Plague of Strength

Much to the chagrin of the natty “genetic limits” crowd, in the 1940s and 50s there existed a crew of gigantic pro wrestlers who dwarfed just about everyone in modern pro wrestling, dudes so huge they pretty much defy description and all of whom stand as a stark reminder of the fact that genetics play a laughably small role in one’s muscular potential. These men, all of whom were born in the economically tumultuous first third of the 20th century, didn’t just smash all of the idiotic “genetic limits” you’ll see repeated online as gospel- they destroyed every preconception everyone on the plane had about how big people could move, how muscular a person could get, what the “place” of black people in Southern society was, and any idea you might have that your improper sports supplementation might be the problem with your in-gym progress.

Meet the dudes who did the most with the least, in a time when everyone told these men that everything they would ever try would end in failure. These were men who defied the odds and everyone’s expectations as they paved the way for Rocky Johnson and Tony Atlas: Bobo Brazil (1924-1998), Sailor Art Thomas (1924-2003), and Luthor Lindsay (1924-1972), all of whom were Negro Heavyweight World Champions in wrestling because racism and white fragility prevented white people from allowing them to win the regular belts.

For those of you who have read my new book, Plague of Strength’s Bite-Size History Vol. 1, you’ll be familiar with the House of David baseball team, but for those who haven’t yet purchased it, here’s a primer before you go drop $10 on the greatest history book you’ll ever read- the House of David was an evangelical Christian cult that started a couple of badass baseball teams that were co-ed, multi-racial, and practically unstoppable on the field. They helped desegregate the South by forcing Southerners to allow the Negro League All-Star team with whom they traveled in a kind of Globetrotters-style arrangement to stay in the same hotels and eat in the same restaurants as the HOD team, and it was here that we begin the story for Bobo Brazil. The wrestling champ was at that time was a baseball player named Houston Harris born in the to-this-day-racist-af Little Rock, Arkansas, who was trying to break into professional sports while working at a steel mill.

After a few matches, the gigantic baseball player was introduced to famed wrestling promoter Joe Savoldi, who gave Houston the name BooBoo Brazil and a gimmick with a sequined cape. The first flyer advertising Brazil misspelled his name, and the name Bobo stuck with him for the rest of his career (something that happened a lot with fighters in that day). Very quickly, Bobo became a huge draw all over the country due to his massive size, his incredible strength, and his incredibly soft-spoken manner. Where the black fighter to win boxing’s heavyweight championship created controversy wherever he went and flaunted his victories and sexual conquests with white women, Bobo Brazil would make impassioned pleas to his fans to come out and support him, because he could not win without their help.

Wrestling events in the South at this time had segregated seating (whites sat in floor seats while blacks were confined to the balcony) and they treated black fans like shit, but black wrestlers and one white wrestling heel named Sputnik Monroe (a wrestler I profiled in BSH) marketed to them. While Brazil played the genuine nice guy everyman, Monroe played the ultimate heel in the mind-meltingly racist Memphis market- he stole fashion cues from the exact people that terrify fat old white men who drink mint juleps and got his drip up with a purple gown and a diamond-tipped walking cane. Because he really was about that life though, Monroe started drinking in traditionally black bars, and openly hung out with black patrons while handing out tickets to shows. That, of course, aroused the ire of racist cops, who arrested him for a variety of archaic and asinine charges, which he would then hire a black attorney to resolve. This meant that he became the largest draw in his territory, and it forced them to change their seating policy because Monroe’s shows would be half empty in the floor seats, but the balcony would be over capacity and sold out.

At the same time, Brazil quickly began drawing so many fans at Southern matches that event promoters were forced to abandon their segregated seating system altogether to accommodate the massive number of fans of all colors. It was a perfect storm of desegregation forced on the unwilling and unwitting Southerners by the House of David baseball team (which created the gimmick that the Harlem Globetrotters would later use in basketball, although the House of David was actually nearly unbeatable instead of simply so for the sake of performance) combined with the racism of NFL fans and the opportunity it created for Brazil that Bobo Brazil is known as the “Jackie Robinson of wrestling”- like Jackie Robinson he was not the first to do it, but he was the spark that lit the fire of desegregation in that sport.

