An interview with "The Killer"

by Jennifer Brand
HippoPress.com

For 20 years, I have been a fan of professional wrestling. As a child, I would sneak downstairs late at night to watch Saturday Night's Main Event, and more than once was busted by my mother because I got too loud while yelling at the TV. When I was a teenager, I watched it because of those hot men in their wild clothes. In college, I became interested in the business and psychological aspects of wrestling and wrote several papers on the subject. That's when I discovered the legends of the old timers-the men who started in the business before television; before Vince McMahon turned the world on its ear with the glitz and glamour that wrestling is today.

So when I got the chance to interview the legendary Killer Kowalski at his pro wrestling school in Malden, Mass., I knew it would be a memorable experience.

I entered the building and climbed the stairs to the gym, listening to the sounds of crashing bodies and shouts of pain- "selling the moves" they call it. I rounded the corner and saw the ring. It was much bigger and higher than I had expected, and full of young men flipping backward off the top rope-"Moonsault class," explained April Hunter, who runs Kowalski's Web site when she's not training in the gym. Off in a corner, watching intently, sat the man I came to see.

He stood to introduce himself, and I was immediately impressed by his height. Kowalski is a big guy who spent 30 years in the ring. It impacted his body with quite a bit of permanent damage. He can no longer touch either hand to his shoulders because of having his elbows dislocated. Both of his knees have suffered the ligament injuries common to wrestlers. His left shoulder has been knocked out of place four times, his right twice. Once he suffered spinal shock in the ring when a move went wrong, leaving him temporarily paralyzed. And this man was trained by a professional. Sometimes things go wrong in the squared circle. Kowalski is lucky he can still move.

He got his start in 1947 in Ontario, Canada. A professional wrestling trainer asked him to come down to Detroit, Mich., to train and work the circuit. At first Kowalski passed, but a friend of his began training and urged him to join. He soon did, and eventually gave up his job at the Ford Motor company to be a full time professional wrestler. He enjoyed the action in the ring, and was having fun as a young, strong athlete. Back then, he was still Walter Kowalski, but that would change one Wednesday night in Montreal.
He had a match with Yukon Eric that night. The match was going well, and when it came time for Kowalski's finishing move he set up Yukon Eric in the corner as usual. Yukon should have taken a shin to the chest as Kowalski came down off the ropes. But Yukon moved at the last second, and Kowalski came down on Yukon's left ear-a big cauliflower ear.

"It went rolling across the ring like a golf ball," recalls Kowalski. "The next thing I know the ref is grabbing me, asking me, 'What did you do?' I didn't know til I saw the blood pouring from Yukon Eric's head. Then I saw this thing in the ring, and I went to pick it up. That's when I saw it was his ear."

A few days later the promoter asked Kowalski to go see Yukon Eric in the hospital. He agreed to go, but when he saw the room full of people hanging around Yukon Eric, the solitary Kowalski didn't want to go in. So he stood in the doorway, and caught his first glimpse of the now one-eared Yukon Eric.

"He was sitting on the edge of the bed," says Kowalski. "His head was all wrapped with that white gauze, and all I could think was, 'Well, Humpty Dumpty sitting on a wall.' and I just had to laugh. That was Friday. Saturday morning the Montreal Gazette had a headline about 'Killer Kowalski' going to see Yukon Eric in the hospital and laughing at him. So I've been 'Killer' ever since."

He used that heel image to sell out more than one show. If the crowd wasn't there to see him on the first night of a tour he would shoot a TV promo that slammed the audience, and sure enough they'd come out in droves to shout insults and boo him at the next show.

Kowalski knows the business well. He worked not only for Vince McMahon as a trainer, but also for Vince's father, Vince Sr., as well as Vince's grandfather, Jesse. as a wrestler. Kowalski goes way back with the McMahon family, and as a thank-you gift he received a WWF ring for his school. He has trained some of the most famous wrestlers in the world today, including Triple H and Chyna, who are both from New Hampshire.

It's an all-consuming business. Can you put your body on the line every time you step in the ring, and have faith that your opponent isn't going to drop you and break your neck? Can you spend years in the minor leagues paying your dues before getting a break and maybe someday finding yourself in the spotlight? Can you put everything you've got into your eight minutes in the ring, knowing that this is a time-limited career, and that eventually your body is going to give out on you?

You have to love it that much. If you do, then you should go see Kowalski. He even offers a special rate to those of you out there who are already jumping off your garage roofs in pursuit of the dream.

Jennifer Brand can be reached at: hippo@hippopress.com