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The G.O.A.T. 100 #59 | Gene Kiniski
Welcome to the G.O.A.T. 100 where we will count down with PWM wrestling historian Peter Edge the 100 greatest wrestlers of all time, based on many different stats and criteria. A new wrestler will be added on Mondays and Thursdays every week. Here is a link to an introduction essay with Peter explaining his GOAT100 concept. At the bottom of the article you can find the GOAT 100 Portal with links to all profiles so far published, as well as a visual key... Enjoy learning more about the history of our great hobby!
One of the forgotten NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champions to some – sandwiched between Lou Thesz’ second reign and the era of the Funks, Jack Brisco and Harley Race – Gene Kiniski is a name that doesn’t get talked about in the vein of those NWA Champs in the days of board of director votes and the idea that you needed to be the worker of workers to be the NWA Champion… but that belies how good Gene was.
Kiniski was one of the links to the days when pro wrestling was on network television in the U.S in the early 50s, and he was one of the first big stars made by national TV of pro wrestling in his home nation of Canada a few years later, and he stuck around, not quite until the days of the WWF national expansion, but he remained as a big name and a headliner throughout the 70s.
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada’s greatest ever wrestler, Gene was born to Polish immigrants in 1928. His mother Julia would be elected to the city council of Edmonton as an independent – this finally happening while her son was the wrestling champion of the world, after her 14 previous attempts had ended in defeat.
After being scouted by the Edmonton Eskimos, a team in the Western Interprovincial Football League, (part of the merger to give us the CFL) Kiniski – playing alongside fellow future wrestlers Wilbur Snyder and Joe Blanchard (father of Tully) – impressed so highly on the defensive line, that he earned a scholarship to the University of Arizona and played for the Wildcats football team.
After three seasons on the team, two with winning records, Gene was persuaded to try wrestling by Rod Fenton, a fellow Edmonton native who had ended up in the state of Arizona as a promoter for the territory in Tucson.
Trained by Dory Funk Sr, Kiniski made his debut on February 13th, 1952. By the end of 1954, Kiniski ended up in Southern California, appearing on TV just as the medium was blossoming, and wrestling was a vital driver of growth for the technology.
Kiniski got the chance to wrestle Lou Thesz for his NWA World Heavyweight Championship at the Olympic Auditorium.
Gene then went to San Francisco and would team with Lord James Blears, winning the San Francisco version of the NWA Tag Titles on two occasions – in a time when The Sharpe Brothers had a virtual stranglehold on the belts. Texas also saw Kiniski have success, but billed as Gene Kelly, (probably singing in the non-existent rain) as he won Southwest Sports’ (the name of the Dallas-based promotion before it became World Class) main title, the NWA Texas Heavyweight Title, exchanging title wins with Pepper Gomez.
It wasn’t until 1956 that Kiniski set foot back in Canada, appearing in Toronto’s Maple Leaf Wrestling and would embark on a lengthy multi-year feud with Whipper Billy Watson, the first Canadian to become NWA World Champion. Their rivalry spanned multiple territories in Canada, such as Stampede in Calgary and The Maritimes in Halifax, AWA (American Wrestling Association) in Manitoba, as well as sometimes crossing the border and wrestling in Buffalo. Matches between the pair would reach the biggest audiences in Canadian pro wrestling, with CBC airing their shows from Maple Leaf.
Kiniski would also be a trusted attraction to challenge for the NWA Title when Thesz or later his successor as champ Dick Hutton would come to the Great White North to defend the belt.
As a top heel in two of the Big Three territories in the country, Kiniski would feud with Yukon Eric, Ed Carpentier and Pat O’Connor in Toronto and Montreal, capturing the International Heavyweight Title in the latter, and beating Carpentier and the British Empire Title in Toronto from New Zealander O’Connor – both in 1957. The British Empire Title reign –his first of four – would be ended by Watson on June 6th. Kiniski and Killer Kowalski headlined Montreal’s Delormier Stadium for an International defence on July 17th in that year, which saw Kiniski drop that title to Kowalski.
As the 60s began, Kiniski was back to working more often in the States, and would join the upstart AWA. On July 11, 1961, Kiniski would beat Verne Gagne to win the AWA World Heavyweight Title. In a fun trivia fact, Gene Kiniski is the only wrestler to ever win both the NWA and AWA Titles.
