Dust Trio, a game-changing crew that turned wrestling from one-off barroom brawls into a full-blown spectacle. These guys didn’t just book matches; they created events. Undercards, storylines, feuds that had fans losing their minds—this was the birth of modern pro wrestling as we know it. Lewis was the star, the muscle, and the brains behind it all. He didn’t just win titles; he built an empire. 🏆

And win titles he did. Lewis snagged his first World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship on December 13, 1920, by outclassing Joe Stecher. He’d go on to hold the world title five times (some say up to ten, depending on the record books), ruling the sport for nearly two decades. Over a career spanning four decades, Lewis wrestled in over 6,200 matches—legit shoot fights and worked bouts alike—and lost only 33 times. Let that sink in. That’s not a record; that’s a myth. The man was untouchable. He could go with anybody at anytime he wanted.

The Strangler’s Grip: A Style Like No Other

What made Lewis so fucking terrifying? His catch wrestling prowess. This wasn’t flashy flips or choreographed drama—this was pure unadulterated pain. Lewis was a master of "hooking," using brutal holds to make opponents tap or nap. His signature move? The Strangler’s headlock, a proto-sleeper hold that could put anyone to sleep—permanently, if he wanted. Lou Thesz, Verne Gagne, and others called him the greatest ever, saying he’d only lose when he chose to, to push a storyline. That’s power. That’s control. 😤

One of his wildest moments? September 20, 1934, at Wrigley Field. Lewis faced Jim Londos in front of 35,275 screaming fans, pulling in a record gate of $96,302—a mark that stood until 1952. Or how about 1936, when he took on Lee Wykoff in one of wrestling’s last legit shoot matches? Lewis, nursing a separated clavicle, still fought to a draw. The man was a warrior, plain and simple. Even in 1937, wrestling in New Zealand, he went 4-2 against top talent, only falling to Canadian champ Earl McCready. No one could keep him down for long. 

Rivalries and Real Talk

Lewis’s biggest rival? Joe Stecher. These two titans clashed in and out of the ring, even sparking one of wrestling’s first promotional wars when Stecher ran his own shows against Lewis’s Gold Dust Trio. Their most epic battle? A five-and-a-half-hour marathon on July 4, 1916, ending in a draw because neither man could break the other. That’s not wrestling—that’s war if there ever was one. Their feud hit a peak in 1925 when Stanislaus Zbyszko, a Gold Dust Trio star, double-crossed Lewis' camp by legit beating their handpicked champ, Wayne Munn, to humiliate them. Wrestling was wild back then, and Lewis was at the heart of it all. 🥊

But not every match was a classic. In 1933, Lewis faced Ray Steele (a legit wrestler himself) at Madison Square Garden for the title. The two circled each other, barely locking up, and the fans got bored. Sometimes, even legends have off nights. Still, Lewis’s ability to draw crowds, even in controversy, was unmatched. He was the Babe Ruth of wrestling, rubbing shoulders with the Yankee slugger and Jack Dempsey, the era’s biggest stars. Hell, there’s even a photo from April 16, 1935, of Lewis putting Ruth in a headlock. Iconic.

The Later Years: Blind but Unbowed

By 1935, Lewis was semi-retired, frustrated with wrestling’s shift toward “slambang” entertainment over real grappling. But the fire never left him. In 1942, at 51 years old and legally blind from trachoma, a brutal eye condition common in wrestlers, he stepped back into the ring. Think about that—a blind man wrestling. And he kept going until 1948, retiring at 57. That’s not just heart; that’s soul and the will to keep fighting. 💥

Even after hanging up his boots, Lewis’s influence lived on. He trained legends like Lou Thesz, his protégé, along with Danny Hodge, Dick Hutton, and Judo Gene LeBell, passing down his hooking secrets. Thesz became a world champ, carrying Lewis’s torch. The Strangler didn’t just shape his era; he shaped wrestling’s future. 

The Final Bell

On August 8, 1966, Ed "Strangler" Lewis passed away in Muskogee, Oklahoma, at 75. Newspapers across the country hailed him as a pioneer who made wrestling a global phenomenon. His health battles—especially the blindness that plagued his final years—never dimmed his spirit. He’d earned millions in the ring and spent it like it was nothing, living life as big as his legend.

