Bill Kazmaier

William Kazmaier (born December 30, 1953) is an American former world champion powerlifter, world champion strongman and professional wrestler.

During the 1970s and 1980s, he set numerous powerlifting and strongman world records, and won two International Powerlifting Federation (IPF) World Championships and three World's Strongest Man titles.

A star athlete in high school, Kazmaier played football for two years at the University of Wisconsin–Madison before dropping out in 1974 to concentrate on lifting weights at the Madison YMCA.

There he learned the fundamentals of powerlifting.

Kazmaier then struggled to earn a living as an oil rigger, a bouncer, and a lumberjack.

At the 1978 Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) National Championships in Los Angeles, California, Kazmaier squatted 782 lbs, bench pressed 534 lbs, and deadlifted 804 lbs in the 275-pound weight class, which immediately placed him in the top rank in his first national powerlifting appearance.

In 1979 at age 25, he set a world record with a bench press of 622 lbs on the way to winning his first IPF World Powerlifting Championship in Dayton, Ohio.

His winning lifts included an 865 lbs squat, the 622 lbs bench press and an 804 lbs deadlift for a 2291 lbs total.

The world record bench press in early 1979 was 612 lbs, held by Lars Hedlund.

In 1979 World's Strongest Man, he came in third after leading throughout much of the competition and beating powerlifting icon Don Reinhoudt in the car lift by deadlifting a 2555 lbs car.

In the 1980s, Kazmaier became famous for his claim to be "the strongest man who ever lived" by equaling and surpassing spectacular and versatile feats of strength of famous strongmen of the 20th century.

In the following years, he dominated the competitions in 1980, 1981, and 1982, winning all by a large margin.

He was the first man to win the WSM title three times and remains one of only two men ever to win it three times in a row.

In his 1980 title win, Kazmaier won five of ten events and tied for first in another.

He won the log lift, the engine race, the steel bar bend, the girl squat lift, the silver dollar deadlift, and the final tug of war.

The runner-up in the competition, Lars Hedlund, was over 28 points behind.

Kazmaier moved the world record stepwise up from 617.3 lbs in July, 1979 to 622.8 lbs in November 1979 to 633.8 lbs in May, 1980 and finally to 661.4 lbs at the USPF West Georgia Open Powerlifting Championships, held in Columbus, Georgia on January 31, 1981.

In this competition, Kazmaier officially became the first human to bench press 300 kg (raw) in an IPF-sanctioned meet and recorded his lifetime best three-lift-total of 2425 lb, a powerlifting world record that remained unsurpassed for more than a decade.

His winning lifts were: a 925.9 lb squat, the 661.4 lb bench press and an 837.8 lb deadlift.

The bench press and deadlift were done raw (unequipped), while the squat was performed with wraps and a marathon squat suit.

His powerlifting performance is regarded as one of the best of all time.

In November 1981, Kazmaier became one of the few lifters in history to hold world records in three of the four powerlifting events at the same time by setting a new deadlift world record at 402 kg raw in competition.

From 1981 onwards Kazmaier's career was affected by multiple muscle tears and injuries, preventing him from setting the bar even higher.

He sustained chest, shoulder and triceps injuries, ruling out further records in the bench press.

Kazmaier competed in six World's Strongest Man contests.

During Kazmaier's title defense at the 1981 World's Strongest Man he won the squat event with 969 lb (on a smith machine) for a world record, just after tearing his pectoralis major muscle while bending cold rolled steel bars in the bar bend event before.

In the 1982 World's Strongest Man competition Kazmaier won the first three events.

A notable performance in this WSM was his 1055 lbs silver dollar deadlift.

Despite being the reigning champion, the organizers decided not to invite Kazmaier to compete in the following four WSM competitions, with Kazmaier claiming it was because he was "too dominant".

He repeated the success in 1983 by first winning the United States Powerlifting Federation (USPF) National Powerlifting Championships in July and later the IPF World Championship in November for a second time.

He won this IPF World Championship despite two major injuries.

He had a severe pectoral injury, from which he never recovered completely, and shortly before the IPF Championships, had torn his hip flexors in the squat.

After this tear, he lost more than one-hundred pounds off his bench press, making his 1983 IPF world championship win all that much more significant.

Following his win in the squat he went on to win the silver dollar deadlift with a 960 lb lift.

After his competitor failed to make the final lift, Kazmaier lifted the weight twice despite needing only one rep to secure the win.

Of 11 events he had five wins, two second places, one third and a fourth.

His wins included the log lift, deadlift, squat, loading race and engine race.

His absence cleared the way for Kazmaier's main rival, Geoff Capes, to win the title in 1983.

He is widely considered to be one of the all-time greatest competitors in strength competitions and was inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.

Kazmaier is of German ancestry.