Professional Wrestling Career
Poffo started wrestling in 1948 at Karl Pojello's gym in Illinois. His first match was in 1949 against Ruffy Silverstein. He sometimes wrestled as The Masked Miser and managed other wrestlers as the Miser. He became a villainous character for the first time in 1950. In the mid-1950s, Bronco Lubich acted as his manager. He won the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship (Chicago version) in 1958.
He formed a villainous tag team with Chris Markoff called "The Devil's Duo" in 1966, and they were managed by Bobby Heenan. In 1973, he formed the team "The Graduates" with Ken Dillinger.
Poffo wrestled in the 1970s and 1980s under a mask as "The Carpet Bagger" for Emile Dupre's Atlantic Grand Prix Wrestling in the Maritime Provinces of Canada. He also bought into the promotion, when his sons were old enough to join. He wrestled under a yellow mask with a dollar sign on the forehead and a blue sequined ring jacket with a big dollar sign on the back. In addition, Poffo ran International Championship Wrestling from 1979 to 1983 in Kentucky.
His last match was in 1991 against Luis Martinez.
He made a few appearances in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 1995 managing his son, Randy Savage. He was once attacked by "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair, who put him in a figure four leglock. In 1995, he was inducted into the WCW Hall of Fame.
Read more about this topic: Angelo Poffo
Famous quotes containing the words professional, wrestling and/or career:
“The relationship between mother and professional has not been a partnership in which both work together on behalf of the child, in which the expert helps the mother achieve her own goals for her child. Instead, professionals often behave as if they alone are advocates for the child; as if they are the guardians of the childs needs; as if the mother left to her own devices will surely damage the child and only the professional can rescue him.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“We laugh at him who steps out of his room at the very moment when the sun steps out, and says: I will the sun to rise; and at him who cannot stop the wheel, and says: I will it to roll; and at him who is taken down in a wrestling match, and says: I lie here, but I will that I lie here! And yet, all laughter aside, do we ever do anything other than one of these three things when we use the expression, I will?”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a mans career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)