But the AWA reign wouldn’t last as long as the later NWA one – Gene held the belt for just 28 days before losing it back to Verne in the Metropolitan Stadium, the home stadium of the Minnesota Twins baseball team who had recently moved there from Washington D.C.
While he had already had a lot of success, many feel that it is 1962 when Gene found the final piece of the jigsaw. Going to Vancouver and to one of the newest NWA affiliates in All-Star Wrestling, he made the city of the west coast his homebase, and as the big fish in the small pond – in relation to other places in the Great White North – Kiniski found his groove as the main character of the territory.
Two of those British Empire reigns mentioned earlier were in Vancouver, and Kiniski won the promotion’s tag belts six times over his first four years there, (eventually going on to win the belts 10 times.) Three of those reigns were with Hard Boiled Haggerty, and Kiniski also held tag gold with Kowalski and Don Leo Jonathan.
Gene would go to other cities for runs – most notably to New York and the WWWF, where he feuded with Bruno Sammartino. He headlined MSG against the WWWF Champion on November 16th, 1964 and would steal the belt after the loss in a 2 out of 3 Falls match. Though Kiniski only had the physical belt and not the championship, this was enough to set up a rematch, with Kiniski’s return in December seeing Bruno win again and this time get his belt back.
Kiniski won the WWA Title in Indiana in a feud with Dick The Bruiser (also the promoter in the territory) holding the belt for 4 months – the longest reign with a promotions’ top belt that Gene had had so far. It would be good practice for Gene for what was coming next.
In 1965, Lou Thesz, the NWA champion, and NWA president Sam Muchnick had a falling out over Thesz being unwilling to drop the title to Bruno Sammartino in a unification match.
Muchnick and Vince J. McMahon tried to reach a deal – it was Muchnick’s belief that the business would be better off with a unified front to the public and one Undisputed World Champion. The idea of one world champion in a business like pro wrestling was virtually impossible, there were just too many competing priorities and agendas. (Imagine the obstacles for AEW and WWE to unify their World Championships today!) But Muchnick – coming from a sports background and looking to give wrestling a public face like a legitimate sport – always saw the biggest problem in the business being the perception of having a “World Champion” on every street corner. (You wonder what he might have made of boxing today?)
It had only been two years earlier when Muchnick and McMahon had had a falling out over Buddy Rogers as NWA World champion, leading to WWWF breaking from the NWA and crowning their own competing World Champion.
But by this point, Rogers was no longer in the picture after his heart attack in 1963. The key to the negotiations is Muchnick was willing to go with McMahon’s guy, Sammartino, as the unified world champion.
But the idea never got traction. Sammartino refused the schedule they wanted him to keep, consistent with what Thesz, Hutton and Longson had kept in their turn as the ace of the National Wrestling Association/Alliance. While Thesz refused to put Bruno over unless it was for a big money guarantee that was well beyond the standards of that era.
It was sold to Thesz that he would lose to Sammartino on a show that would be closed-circuited around the country, a broadcasting feature that was in its infancy, thus, in theory, generating a level of revenue no pro wrestling event in history ever had. He was also told that a year later, Sammartino would return the favor. But Thesz didn’t trust that Vince J. and Toots Mondt – McMahon’s partner (in crime) – would honour that promise, particularly since Thesz was never featured strongly or a big draw in their markets in the Northeast.
Thesz knew his days as champion were over no matter what. But he was only willing to drop the title to someone he respected, and when the name Kiniski was brought up, Thesz had no issues with him.
The respect Kiniski had from the key NWA power brokers like Thesz and Muchnick was such that he was chosen as champion even though he had just come off that run in the WWWF. Even though, some NWA promoters made the argument that it would be bad optics for the NWA’s standard bearer to be a guy who had just been unsuccessful (in kayfabe) in going after the WWWF title. But at the same time, Kiniski was still clearly the strongest viable candidate, and those objections were overruled.
Fritz Von Erich was raising a family and didn’t want to take on the travel schedule. (also, would you want to stay away from Maura Tierney?) Ray Stevens was considered by many to be the best performer, but he had been on the West Coast and had not worked in most of the key cities for so long, plus his promoter, Roy Shire in San Francisco, was not part of the NWA. Dick the Bruiser had his own promotion in Indianapolis, and even though he was a great attraction, he wasn’t at the levels in-ring that were expected for an NWA Champ. Killer Kowalski at the time was making too much money working in Australia to be tempted, and Johnny Valentine, as GOAT 100 as he was, was a little too unpredictable.
