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All Documented, All True, Comic Book Story of Ed "Strangler" Lewis

Here is the all documented, all true, 100% factual, accurate comic book Life Story of Ed “Strangler” Lewis. This story is a real biography of one of the greatest wrestlers ever to step in the ring. Told in the pages of the scholarly publication known as Sports Action Comics #9 and published in 1951 it is most likely this comic book was drawn on scene as these events actually happened.

The Headlock Of Ed Strangler Lewis

Ed “Strangler” Lewis began as a pro baseball player and instead of going home at night after a full day of playing the most boring sport known to exist Ed would do what all the most intelligent toughest members of society have always done and go watch pro-wrestling.

Wrestling A Real Mans Sport

Lewis believed he could beat most of the Wrestlers he watched and so he did what any self respecting athlete would do and left the wussy game of baseball for the real mans sport of Wrestling. At 20 years old Ed Lewis began his career.

 

To get started Ed Lewis went from town to town wrestling everyone. In no time at all Lewis had wrestled 3,500 matches losing only 12 of them. But even more notorious than Ed Lewis’s winning record was his headlock. Ed Lewis had massive shoulders and once he got a hold of someone's neck he would squeeze it till submission. Earning his name “Strangler!”

The Strangler Earns His Name

But The “Strangler” didn’t just win because of his natural athletic ability or talent. Ed took his training serious and built a special device to make his headlock ever more powerful!

The Stranglers Headlock Machine

When it came to Jiu-Jitsu Experts The "Strangler" destroyed them all!

Ed Lewis Beats JiuJitsu

After beating everyone in Japan The “Strangler” went to China and beat everyone there also!

Lewis Beats Everyone In China

With virtually no one left on the planet to beat Ed “Strangler” Lewis wanted a shot at Jim Londos. Londos was considered not only one of the most popular Wrestlers of the time he was also one of the best looking.

Lewis Challenges Londos

Of course Londos wanted no part of the The “Strangler” and denied him the challenge so Lewis decided to no longer just beat more best wrestlers of his day but to also critically injure them in the process!

Lewis Sends People To Hospital

Checkout this sweet Airplane Spin Lewis slapped on Sammy Stein. Stein was also a professional baseball player for the Brooklyn Dogers.

Strangler Airplane Spin

Lewis continued his rampage across the wrestling circuits. Lewis even beat Richard Shikat who held a victory over Londos. However Londos still wouldn’t face Ed “Strangler” Lewis.

Londos Dodges LewisAs Lewis aged he continued to wrestle and people began to doubt him and his headlocking. So Lewis took on two challengers in one night beating them both back to back. Let that be a lesson to everyone reading this a good headlock never goes out of style.

Lewis Beats Guys Back to Back

Finally The Ed “Strangler” Lewis got his match with Londos...

Lewis Looses to Londos

Lewis continued Wrestling into his fifties but as he got older he picked up more and more losses. Finally Lewis decided to leave wrestling as the acrobatics and theatrics of Professional Wrestling had began to become more popular than the tried and true holds of real, legitimate Wrestling. And The “Strangler” disappeared from Wrestling all together.

The Strangler Returns

 

Strength Monsters Comic Book MadnessThat concludes this installment of Pro Wrestling Comics. I’ll be back next month with another review of a Pro Wrestling Comic Book. In the meantime make sure you download a Complimentary copy of my own personal pro-wrestling comic book Strength Monsters created and written by me by simply putting your name and email in the box below.

 

Source: Sports Action Comics #22 Oct. 1951

 

My Encounter With The Heavy Freight Champion

Heavy Freight Champion

In 2009 and I was driving out in the desert along the East Side of the Salton Sea just south of Palm Springs. What was I doing out there? Checking out a little resort town known as Bombay Beach. Being a person that takes a high amount of interest in a number of obscure things a road trip to Bombay Beach had been on my to do list for some time and it did not disappoint. As I was driving through the desert this train rolled up next to me traveling at nearly the same speed I was and that’s when I saw it. The “Heavy Freight Champions.” I snapped this photo and knew I was on the right track!

Welcome To Pro Wrestling Comics

I grew up at the height of the Golden Age of American Pro-Wrestling. I watched it every week on television. When I was ten years old my dad took me to see Andre the Giant wrestle live at the San Diego Sports Arena against the Ultimate Warrior.  I can still remember everything about that match to this day. If I think back hard enough I can even feel the excitement I had to see Andre the Giant in the ring and in action, he was my favorite wrestler. Professional wrestling at that time was more theatrical than anything. Most of the wrestlers portrayed over-the-top, larger than life personas. Characters such as Ravishing Rick Rude, Macho Man Randy Savage, The Honky Tonk Man, Ricky the Dragon Steamboat, Ted Dibiase the Million Dollar Man, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Bret the Hitman Hart, Sargent Slaughter, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Mr. T, and of course Hulk Hogan were just a few of the many characters to dominate the ring at the time.

The Incredible Hulk Vs Hulk Hogan

What I didn’t know about back then was that there had been an era of Pro-Wrestling long before this, when Wrestlers were known for their their actual wrestling ability. There was a real grappling style. It was a form of wrestling with origins in the west that specialized in submission. This style was the predecessor of the worked Pro-Wrestling matches we know of today. It was a style that had been around for thousands of years, and it was called Catch as Catch Can.

Ed Strangler Lewis Comic Book

Catch Wrestling was brutal. There were very few illegal holds or maneuvers in a Catch Wrestling match. In fact, the term No Holds Barred originated in Catch Wrestling. It is a term that later on was used to describe MMA during its infant stages as a popular competition. The Catch Wrestling style had been handed off from generation to generation for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Abraham Lincoln earned a reputation as a Catch Wrestler before his presidential days.

