Édouard Carpentier

Édouard Ignacz Weiczorkiewicz (Russian: Эдуард Виецз; July 17, 1926 – October 30, 2010) was a Canadian professional wrestler better known by his ring name Édouard Carpentier. In a career that spanned from the 1950s into the 1970s, he garnered several world championships.

Early life

Weiczorkiewicz was born in 1926 in Roanne, Loire, France to a Russian father and a Polish mother. He joined the French underground resistance during the period of German occupation during World War II and was subsequently awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Croix du combattant medals by the French government at the close of the war. He moved to Montreal, Québec in 1956, becoming a Canadian citizen. He also became an all around athlete with gymnastic skills.

Professional wrestling career

Carpentier was a crowd favorite who delighted fans with acrobatic leaps from the turnbuckles and a variety of other aerial maneuvers such as the rope-aided twisting headscissors. He was one of the first wrestlers to regularly use such maneuvers. He was always a fan favorite in his bouts and was matched against numerous villains, perhaps the most well known of whom was the legendary Killer Kowalski.

Lou Thesz

Aloysius Martin "Lou" Thesz (born Lajos Tiza April 24, 1916 – April 28, 2002) was an American professional wrestler and six-timeworld champion, most notably holding the NWA World Heavyweight Championship three times. Combined, he held the NWA Championship for 10 years, three months and nine days (3,749 days total), longer than anyone else in history. Among his many accomplishments, he is credited with inventing a number of professional wrestling techniques such as the belly to back waistlock suplex (later known as the German suplex due to its association with Karl Gotch), the Lou Thesz press, STF and the original powerbomb. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time.

Wrestling career

Killer Kowalski

Władek (later Walter) "Killer" Kowalski (October 13, 1926 – August 30, 2008), born Edward Władysław Spulnik, was a Polish-Canadian professional wrestler. Kowalski wrestled for numerous promotions during his career, including the NWA and WWF, and was a known heel wrestler. He held numerous championships including the WWWF World Tag Team Championship with Big John Studd billed as The Executioners and managed by Lou Albano. After retiring in 1977, Kowalski started a professional wrestling school in Malden, Massachusetts and trained many professional wrestlers, including Triple H, Chyna, Eddie Edwards, Kofi Kingston, Damien Sandow, Fandango, Brittany Brown, April Hunter, John Kronus and Perry Saturn.

Early life

The man later known as "Killer Kowalski" (he legally changed his name in 1963) was the son of Polish immigrants Antoni Spulnik and Maria Borowska; he, his older sister Wanda and his younger brother Stanley were raised in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Years later he told interviewers that he never expected to be a wrestler – by the age of fourteen he was already 6 feet 4 inches (193 cm), and because he was thin for his height, he began working out at the local YMCA, but he 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 plant in Detroit to help pay his wage.