Killer Kowalski

Wladek Kowalski (born Edward Władysław Spulnik; October 13, 1926 – August 30, 2008), known by the ring name as Killer Kowalski, was a Polish-Canadian professional wrestler.

Kowalski wrestled for numerous promotions during his career, including the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) and World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF, now WWE), and was a known heel.

He held numerous championships including the WWWF World Tag Team Championship with Big John Studd billed as the Executioners and managed by Lou Albano.

Kowalski wrestled from 1947 to 1977 in a number of organizations, including the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) and American Wrestling Association (AWA) as a heel.

Kowalski's rise in the business came quickly.

His first recorded match occurred on May 6, 1948, and by November 29 of the same year, Kowalski was facing NWA champion Orville Brown in a heavyweight championship match.

Kowalski stood out in his era for his larger-than-normal size, and for a faster-paced style in the ring.

He wrestled as a demonstrative "heel," or villain, except when facing the even-more-hated Buddy Rogers.

In his matches with Rogers, Kowalski would adopt a more serious "babyface" approach.

Outside of the ring, however, Kowalski was considered so friendly and polite that some wrestling promoters complained about the way he would "drop character" in public.

When he first wrestled professionally, he was known as "Tarzan Kowalski", but was also called Hercules Kowalski, Killer Kowalski (this nickname is used as early as 1950) and even The Polish Apollo, according to newspaper reports from 1950 to 1951.

During the Cold War his name was changed to Wladek Kowalski, which was supposed to sound more menacing.

Also in the late 1950s, Kowalski fought what was supposed to be a best two out of three match in Fall River, Massachusetts against Mr. Moto.

Just before the bell starting the first fall, Kowalski had his back turned to Moto while doing some stretches in his corner.

Moto raced across the ring and hit Kowalski over the head with one of the clogs with which he had walked into the ring.

Of course, the referee did not see this happen.

The bell rang and a seemingly dazed Kowalski staggered around the ring and was quickly pinned by Moto.

On October 15, 1952, in a match in Montreal versus Yukon Eric, Kowalski ripped off a part of Yukon Eric's ear while performing a knee drop.

In reality, Eric's ears were already badly cauliflowered due to years of abuse and the injury was an accident, but it fortified Kowalski as being a ruthless villain who gleefully maims his opponents.

Kowalski attempted to visit his opponent in the hospital and began laughing along with Eric at how silly the bandages looked, with Kowalski recalling years later, "I swear, the first thing I thought of was Humpty Dumpty on the wall. Yukon Eric looked at me, shook his head, and smiled. I started laughing and he laughed, too."

When the incident was reported in the paper the next day, it stated that Kowalski showed up at the hospital and laughed at his victim rather than with him, furthering Kowalski's image as a heel.

The incident sparked a long-running series of grudge matches between the two wrestlers which took place throughout North America.

By the time the feud had run out of steam several years later, Yukon Eric joked to Kowalski about the small size of an audience, "God, that's a lousy house. I might have to sacrifice another ear."

Kowalski also gained some notoriety in Boston for an incident in late June 1958 when he was wrestling Pat O'Connor.

The guest referee was former boxing great Jack Dempsey, who suffered a kick to the diaphragm and had to be hospitalized.

Dempsey did not blame Kowalski, and both said it was an accident, but this further cemented the Killer's reputation as a villain.

In the 1960s, Kowalski claimed to be the only vegetarian professional wrestler.

Born Edward Władysław Spulnik, Kowalski was the son of Polish immigrants Antoni Spulnik and Maria Borowska; he, his older sister Wanda, and his younger brother Stanley were born and raised in Windsor, Ontario.

Years later, he told interviewers that he never expected to be a wrestler – by the age of 14, he was already 6 ft, and because he was thin for his height, he began working out at the local YMCA, but had no plan to go into athletics at that time.

When he entered college, his major was electrical engineering.

He worked part-time at the Ford Motor Company plant in Detroit to help pay his way.

There are several stories of how Spulnik became a wrestler.

The most common one is that while attending the University of Detroit (some sources say Assumption College in Windsor), he heard that there was an opportunity to make good pay by wrestling.

He was only being paid $50 a week at the Ford plant and was told he could make more as a wrestler.

Since he already had an athletic build, he decided to give wrestling a try and began attending a wrestling school.

Kowalski had done much the same to boost Giant Baba's fame in Japan, with a televised 1963 match.

In 1967, the top-rated Australian television talk show host Don Lane irritated Kowalski during an apparently friendly interview and was attacked with the Kowalski claw hold.

In December 1972, Kowalski became the first wrestler to pin André the Giant in North America, in what was billed as a "Battle of the Giants."

Photographs from the Quebec City match helped to establish André's reputation in American wrestling magazines, since they showed him towering over the better-known Kowalski.

After retiring in 1977, Kowalski started a professional wrestling school in Malden, Massachusetts and trained many professional wrestlers, including Studd, Triple H, Chyna, Eddie Edwards, Frankie Kazarian, Kofi Kingston, Damien Sandow, Fandango, Brittany Brown, April Hunter, John Kronus, Perry Saturn, and Tommaso Ciampa.