Today, Lewis is immortalized in every major wrestling hall of fame: Wrestling Observer Newsletter (1996), George Tragos/Lou Thesz (1999), Professional Wrestling (2002), WWE Legacy Wing (2016), and International Professional Wrestling (2021). His name is synonymous with greatness, a reminder of a time when wrestling was raw, real, and ruled by legit grappling warriors.

Why Does The Strangler Matter

Ed "Strangler" Lewis wasn’t just a champion; he was a revolution. He took a gritty, underground sport and made it what we see today. He fought through injuries, blindness, and changing times, never backing down. He trained the next generation, ensuring his art would live on. In the 1920s and ‘30s, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey and other greats, not just as an athlete but as a myth.

So, next time you watch a wrestling match, remember the man who laid the foundation. The man who strangled doubt, crushed rivals, and built a legacy that’ll never tap out. Ed "Strangler" Lewis—the original powerhouse, the ultimate might. 🏋️‍♂️

What’s your favorite Strangler story? Drop it below and let’s celebrate this crazed SOB together! 💬

Be amazingly awesome and learn the valued history of the great sport of Catch As Catch Can Wrestling.

What A Looker....No, A Hooker

That line makes me laugh, think it was either in Castle, Psych or Supernatural; it's got to be one of those three right? Anyway, despite the meaning behind it, there's another term for Hooker most people don't know and that's to describe a wrestler. It's a term used back in the days of Lou Thesz, Ed "Strangler" Lewis, Ad Santel and Karl Gotch. By definition, this means a wrestler was at the top of the food chain when it came to such serious submissions to the extent that these holds were not only dangerous, but could cripple a person in the blink of an eye. In other words these guys were the nastiest bastards in the sport. 

Today in some circles, hookers are also called Rippers meaning the submissions they would use would tear most people to shreds by crippling an opponent by ripping their tendons and bones. There was a story in Lou Thesz's Bio about one of his mentors George Tragos teaching a boy not only a lesson but by today's standards would be thrown in jail. This kid was cocky and thought he can take on the old man and Tragos proceeded to not only tear this kid apart but finished him off by tearing his shoulder in a Double Wrist Lock. The guy just put enough pressure on to break him and the kid ended up having that arm amputated because there was no anti-biotics back then and that arm developed a hideous infection of Gangrene. That's just pure cruelty man.

The closest I ever came to understanding even a few of these holds was when Tom Puckett put them on me while we were working out at this gym down the street from me. Cross Face, Double Wrist Lock, A Couple Neck Cranks and another one that slips my mind but I felt them all. Neck and Back were cracking and he didn't let up on me because he wanted me to understand what these holds can do to a person. Thank god I didn't end up like that kid. I'll never forget how those things felt and he hardly put any strength into them, it was incredible. 

Hooking in retrospect is a lost art in wrestling and very few in comparison to the old timers know them with such intensity. Guys like Joel Bane, Harry Smith (son of the British Bulldog), Josh Barnett, Sakuraba and some others are the last remnants of an earlier age and are incredibly skilled at these submissions it's almost baffling that these holds still exist in this time. If you haven't been put in these holds, you can't understand the magnitude of what they feel like and that near fear of them tearing you apart if you pissed these guys off. Catch Wrestling is rising from the ashes but unless you've been around someone who even remotely has small knowledge of the sport or even one of the holds, most don't even know what Catch is. Catch is more than just hooking, it's the violent art of wrestling that even some of the best freestyle wrestlers would be afraid of. Say if you took Ad Santel in his prime against Dan Gable in his Olympic days, it would be a decent match but no disrepect to Gable, Santel would most likely end up putting him in a hold that would have him begging for his life. That's just my opinion, other than that by today's standards, most wrestlers in Gable's weight class would have a hard time with him. 

  Catch and Hooking are fascinating aspects of wrestling and it's important to understand the History and the men that defined the term Superhuman when it came to the sport. Think only a few women on the entire planet have definitive knowledge of Catch and the current famous one is WWE's Shayna Baszler who learned some stuff from Barnett & Fujiwara (Fujiwara was Karl Gotch's best student according to the man himself). It might be inappropriate to call her a Hooker since some would take it completely the wrong way but in terms of wrestling and the knowledge of dangerous submissions, think it might be safe to say she's the only woman right now who can claim that title. 