The key with Kiniski was, (even though he grew to hate many of the NWA promoters as champion) he was someone promoters could depend on to do local media, (which he actually enjoyed, more than most champions) and no matter what the weather conditions, he had a reputation of always making his matches.
The fact he played Canadian football and was a college athlete, gave him some positive press as well as sports credibility from sportswriters and sportscasters when he came to town carrying the big belt. And with his size, he looked, dressed and carried himself believably in his role. He had a reputation for being tough – in that era, there were still enough of the old promoters who remembered the old days and the stories that came with it and wanted a guy who someone would think was an easy target for an in-ring double-cross… but they would be wrong with that take!
Kiniski was great at generating heel heat throughout his career as well. He once caused a riot in Montreal when involved in an angle with beloved local ring hero Édouard Carpentier. The Vancouverian villain lobbed a chair at Ed and ignited the crowd, with chairs being thrown at Gene by irate fans. Gene then used those chairs to thwack Ed and Ed’s ally André Bollet, which didn’t help proceedings. His ability to carry on pissing people off in all the cities he went to would make Gene the third true heel to be the World Champ – after Bill Longson and Buddy Rogers.
His wife regularly attended his matches in St. Louis during that period, and was uncomfortable with the level of heel heat her husband got, and it often shook her up so much she would leave before the match ended.
In his three years as NWA Champ, Gene was a Top 3 at the box office. He also became the first man to go to Japan as NWA Champ since the famous Thesz/Rikidozan contest in 1957. He would have really great matches there with Giant Baba, including an improbably good match at Osaka Baseball stadium in front of 25,000 which went the hour in blistering heat and humidity. He would also be the first to defend the NWA belt in (long since split off) Los Angeles for 11 years, going to a time-limit draw with Bobo Brazil.
Like Thesz though, Gene had issues with some of the NWA members. He believed the promoters were cheating him on his 10% cut, or booking him in cities where the gates were so small it wasn’t worth his time to be working. It all came to a head at the 1968 NWA convention, when he lambasted the promoters while at the table – saying that they were a bunch of pimps, and they treated the wrestlers like whores.
That rant constituted his giving notice he wanted out as champion, and Dory Funk Jr. (the son of the wrestler who helped start Kiniski) was chosen as his successor. The title would change hands on February 11, 1969, in Tampa.
Post title run, Kiniski would still be around, even if he didn’t have the stock he did while he was the Worlds Heavyweight Champ. He won St. Louis Wrestling Club’s main title, beating Terry Funk. He also became the Pacific Coast Heavyweight Champ (now the top title in Vancouver) seven times in the 70s. He would hold the title for 1,176 days, almost a third of the decade. He would also be the part of a consortium that bought the rights to promote Vancouver, partnered with Sandor Szabo and Portland owner Don Owen.
He sold those shares in 1983, and later in that year, Kiniski was involved in the biggest event of the year when, as Special Guest Referee for the Starrcade main event between Ric Flair and Harley Race, he single-handedly ruined that match by actually being a pedantic bastard to the point that it offended me, and I’m the most pedantic person in the world.
After a further decade of sporadic appearances in the ring, his final night, February 25th, 1993 saw him teaming with The Thrillseekers team of Chris Jericho and Lance Storm against “Bulldog” Bob Brown, Don Callis (hated even then in his “The Natural” gimmick) and Gerry Morrow, as well as competing in a battle royal that same night.
Kiniski would pass away on April 14, 2010. We were more or less prepared for his death by Jim Ross who would break the news in his blog on April 4th that Gene had “taken a turn for the worse and is battling to stay alive. 'Big Thunder's' cancer has spread to his brain and some speculate that it is just a matter of time [before he dies.]”
The man of many nicknames, among them “Big Thunder,” “Giant Gene Kiniski” and “Canada’s Greatest Athlete,” (I think Wayne Gretzky has taken that last one) his size and physical style gave him a ring presence matched by only a few in his era. Kiniski’s physical brawling style – built on aggression and conditioning, where he also mixed in enough wrestling to give you the impression he was proficient at it – created an aura of an all-around competitor with size who could move. A big talker and great one, he made himself the center of attention almost everywhere he went.
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