Before He Was Ed “Strangler” Lewis

Wrestling historians consider either Ed “Strangler” Lewis or Frank Gotch to be the greatest American professional wrestler. While we know quite a bit about the early career of Frank Gotch, we know much less about the early career of Ed “Strangler” Lewis.

Various sources claim Lewis learned catch-as-catch-can wrestling in the carnivals when he was only fourteen years old. Lewis was born Robert Friedrich on June 30, 1891, in tiny Nekoosa, Wisconsin. In 1900, Nekoosa boasted a population of 745 people.

By 1910, when Friedrich wrestled his earliest professional wrestling match I can find, Nekoosa had doubled in population to 1,500. The town population never rose above 2,700.

On Tuesday, December 27, 1910, Friedrich wrestled “Babe” Abel of Madison, Wisconsin in a best two-out-of-three-falls match. The men wrestled at Brook’s Hall in Nekoosa.

One of the myths about Friedrich is that Friedrich changed his name to Lewis to keep his parents from finding out that Friedrich was wrestling professionally. However, Friedrich wrestling in his hometown argues against this theory. It is impossible to believe Friedrich could keep his profession a secret from his parents after wrestling under his real name in his small hometown.

Friedrich wrestled a legitimate contest in this match. Friedrich needed one hour, fifty-five minutes to pin Abel for the first fall. Even with a 15-minute intermission, Friedrich only need forty-nine seconds to slam an utterly exhausted Abel for the second fall and match in two straight falls.

In 1913, Friedrich changed his name to Ed “Strangler” Lewis in honor of the original “Strangler”, Evan Lewis. Evan Lewis was a fellow Wisconsin native, who was born in Ridgeway, Wisconsin and lived in Dodgeville, Wisconsin.

Friedrich started using Ed “Strangler” Lewis when he travelled to Kentucky to wrestle in early 1913. From that point until his retirement, Friedrich wrestled as Ed “Strangler” Lewis. During the 1920s, Lewis earned more money from professional wrestling than any other professional athlete not named Jack Dempsey.

In 1910, Friedrich was just an up-and-coming local star. Grandiose things were in store for the Wisconsin native.

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Sources: The Daily Tribune (Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin), December 28, 1910, p. 4

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