Similarly, Bobo Brazil’s gigantic tag team partner Art Thomas never held the strap, as his skin color prevented it (and his horrific gimmick probably should have if that hadn’t). His atrocious gimmick, which was just dressing as a sailor, was pulled from Thomas’s stint in the Merchant Marine, which he entered to escape the hell of being black in a US orphanage in the 1930s. After the Merchant Marine, he began bodybuilding and was quickly picked up by a touring strongman show. In 1943 a promoter plucked him out of that and dropped him into the wrestling world, where it is thought he was the first bodybuilder-wrestler of the sort which Tony Atlas and the Ultimate Warrior would later exemplify.

Like the Warrior decades later. Al Thomas man couldn’t wrestle for shit, but he was immensely strong and very difficult to hurt. As a result, he was able to easily manhandle the racists who would get into the ring and try to mete out some “Southern justice.” Due to his general lack of technical knowledge, Sailor Art Thomas most commonly used the move with which George Hackenschmidt and the other strongman-wrestlers of the early 20th century broke thousands of opponents’ ribs over the years- the bear hug. Instead of learning a variety of ways to hurt people, Sailor Art Thomas chose the time-honed method of the strongman and simply became a human Juicemaster- if he wasn’t looking for a submission by bearhug or fatality by internal organs perforated by multiple splintered ribs, Thomas used his massive strength for basic throws.

Though his wrestling style matched that of the Warrior, his demeanor was quite the opposite- Art Thomas was too nice for his own good and often taken advantage of as a result, but beloved for his physique and work ethic and respected because he was a serious badass when he finally realized he had been wronged. Despite the endless efforts by dickheads to defraud him, Thomas didn’t live angry and die young- Thomas’s career lasted from the 40s to the 80s, and his life expectancy at age 10 was only 45 years but he lived to 79.

In a somewhat tragic counterpoint to Thomas’s longevity is the short life span of the third giant of the era, Luther Lindsay (1924-1972). Lindsay’s insanely thick-legged career was cut short in the ring when he suffered a fatal heart attack while pinning his opponent in a match. Perhaps it was his height and weight that did him is, because in spite of his tree-trunk legs, Lindsay was a mere 6’4″ 235lbs. Also unlike his occasional tag-team partners and travelling companions, Lindsay was a highly skilled submission fighter who was one of the only people to beat professional wrestling legend Stu Hart in the Hart’s Dungeon. He impressed men like Lou Thesz and Stu Hart so much that Hart actually carried a photo of Lindsay in his wallet until his death, and it was his insane wrestling skills that enabled Lindsay to be the first black man ever to challenge for the world heavyweight title.

Despite the fact that the owners of the LA Colosseum forced the LA Rams to hire a black player in 1946 or face eviction, black football players who entered the league in the late 1940s and early 1950s often left as quickly as they came due to the incessant racial abuse that was hurled at them by crowds of dickheads. It was in fact so bad that the second black player to enter the NFL, Woody Strode said that if he had to integrate heaven, he wouldn’t go.

Due to that unstoppable wave of tiny-dick energy coming out of NFL fans and players, men like Luther Lindsay (1924-1972), who in any other era would have one of the nastiest linebackers the NFL would have ever seen, went into professional wrestling instead of the NFL. It wasn’t just the NFl that missed out on his skils though- had mixed-martial arts existed when Luther was alive, he’d probably be remembered as one of the best fighters in history, because Luther wasn’t just modern-pro-wrestler-huge- he was so skilled at submission fighting that is he lived in this era no one would have ever heard of Brock Lesnar, except as a reminder not to fuck with Luther Lindsay. In fact he was so strong and so good at submission fighting that he is purportedly the only person who ever “stretched” Stu Hart, a bro so legendary at submission fighting that he might as well be Paul Bunyan, because Stu Hart impressed the shit out of God-tier fighter Gene LeBell (read why that matters HERE).