If you like the shirt above, grab one for yourself here and support Catch Wrestling. I've got books, dvds and have been in the company of a man trained by Gotch himself, I fully support these guys and have a great deal of respect for them. Keep being amazingly awesome.  

Different Conditioning Styles By Wrestlers

If anyone laid the foundation for wrestlers and how they condition themselves in the sport, it was arguably Wrestlers from the Middle East & India hands down. They taught the fundamentals of how to utilize the body to such a degree that stamina was inexhaustible, strength lasted for hours on end and being explosive was inevitable at any given time. They created what is still being used today just through certain variations.

The thing is, not every wrestler or coach uses the same exact exercises or even principles of their training to be successful in the sport. Some conditioned according to their size and what gave them the tools to be successful. Now in modern times when it comes to conditioning or even more specific, bodyweight conditioning, there were the three main forms of exercises that were the ground work; the pushups, the squats and the bridges. Those were the pinnacle aside from actual wrestling but there was more to them or in better terms, what other wrestlers and coaches took into consideration that honed the skills and the ideal training methods. 

Every culture since ancient times has their hand in wrestling in some form or another and formed their own ideas on how to condition the men to fight in order to be dominant in a tribe, kingdom or just a village for that matter. In Mongolia you didn't see wrestlers do Hindu Pushups or do Hindu Squats in order to condition, yet some of these were so powerful, it was unbelievable. There were cultures that if you look throughout history, probably didn't do a single supplemental exercise and just wrestled and were just as strong and dominant. Look up how Senegalese Wrestlers sometime and check out their methods.

In America, you had some of the best wrestlers in the world that came from everywhere and took their skills to places that just baffled onlookers. Some of the greatest in history utilized more of a weight training approach, some used a mixture of bodyweight and weights, bodyweight alone and some either ran or just wrestled in order to get in condition. The fact of the matter is, regardless of how you wrestled, you used basic exercises and often times compound movements to be successful. Once Karl Gotch came into the picture, his use of the Hindu Style became a requirement in most wrestling gyms since the 60's or even as far back as the 50's when he was being groomed but if you look at the ideals of conditioning the body for the sport, at least from an American point of view, the Hindu Style wasn't written up as much if at all.

Although many exercises can be traced back to the Hindu Style, you didn't see their version of the pushups & squats along with others in the old Physical Culture courses from the likes of Farmer Burns, George Hackenshmidt, Bernarr McFadden, Earle Liederman and others. At least two of these guys were very successful wrestlers in their time but you never saw the Hindu Style of conditioning. Also with that in mind, wrestling styles vary from culture to culture. Mongolia had more of a Greco-Roman/Judo type style, Senegal was grappling mixed with boxing or bare-knuckle type fighting, Hindus were a close relationship to our modern Amateur Wrestling and today's Catch Wrestling is utilized with Submissions and overall base of takedowns, suplexes and throws. Then you have styles from Turkey, Brazil, Japan and Russia that vary the rules of combat. 

Is the Hindu Style the very best? That all depends on the coach and what they're willing to teach students of the art. It certainly works in many aspects but if it was the very best, every wrestler since the dawn of man would do it but they don't. Today's aspect of conditioning for MMA still has its roots that trace back to India but with the concept of utilizing more explosive based conditioning than just stamina and strength based, there are countless ways to be a successful combat athlete or even a wrestler for that matter. The Hindu Style works without a doubt but there should be options to how we base our training according to the needs of the athlete. Look at the success of Dan Gable and the University Of Iowa, their style of conditioning wasn't like the Hindu Style but what did they produce? Some of the greatest wrestlers that went on to Olympic glory. 

Last thing, there are wrestlers out there that are so fanatical on conditioning they base their livelihood on it. I do believe the better condition you are, the higher chances of being successful but it's not always the supplemental stuff that will get you there, hell even Ed Strangler Lewis had said that wrestling was the best conditioner and despite the fact that he wasn't shredded or had the body of a Greek god, his stamina was the stuff of legends. The man in his prime just didn't know the meaning of the word "tired", he can go for hours and be practically just as efficient towards the end of a match as much as the beginning. 

You be the judge, what do you feel makes a successful wrestler?