William Muldoon, Physical Culture Legend

I first read about William Muldoon in a biography of John L. Sullivan, the last bare knuckle heavyweight champion. Sullivan ushered in gloved boxing by refusing to take part in any more bare-knuckle bouts.

John L. Sullivan and Jake Kilrain fought the last major bare-knuckle bout in 1889. Odds were against Sullivan, a binge drinker indulging heavily between bouts. He was in terrible condition before fighting Kilrain and the fighting public knew it.

Fans expected Kilrain to be Sullivan’s hardest challenger. Kilrain lived up to his billing as shown by John L. needing seventy-five of the scheduled eighty rounds to beat Kilrain. The man responsible for getting Sullivan into shape for this important victory was William Muldoon.

Muldoon’s biggest challenge was keeping Sullivan out of the bars. Muldoon would go into a tavern and drag him back to training camp. The biography of Sullivan said Sullivan openly feared Muldoon. Anyone who scared John L. Sullivan was someone I wanted to know more about.

William Muldoon was born on May 25, 1852, in Alleghany County, New York. He joined the Union Army as a drummer boy in 1864 at twelve years of age. Even at this early age, Muldoon was wrestling other men and boys and doing quite well.

Muldoon made his early living by a combination of professional wrestling and working as a New York City police officer. The NYPD promoted Muldoon to detective before Muldoon resigned in 1881 to be a full-time wrestler. Muldoon already won the World Championship prior to his resignation.

Muldoon beat all the top Greco-Roman wrestlers. The only wrestler Muldoon could not defeat was Clarence Whistler. Muldoon and Whistler wrestled for seven hours without a single fall in one bout.

 No one could defeat Muldoon for his world title, which Muldoon quit defending in 1890 at 38 years of age. In 1889, when he dragged John L. out of the bar, Muldoon was thirty-seven to John L.’s thirty-one years of age. Upon his retirement, Muldoon began focusing on his system of training and building his health farm in West Plains, New York.

In 1900, when Muldoon was 48 years old, he opened his health institute, “The Olympia”, in Purchase, New York. Muldoon continued training boxers, wrestlers, athletes, celebrities, and other health-conscious people. Muldoon ran one of the first commercially workable health and fitness companies.

Like other old-time wrestlers before and after him, Muldoon lived into his eighties. Professional wrestlers focus on healthy living prior to the steroid era allowed them to live longer and more productive lives. Before his death at 81 years of age on June 3, 1933, Muldoon was also chair of the New York State Athletic Commission.

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