If you’ve seen the noughties-era film Ready to Rumble, Stu Hart was the basis for the trainer in that film- he was Judo Gene Lebell-level badass (Lebell said Stu Hart was possibly the toughest man he knew), and Lindsay tapped him often enough that Stu Hart carried a pic of Lindsay in his wallet until his death.

If you’re keeping score, this is a NCAA Division II wrestling champ and All-American nose tackle who went into pro wrestling after hating the Canadian Football League and looking for a new gig. In doing so he became arguably the baddest fighter on the planet in the 1950s, snagged the Negro HW Champion title in 1953, was the first black man to challenge for a title, and his success allowed for other black wrestlers like his eventual tag-team partner Bearcat Wright to enter pro wrestling and win the title. And he was as wildly glorious in death as he was in life, dying in the ring of a heart attack after coming off the top rope for a pin, just like in the movie The Wrestler. Oh, and he was one of the first professional wrestlers to openly promote heavy weightlifting- like all of Stu Hart’s guys, Luther loved the bench press and reportedly benched over 450lbs in his prime.

Unfortunately for Lindsay, it was Bobo Brazil’s other tag team partner, Bearcat Wright (1932-1982), who would win the first heavyweight title in wrestling as a black man, though most wrestling historians dismiss his championship due to regional factionalism in wrestling promotions and a variety of other dumb bullshit (they erroneously claim Ron Simmons was the first champ, though he was born seven years before Bearcat Wright beat Killer Kowalski for the title). A case could also be made that Brazil won a title in 1961 just before Bearcat Wright beat Kowalski, but because Brazil defeated Nature Boy Buddy Rogers when he was injured, Brazil refused to accept he title. Regardless, these three men were an absolutely unstoppable force for multiple decades, they shattered the preconceived notions and misapprehensions of racist wrestling fans about the abilities of black people, and dismantled the race barrier that had kept black men out of championship contention in wrestling. In the history of badasses who never quit fighting, these men sit squarely in the VIP section.

Though Bearcat Wright wasn’t as ripped as the other guys, he was neither small nor a pussy. Wright stood 6’6″ 275lbs and would rip phone books in half during his promos. Beyond that, he was 8-0 as a professional boxer- he sidelined in that sport because his father was a boxer by the same name who defeated Max Baer and fought George Godfrey for the Negro Heavyweight Title. Wright didn’t just bring crushing grip strength to the ring, either- the man swam through controversy like fish swim through water and went even harder at the idea that “no press is bad press” than Elon Musk- he was suspended by the Indiana Athletic Commission for refusing to compete until wrestling was desegregated (a move that ultimately helped desegregate boxing) and refused to drop the strap (relinquish his title) to multiple high-profile white wrestlers (Killer Kowalski and Classy Freddy Blassy). Because he was such a massive draw, wrestling promotions forgave the big man over and over and continued to book him for main events until his untimely death at 50 from sickle cell anemia. Before his death, however, he wrestled all over the world, demonstrating his massive strength and sick vertical leap from Memphis to Melbourne and everywhere in between.

Lest you think he was the first black world wrestling champion, however, think again- that distinction sees to be held by Frank Crozier (1882-sometime after 1937), who won the coveted Lord Lonsdale belt in catch wrestling, which was the 19th century precursor to modern submission fighting that allowed small joint manipulation and strangulation, both of which are barred from competition today. Lancashire wrestling matches, also known as catch wrestling, catch-as-catch-can or gouging (as it was called in the United States, where an eye gouge equalled a boxing KO) were nasty- when fighting Lancashire wrestlers you knew they were going to just hurt you in weird ways, digging their fingers into sensitive areas and trying to damage nerve ganglions when they weren’t digging their chin into your eyeball, snapping your fingers, or striking in the same way you see open-hand fighting in Japanese promotions like Shooto.