 

The Folk Style of Wrestling, practiced in high schools and universities all across the United States today, originated as a branch of the older Catch Wrestling style.

 

As professional wrestling matches became fixed, the professional sport evolved into a form of sports entertainment, moving away from real competitive wrestling matches and into theatrics. As this happened, the old time knowledge of the real Professional Wrestlers quickly faded away and was nearly lost except to a handful of people.

 

Strength Monsters Comic Book MadnessThe few old timers left, who knew and had mastered the authentic and true ways of the Pro-Wrestling style, were forced to walk between the realms of real and worked matches. These were the guys no one crossed in the ring, they were often used as enforcers to keep people in line within a promotion. They would even take on the amateur wrestlers or any others who wanted to challenge or disrespect the Professional Wrestling Tradition.

 

That is where the Pro-Wrestling Comic Book Strength Monsters begins. I made this comic book because I was inspired by a lot of real people and true stories. I made this comic book because I have something to say about professional wrestling, catch wrestling, and a lot of other things.

 

Strength Monsters aims to be a 100% Professional Wrestling comic book steeped in the traditions of Catch as Catch Can. I invite you to please sit down, relax, download, AND READ the first inaugural issue of my Strength Monsters series right now. Just put your name and email in the box below and a download link for a DMR Free PDF file of the comic book will be sent directly to your inbox. After that I will keep you up to date every few months or so on the progress I’m making towards completing the next issues to come.

 

Sincerely,

Signature 300x46

 

 

 

 

Superman Becomes A Pro Wrestler in The Grappler of Steel!

This story opens with a beautiful Splash page. "The Masked Superman will Wrestle All Comers” a throwback to the old carnival days of Catch Wrestling.

To get the story kicked off Superman can’t remember his other identity as Clark Kent. This is because he was hit with an amnesia ray by a spy who plans on posing as Clark Kent while carrying out missions of espionage. Superman with his memory loss then comes across a newspaper article about a missing masked Pro Wrestling Superman and assumes that must be his other identity.

Superman wastes no time to put on the Pro Wrestling mask and find the manager of the Masked Superman. Once in the ring the Masked Superman puts on a show of Super Feats by Chucking a 5 ton safe into the audience.

Superman Throws FiveTon Safe

Then he takes a kids Balloon away from him and pops it with the lasers he can blast out of his eyes. But I’m sure it's ok since he's thinking of getting him another one later.

Superman Pops Kids Ballon

Superman's first match is against a Wrestler going by the name of The Bulldozer.

Superman Takes on Pro Wrestler

As The Bulldozer begins working his half nelson Superman counters with a toe hold.

Superman Toe Hold

This submission causes The Bulldozer to quickly quit.

Superman Pinning

After his match Superman retires to the Masked Superman’s locker room where he is confronted by a number of thugs. These men have all placed bets against the Masked Superman and threaten to kill him unless he throws his next match and takes a loss. Of course the real Superman will have none of that.

 

Minutes later the real Superman is back in the ring as the Masked Superman. Superman takes on the Terrible Tiger and makes easy work of him. Swinging him around by the tail of his costume and throwing him into the gangsters who wanted the match thrown.

Superman Pro Wrestler

Next Supermantakes on the “Merciless Mauler known as The Killer.” Upon finding out The Killer is also in on throwing the match Superman decides to KILL him by crushing his head with a foot stomp!

Superman Stop Of Death

This surge of violence then triggers Superman’s memory and reminds him that he has a code against killing so he opts for the pin.

 

As the Man of Steel returns to the locker room of the Masked Superman the thugs are waiting to ambush him for not throwing any of the matches. Bullets are fired and Superman is faced with a major dilemma.

 

If he allows the bullets to hit him and bounce off his chest it will be clear to everyone in the room that the Masked Superman is a Secret Identity of the Real Superman. Not wanting anyone to figure this out. He comes up with an ingenious and fool proof plan.

 

He uses his super breath to cool the bullets off quickly as they are traveling towards him

Superbreath

Now that the Bullets are deep frozen they are too brittle and simply shatter when they impact Superman's body.

 

Because the Thugs didn’t see any of their bullets bounce off of Superman they believe someone slipped their live ammo with blanks. Superman then finds a written note by the Masked Superman explaining how he got the idea to create the wrestler persona of the Masked Superman to honor the real Superman. Revealing to the real Superman that the Masked Superman is not in fact his other identity.

 

Superman then goes searching for the Masked Superman and finds him shipwrecked on an island also with Amnesia. In order to restore the Masked Superman’s memory Superman picks him up and flies him up to the cruising altitude of an airplane and then drops him.  

Superman Therapy Session

Of course we all know this is one of the most effective means known for treating memory loss and the Shock of the “Death Plunge” restores the Masked Superman’s memory.


 

The Masked Superman then tries to return the favor and cure Superman’s Amnesia by hitting him over the head with a log. Unfortunately it has no effect on the Man of Steel who still can’t remember anything. So Superman then delivers the Masked Superman back to his manager and the story ends with the Real Superman walking the streets still in search of his other identity.

 

Strength Monsters Comic Book MadnessThat concludes this installment of Pro Wrestling Comics. I’ll be back next month with another review of a Pro Wrestling Comic Book. In the meantime make sure you download a Complimentary copy of my own personal pro-wrestling comic book Strength Monsters created and written by me by simply putting your name and email in the box below.

 

 

 

Source: Action Comics Feb. No. 372 1969

 

 


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