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| Ken Patera | |
| Statistics | |
|---|---|
| Ring name(s) | Ken Patera |
| Billed height | 6 ft 1.75 in (1.87 m) |
| Billed weight | 256 lb (116 kg; 18.3 st) |
| Born | November 6, 1943 |
| Resides | Portland, Oregon |
| Trained by | Verne Gagne |
| Debut | 1973 |
Ken Patera (born November 6, 1943) is a former professional wrestler and Olympic weightlifter.
Contents |
Weightlifting career
Patera is a former Olympic Weightlifter and USA powerlifter. His greatest success was as an Olympic Weightlifter. He won several medals at the Pan American Games (including gold), and finished second in the 1971 World Weightlifting Championships. He was the first American to clean and jerk 500(503 1/2) lbs (227 kg), which he achieved at the 1972 Senior Nationals in Detroit. He is also the only American to clean and press 500 lbs (227 kg), and he was arguably the last American to excel at weightlifting on an international level. He was a serious competitor to the Soviet legend Vasily Alexeev at the 1972 Summer Olympics, but he failed to total and was not among the medal recipients. After the press (a lift in which Patera was disproportionately talented) was eliminated from competition, Patera's weightlifting career was over.
Patera's career best lifts were all achieved in a meet in San Francisco on July 23, 1972 (Wilhelm, 1994):
- Snatch - 387½ pounds (175.7 kg)
- Clean and press - 505½ pounds (229.25 kg)
- Clean and jerk - 505½ pounds (229.25 kg)
When measured for the 1972 Olympics, he weighed 340 pounds at a height of 6'1¾" (Wilhelm, 1994). Patera also competed in the first World's Strongest Man contest in 1977, finishing third behind Bruce Wilhelm and Bob Young. Patera also performed feats of strength during his wrestling career. On an episode of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, in 1978, Patera and Tony Atlas performed various feats of strength, including driving nails through boards, blowing up a hot water bottle until it popped, bending spikes wrapped in a towel and bending bars over the neck.[1]
Professional wrestling career
Patera was one of the first "strongmen" in professional wrestling following his weightlifting career. He wrestled mainly as a heel for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), and American Wrestling Association (AWA) during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1976, he challenged Bruno Sammartino for the WWWF Heavyweight Championship. This was a huge draw around the northeastern part of United States and at Madison Square Garden and was one of Sammartino's last challenges before he lost the title to Superstar Billy Graham. When Bob Backlund won the title, Patera unsuccessfully challenged him. At the height of his career (in the early 1980s) he simultaneously held the WWF's Intercontinental Championship, and the NWA Missouri Heavyweight Championship, two of the most important non-world championship titles of that era. He also was one of the most hated heels in wrestling during this time. Patera often used his Swinging Full Nelson to "injure" opponents during matches (most notably Billy White Wolf in August 1977). The Swinging Neckbreaker was a simple full nelson applied with the opponent then swung in a circle so his feet would leave the ground.
Patera was an integral part of The Heenan Family in the AWA (1982–1983) and later with the WWF (1984–1985). While in the AWA, he feuded with Hulk Hogan, Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell. During Heenan's absence in 1983, caused by a back injury, Patera joined forces with manager Sheik Adnan El-Kaissie and formed a tag team with Jerry Blackwell known as the Sheiks; both men wore Arab garments and feuded with the High Flyers Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell over the AWA Tag Team Title. Patera won the AWA World Tag Team Championship with Jerry Blackwell, defeating Gagne and Brunzell. Patera and Blackwell later lost the titles to Baron Von Raschke and The Crusher. In the WWF, Patera resumed his feud with Hogan and also assisted Big John Studd in his feud with André the Giant, most notably helping Studd cut Andre's hair after attacking him 2-on-1.
On April 6, 1984, Patera and fellow AWA heel Masa Saito were denied service after hours at a McDonald's restaurant in Waukesha, Wisconsin, allegedly prompting an angry Patera to throw a large rock through the window (Ken claims that a former employee threw the rock but he received the blame). He and Saito assaulted the policemen sent to arrest them later at a hotel. Sixteen months later, by which point Patera had returned to the WWF, he was sentenced to two years in prison.
The WWF brought Patera back to the company in the spring of 1987, airing some vignettes and releasing a Coliseum Video cassette entitled "The Ken Patera Story" chronicling his career and his return. He was in top physical condition at this point, and his appearance had changed, as he wore natural brown hair, rather than his previous bleached blond look. To ensure Patera would be accepted as a babyface, he claimed that former manager Bobby Heenan had abandoned him and "sold him down the river" while he was in prison. Patera and Heenan held a debate to air their differences, which naturally turned into a physical confrontation between the two that culminated in Patera swinging Heenan with a belt around his neck, causing Heenan to appear on television with a neck brace for months. Patera then began feuding with the Heenan Family (at the time composed of Paul Orndorff, Harley Race, King Kong Bundy and Hercules Hernandez). In his first match back at Madison Square Garden, in the final match of the night, he defeated The Honkytonk Man via submission with a bearhug, to a huge ovation. Some wrestling publications speculated that Patera would reunite with Heenan to face Hulk Hogan in the main event of WrestleMania IV. But his push was short-lived. Shortly after his return, Patera ruptured the biceps tendon in his right arm, which led him to miss some time and re-emerge afterward with a stiff and bulky full-length brace for protection. Within six months, Patera was being used to put over newer, younger talent and found himself floundering in a mid-card tag team with fellow Oregonian Billy Jack Haynes. In his final televised WWF matches in late 1988 (losses to Bad News Brown and "Outlaw" Ron Bass), commentators Gorilla Monsoon and Lord Alfred Hayes openly remarked that Patera's skills were in decline and that he should consider retirement.
Patera signed with the AWA in early 1989 and challenged the new AWA world champion Larry Zbyszko for the title, but ended up in a tag team with Brad Rheingans as "The Olympians." The team defeated Badd Company for the AWA World Tag Team Championship shortly thereafter, but their reign was brief. Fellow weightlifter-turned-wrestler Wayne Bloom challenged Patera to a "car-lifting challenge" in order to get a title shot. When it was Patera's turn to lift, Bloom's partner Mike Enos and manager Johnny Valiant attacked and injured Patera and Rheingans. This led to the AWA stripping Patera and Rheingans of the title. Rheingans left wrestling for several months in order to have a legitimate knee operation not related to the incident. Patera continued to feud with Bloom and Enos until he left the AWA. Upon his return to the AWA in early 1990, Rheingans resumed the feud until the AWA's demise.
Patera went on to wrestle for Herb Abrams' UWF, PWA and on independent cards primarily in the Minnesota area well into the 1990s, sometimes even promoting his own events.
Personal life
Patera is the younger brother of Jack Patera, who coached the NFL's Seattle Seahawks from 1976 to 1982.
In wrestling
- Finishing moves
- Lifted spinning full nelson
- Bearhug, sometimes applied to two people
Championships and accomplishments
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- AWA World Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Brad Rheingans (1) and Jerry Blackwell (1)
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- Other honoree (1999)
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- NWA Tri-State Brass Knuckles Championship (1 time)
- NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Tri-State version) (1 time) – with Killer Karl Kox
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- PWI Most Hated Wrestler of the Year (1977, 1981)
- PWI ranked him # 75 of the 100 best tag teams of the "PWI Years" – with Jerry Blackwell in 2003.
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- Match of the Year award in 1980 – vs. Bob Backlund (Texas Death match, May 19, 1980, New York City, New York)
References
- Wilhelm, Bruce, "Ken Patera: Titan of Strength", Milo, July 1994.
External links
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