Crozier, a Jamaican who emigrated to Scotland and began lifting and wrestling there, won the title on his first try, besting legendary the legendary Wigan and Lancashire wrestlers who would found Billy Robinson’s Snake Pit, which was one of the earliest modern-ish mma gyms and a factory for insanely hardcore light-and middleweight fighters.

The heavyweight winner that year was the Swiss Hercules Johann Lemm, which made this tournament a sort of bodybuilding exhibition as well, as Lemm was just as jacked at 5’8″ 216lbs (given Crozier only weighed 154lbs, he must’ve been short af). It is also very interesting to note that the promoter for Lemm and the circus tournament was the Scottish Apollo William Bankier, a 5’6″ 175lb early practitioner of jujitsu as well as a badass bodybuilder-strongman with 15.75″ cold-measured arms (which would be over 17″ with a pump).

Crozier traveled all over Europe wrestling and occasionally boxing, getting knocked the fuck out by former world champion Jack Johnson so quickly that Johnson had to do an exhibition against a family member afterward to calm the crowd. He didn’t officially retire until his 40s, at which point he’d been a massage therapist for years. It was for that reason he volunteered to work in a hospital during the Spanish Civil War rather than simply flexing his UK passport and leaving. At some point in Spain’s tumultuous 1930s, the world lost track of this badass and his date of death is unknown.

And Crozier himself followed in the steps of the man who was perhaps the United States’ first black wrestling champion, Viro Small aka Black Sam (1854-??). Standing 5’9″ and 184lbs, Small would have been big for a well-fed white person of the era rather than a free black man living in poverty and under horrific oppression. Small put his brawn to excellent use as both a boxer and a wrestler (though the distinction at that time was fairly hard to make from a 20th century perspective) and became a collar-and-elbow (what would become collegiate style) champion of the United States before going around the country dominating all comers in catch wrestling. Not to disparage your favorite fighter, but not even Wanderlei “The Axe Murderer” Silva beat anyone so badly they later came back with a gun, but Viro Small did just that.

Not that it mattered to Small, because the Tiny Dick Energy fired out of that gun and into Small’s neck barely even slowed him down- his craven, gun-toting opponent went to prison and a year later Small was back battering the fuck out people in boxing, wrestling, and in bars, as he was the number-one bouncer in the most violent neighborhood in the United States at that time. Known as the Bowery and made famous in the film Gangs of New York, that area was known for producing insanely badass pro fighters like Bill “The Butcher” Poole and John Morrissey and the most violent gang members this side of MS-13. He was so beloved that just over 100 years after he was born, boxing historian Morrow Wilson wrote in his book Magnificent Scufflers that

“Viro was the right man of any hour. He was warm natured, courteous, and sympathetic toward the live and let live customers, yet he was also strong of body and will power. Though Viro stalwartly declined to get rough with any customer with minor transgressions such as running out of money, any patron who was disposed to start fights or bully or use objectionable language was as good as in the gutter the moment he opened up. Viro was also a man of extremely rapid motions and almost uncanny talents for removing pistols or knives and replacing drawn weapons with fractured arms or wrists or tranquilizing uppercuts, but always, of course, in a courteous manner.”

If you take nothing else away from this article, realize that you’re focused on all the wrong things. None of these guys were obsessing over minute details like their macro-and micronutrients, badgering people online about the best program, or program construction, or ANYTHING TO DO WITH PROGRAMS OR DIET. When in doubt, they trained harder and ate more meat. Then they repeated that system over and over until success emerged. Success is within your grasp, because it’s not like you have anything remotely resembling the challenges that these guys faced and overcame with a smile and flexed biceps.

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