Wrestler Killer Kowalski, 81, dies from heart attack

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Sunday, August 31st 2008, 7:45 PM

Hoff/News

Killer Kowalski (top) died Saturday at 81.

EVERETT, Mass. - Pro wrestling pioneer Walter (Killer) Kowalski died early Saturday from the effects of a massive heart attack. He was 81.

Kowalski died at Whidden Hospital 12 days after his family took him off life support. He had been in critical condition since Aug. 8, his wife, Theresa, said.

"I was right beside him. I put my hand on his chest, I felt his breathing slow down and his heartbeat stop," she said. "The doctor said he was brain dead. ... I was waiting, hoping somebody could do something."

"We've been together over 10, but we've been married for two years," she said. "He was a bachelor all his life. He was a wonderful man, never drank, never smoked and he was a vegetarian for almost 60 years."

An obituary at the Web site of the Weir Mac Cuish Family Funeral Home in Malden, Mass., said Kowalski began his professional career in 1947 as Tarzan Kowalski. His 6-foot-7, 275-pound frame and a brutal wrestling style soon earned him a new nickname, Killer. Kowalski began to be known as a villain after hurting Yukon Eric during a 1954 match in Montreal.

He visited his opponent in hospital after the match to check up on him and "the two men began laughing at how silly Eric's bandages looked. The reporter incorrectly printed that Killer was laughing at his victim, and Killer quickly became wrestling's most renowned villain," the Web site says.

Kowalski, who was famous for a stomach vise-grip called the Killer Clutch, retired in 1977 and later opened a wrestling school in Malden.