Verne Gagne, a legendary pro wrestler and one of the last great wrestling promoters of the 20th century passed away last night. He was 89.
Born February 26, 1926 in Robbinsale, Minnesota, it was clear that young Laverne Clarence Gagne would be a sports star. In high school, it was difficult to see which sport it would be. He was an All-State football player as well as a district, regional and state champion wrestler. His wrestling and football success seemed lock and step throughout his young life, recruited to play football for the University of Minnesota and being named to the All-Big Ten team. After a year in the United States Marine Corps, Gagne returned to the University of Minnesota and captured two NCAA amateur wrestling titles and stood as an alternate for Team USA in the 1948 Summer Olympics. After once earning money in a wrestling match at a carnival, Gagne feared his Olympic wrestling future was in jeopardy. Luckily, he had been drafted by the Chicago Bears in the 1947 NFL Draft in the 16th round, 145th pick and considered doing football while going pro in wrestling. Unfortunately, Chicago Bears owner George Salas forced Gagne to pick one sport, preventing him from having a dual-sport career like wrestling and Bears football legend Bronko Nagurski. With the money in wrestling, Verne chose pro wrestling.
Verne Gagne made his professional wrestling debut with the National Wrestling Alliance in 1949, debuting in Texas. Working all over America in the dawn of American network television, many of Gagne’s matches were shown by the DuMont Network (a rival of NBC, CBS and ABC in the 50s) as he impressed audiences with his wrestling prowess. Throughout the 50s, there were few wrestling stars bigger than Verne Gagne, despite him only being a regional champion until August 9, 1958 when he defeated Edouard Carpentier for the NWA Heavyweight championship. Carpentier was only technically the NWA champion after beating Lou Thesz, as not all territories considered him the true champion. Gagne dropped the championship only three months later to Wilbur Snyder. By 1960, it was time for Verne Gagne the wrestler to take a seat back to Verne Gagne the promoter.
In 1960, Gagne created the American Wrestling Association, separate from the National Wrestling Alliance. Gagne also ran the wrestling school for the AWA on his farm in Minnesota. Gagne trained close to 100 wrestlers with names including Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat, Bob Backlund, The Iron Sheik, Curt Hennig, Dick the Bruiser and Ole Anderson. Gagne loved his legitimate wrestlers with technical prowess as well as real tough guys. The AWA thrived as a rival of the National Wrestling Alliance, capturing a major audience in the Mid-West as well as Manitoba, Canada. Gagne was the title character in the 1974 film The Wrestler (not to be confused with the recent film), which was a who’s who at the time of great wrestling figures. Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Nick Bockwinkel, Billy Graham, Don Muraco, Billy Robinson, Dory Funk Jr. and even the father of Vincent K. McMahon, Vincent J. McMahon appears in the film. The point of the movie was about Ed Asner as a wrestling promoter trying to get all of the promoters together to create a “Superbowl” of Wrestling with Gagne as an aging star trying to hold onto the main event.
By the 1980s, cable was in its infancy and Vincent K. McMahon had purchased the WWWF from his father. Gagne had a major superstar in one Hulk Hogan, who had originally worked in the WWWF as a bad guy and gained critical fame for his appearance in Rocky III. Despite Gagne’s reputation for preferring amateur wrestlers over bodybuilders, Hogan says it was Verne Gagne who taught him how to “Hulk Up”, the wrestling moment that made Hulkamania the biggest wrestling spectacle of the 1980s:
RIP Verne Gagne,Verne said stay down and sell until u hear the crowd rumbling then Start shaking and Hulk up and don’t sell anymore thx HH
— Hulk Hogan (@HulkHogan) April 28, 2015
Hogan soon departed from the AWA. It was believed to be because Verne Gagne refused to put the AWA World Heavyweight championship on Hogan, but it was really due to Hogan’s affiliation with New Japan Pro Wrestling clashing with the AWA’s affiliation with Japanese rival All Japan Pro Wrestling. Hogan left to the WWF and became the biggest pro wrestling star of all time up to that point. This momentum would eventually spell the beginning of the end for Gagne’s AWA. Despite having a television deal with the young sports network ESPN, the decline of quality, exodus of young stars, aging of old stars and power of the WWF and NWA pushed AWA to third place and eventually into bankruptcy in 1991.
Gagne left the wrestling business as a man who made more money by wrestling than close to anyone else, as well as one of the most successful promoters of pro wrestling. Despite the downfall of the AWA and subsequently selling their tape library to the WWE, Gagne was still celebrated by his entry into the WWE Hall of Fame. Everyone from Ric Flair to Hulk Hogan to Curt Hennig to Scott Hall to even Eric Bischoff owe much to Verne.
Only three years after his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame, Gagne was in a health care facility when he had an incident with 97-year old Helmut Gutmann. Gagne, suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, shoved Gutmann and at a table. Gutmann died from the injury and police ruled it a homicide, but Gagne was not charged due to his mental state. He had since been living with his daughter Beth and made some public appearances aided by his son and former wrestler Greg.
Verne Gagne will forever be known as one of the most important figures to professional wrestling in the 20th century. He truly was The Wrestler.
