Ken Patera

Kenneth Wayne Patera (born November 6, 1942) is an American retired professional wrestler, Olympic weightlifter, and strongman competitor.

Ken Patera, from a Czech-American family, was strong and extraordinarily athletic, with many people in his family also successful in athletics.

After his disappointing sixth-place finish in the shot-put at the 1968 Olympic trials, he turned his full and complete attention towards Olympic weightlifting.

Before becoming a professional wrestler, Patera was a highly decorated Olympic weightlifter.

On his native soil, Patera won four consecutive U.S. Weightlifting Championships in the super heavyweight class from 1969 to 1972.

Patera wrestled mainly as a heel for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), and American Wrestling Association (AWA) during the 1970s and 1980s.

He won several medals at the 1971 Pan American Games (including gold in the weightlifting total), and finished second in the 1971 World Weightlifting Championships just behind Vasily Alekseyev.

He was the first American to clean and jerk over 500 lbs (227 kg), which he accomplished at the 1972 Senior Nationals in Detroit.

He is also the only American to clean and press 500 lbs (227 kg), and was the last American super heavyweight for years to excel at weightlifting at an international level.

At the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, Patera was expected to be a serious competitor to Vasily Alekseyev, but he failed to total and was not among the medal recipients.

After the clean and press, a lift in which Patera excelled, was eliminated from competition, Patera retired from weightlifting.

official records – all achieved at a meet in San Francisco on July 23, 1972

When measured for the 1972 Olympics, he weighed 321.4 lb at a height of 6 ft.

Patera became a "strongman" in professional wrestling in 1973, following his weightlifting career.

After a stint in the AWA, his first major feud was in the Mid-Atlantic territory against then United States Heavyweight Champion Johnny Valentine, with Patera as the babyface.

The Patera-Valentine house show runs were set up by a TV angle in which Valentine would draw a name out of a fishbowl every week, and the next week wrestle the man whose name he drew.

For the first few weeks, Valentine drew the names of one jobber after another, all the time voicing his opposition to wrestling Patera.

Finally, Valentine drew a name – and it was Patera's. Patera then appeared on screen and revealed that he had replaced every slip of paper with one that said "Ken Patera".

The next week, the two men met in a 10-minute time limit match on TV, with Patera putting Valentine under with a headlock/chinlock when the bell rang to signify the time limit had expired.

Officially, the match ended in a draw, but with Patera on the verge of defeating Valentine (who had been portrayed as nearly unbeatable) on television.

The two were matched in a series of house show main events, with Valentine always coming out on top and retaining the U.S. championship.

His brother, Jack Patera, played football for the Baltimore Colts and was the head coach for the Seattle Seahawks from 1976 until 1982.

His brother, Dennis Patera, played for the San Francisco 49ers.

Ken played football at Cleveland High School in Portland, Oregon, and wrestled at 193 pounds.

Track and field was his first love, however, and he competed in the high hurdles and high jump, but a serious ankle injury forced him to switch to the shot put and discus in high school.

Ken grew to become one of the nation's premier track and field weight throwers, competing at Brigham Young University.

Patera competed in the inaugural World's Strongest Man contest in 1977, finishing third behind Bruce Wilhelm and Bob Young.

Being a legitimate weightlifter and strongman, Patera also performed feats of strength during his wrestling career.

In 1977, he challenged Bruno Sammartino for the WWWF Heavyweight Championship.

This was a huge draw around the northeastern part of the United States and at Madison Square Garden, and was one of Sammartino's last great challengers before losing the title to Superstar Billy Graham, which ended his second, shorter WWF title reign.

When Bob Backlund later won the title, Patera also unsuccessfully challenged him.

He was one of the most hated heels in wrestling (winning Pro Wrestling Illustrated's Most Hated Wrestler Award in 1977), and often used his swinging full nelson to "injure" babyface opponents during matches (most notably Billy White Wolf in August 1977).

On an episode of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, in 1978, Patera and Tony Atlas performed various feats of strength, including driving nails through boards, blowing up a hot water bottle until it popped, bending spikes wrapped in a towel and bending bars over their necks.

Patera returned to the Mid-Atlantic territory as a heel, defeating area legend Chief Wahoo McDaniel for the Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship in April 1978.

Patera held that title, off and on, for over a year, losing it to, and regaining it from, Tony Atlas.

Patera then lost the title to fellow AWA alumnus Jim Brunzell, in Richmond, Virginia.

At the height of his career, in 1980, he simultaneously held the WWF's Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship, and the NWA Missouri Heavyweight Championship, two very prestigious titles of that era.

Patera was an integral part of the Heenan Family in the AWA (1982–1983), and later in the WWF (1984–1985).

While in the AWA, he feuded with Hulk Hogan, Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell.

During Heenan's absence in 1983, caused by a back injury, Patera joined forces with manager Sheik Adnan El-Kaissie and formed a tag team with Jerry Blackwell known as "the Sheiks" (with Patera calling himself "Sheik Lawrence of Arabia"); both men wore Arabian-style garments and feuded with the High Flyers (Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell) over the AWA World Tag Team Championship, winning the belts in June 1983.