Sunday, October 23, 2005
The Wrestler Who Made Milwaukee Famous
One of the most memorable characters ever has gone to the big beer hall in the sky to start raising hell again with The Bruiser. All praise The Crusher, dead Saturday October 22, 2005 at age 79.
The Crusher -- Reggie Lisowski to a few -- was a true American original. Promoted as "The Wrestler Who Made Milwaukee Famous," he'd brag about running along the Lake Michigan waterfront with a keg of beer on each shoulder so he could get in shape to polka all night with the town's many Polish barmaids.
In July 1999, The Crusher made an appearance at a racetrack in Kenosha, WI. Some of his comments perfectly sum up who he was and what he meant to wrestling.
"These turkeyneck bums they got wrestling, some of them couldn't shine Crusher or Bruiser's shoes," the gravelly-voiced, cigar-chomping tough guy said. "I come up the hard way. I had all these cage matches. I wrestled in the cage more than any other rassler in the history of rasslin.' I got all the scars to prove it. The time I wrestled Mad Dog [Vachon] in the cage, I had to go to the hospital, and he had to go to the veterinarian to get sown up.
"I had a lot of tough, rough matches through my life, but the only thing that kept me going is the way I built my body up. Just like you build a building brick by brick, I built this body up muscle by muscle! I been knocked down, I been hit with bar stools, I've been hit with chairs, I've been hit with bar maids, I've been hit with bar rags, but nobody ever knocked The Crusher down [for good].
Read The Entire Article
The Crusher -- Reggie Lisowski to a few -- was a true American original. Promoted as "The Wrestler Who Made Milwaukee Famous," he'd brag about running along the Lake Michigan waterfront with a keg of beer on each shoulder so he could get in shape to polka all night with the town's many Polish barmaids.
In July 1999, The Crusher made an appearance at a racetrack in Kenosha, WI. Some of his comments perfectly sum up who he was and what he meant to wrestling.
"These turkeyneck bums they got wrestling, some of them couldn't shine Crusher or Bruiser's shoes," the gravelly-voiced, cigar-chomping tough guy said. "I come up the hard way. I had all these cage matches. I wrestled in the cage more than any other rassler in the history of rasslin.' I got all the scars to prove it. The time I wrestled Mad Dog [Vachon] in the cage, I had to go to the hospital, and he had to go to the veterinarian to get sown up.
"I had a lot of tough, rough matches through my life, but the only thing that kept me going is the way I built my body up. Just like you build a building brick by brick, I built this body up muscle by muscle! I been knocked down, I been hit with bar stools, I've been hit with chairs, I've been hit with bar maids, I've been hit with bar rags, but nobody ever knocked The Crusher down [for good].
Read The Entire Article
posted by Perkoff at 4:21 PM