George Tragos, the Original Crippler
George Tragos gained fame as the trainer of Lou Thesz, the dominant National Wrestling Alliance World Heavyweight Champion of the 1950s and early 1960s. Tragos, a 1920 Olympian for his native Greece, possessed an impeccable resume in legitimate wrestling.
Born March 14, 1901, in Messinia, Greece, Tragos won national wrestling titles before representing Greece at the 1920 Olympics at only 19 years old.
After competing in the 1920 Olympics, Tragos immigrated to the United States in 1923. Tragos settled in St. Louis where his fellow countryman Tom Packs, born Anthanasios Pakiotis, promoted professional wrestling.
George Tragos, Olympic wrestler, middleweight professional wrestler, trainer and one of the most dangerous submission wrestlers of his day (Public Domain)
Tragos wrestled professionally and even won professional championships in the middleweight division. Tragos never achieved wrestling stardom though. Tragos did not have much of a personality which held him back in the worked era of professional wrestling.
Tragos achieved success as a trainer rather than an actual professional wrestler. Tragos coached the University of Missouri wrestling team from the middle 1920s until the early 1930s. Tragos also trained wrestlers at Harry Cook’s Business Men’s Gym in Downtown St. Louis.
It was in his role as trainer at the Business Men’s Gym that he met a young Lou Thesz around 1933. Tom Packs suggested Thesz ask Tragos to train him. The wrestlers worked out at the gym, often training in legitimate wrestling even though they worked the matches in the ring.
Tragos accepted Thesz as his student and trained him for the next two years. Thesz’s fellow wrestlers begged him not to train with Tragos. The wrestlers warned Thesz that Tragos would lose his temper during training and hurt Thesz on purpose.
Tragos, a skilled submission wrestler, hurt other wrestlers in training. If other wrestlers got cute with Tragos in training, he broke the arm, leg, or rib of the offending party. If the wrestler was a braggart, Tragos also hurt them. When Thesz asked Tragos why, Tragos said, “They have no respect for our sport.”
Packs used Tragos to weed out potential wrestlers. Packs, or his booker Bill Nelson, sent potential wrestlers to Cook’s gym to train with Tragos. Tragos stretched them, often hurt them, and sent them away. If the injured wrestler came back after healing up, Packs might give the aspiring wrestler an opportunity.
The guys guaranteed to get injured were fans or want-to-be tough guys, who showed up at Cook’s gym to test a wrestler. Without fail, Tragos took the challenge, broke the man’s arm or leg, and watched impassively as the ambulance took the screaming man away. Tragos showed no remorse for hurting the braggarts in these circumstances.
Despite his preference for legitimate wrestling, Tragos worked his professional matches. During February 1940, Tragos worked the opening match with Bob Haack at a Pack’s card in the Municipal Auditorium. St. Louis wrestler Warren Bockwinkel, a friend of Thesz, wrestled Ivan Managoff in the second match. Lou Thesz wrestled Bronko Nagurski for the National Wrestling Association in the main event.
Despite the other wrestlers’ fears, Tragos never hurt Thesz. Tragos watched with pride as Thesz became the biggest name in professional wrestling during the late 1940s and early 1950s.
George Tragos passed away in St. Louis at 54 years of age on September 5, 1955. Tragos suffered a heart attack and died on the way to the hospital. Tragos’s wife Mary and two sons survived him.
Few wrestlers made the impact inside the ring that Tragos made outside of it. One of the greatest legitimate submission wrestlers of the 20th Century showed his skills inside the training room. Few wrestlers dared challenge him.
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Sources: St. Louis Star and Times (St. Louis, Missouri), February 17, 1940, p. 7, Hooker by Lou Thesz, Chapter 2, and Missouri Death Certificate Database – George Tragos Death Certificate from 1955.
