Career
| This section may be written from a fan's point of view, rather than a neutral point of view. Please clean it up to conform to a higher standard of quality, and to make it neutral in tone. |
Killer Karl Kox was one of the biggest stars in the WCW promotion in Australia during the 1960s and 1970s. As a singles heel through the sixties, he was a top-of-card fixture battling well-established crowd favourites such as Mark Lewin, Spiros Arion, Tex McKenzie, Dominic Denucci and Mario Milano. Enormous numbers from Australia's nascent ethnic community turned out to support Arion, Denucci and Milano, and Kox risked riots at every appearance. His brainbuster finisher was as famous as his chronic rule breaking and surreptitious use of foreign objects. Fans longed to see the brainbuster deployed on the side of good, and this boon was granted in 1971 when the Killer turned into a good guy in a nationally televised mea culpa - he pledged to change his ways on a solemn promise to his dying mother.
This created much heat in the already booming Australian wrestling promotion, where the fixture was an ongoing television "war" between the good guys referred to as "The People's Army" (Lewin, Curtis, Arion, Milano and visiting faces from overseas) and the "mercenary soldiers" managed by Kentucky biker / preacher Big Bad John. The turning of the tables saw the erstwhile Killer create great excitement in tag matches against his former heel comrades Abdullah the Butcher, Brute Bernard, Dick "The Bulldog" Brower, Tiger Singh, Waldo Von Ehrich and Japanese badboys like Mr Fuiji and the Tojo Brothers.
In the wrestling profession, Killer Karl Kox was always a popular figure for his humour, behind-the-scenes practical jokes and inventiveness in furthering the promotion ("the greatest gimmicks man in the business" said one admiring colleague). His grudge matches were well-calibrated and exciting, building through a series of disqualifications and non-decisions through run-in interference, and often climaxing in a conditional match in which "the loser packs his bags and leaves town." This saw off one or the other of the combatants as they travelled to fulfill other promotional runs in other countries; battle would be re-joined next season when the participants returned for another highly profitable run.
Among Killer Karl Kox's famous matches in Australia, his feuds with man-mountain Haystacks Calhoun usually involved the insinuation of foreign objects into the proceedings by Kox. At the end of one season, Kox "left Australia for medical treatment in the states" when, in a strap match with Bulldog Brower, his eye was nearly removed (the wound was unbandaged to show the television audience). A headline making event was when a television match for the Australian championship against Spiros Arion was declared ended due to time limit by well-loved commentator Jack Little. Kox responded by applying the Brain Buster to the unfortunate Little, who was hospitalized and required to call matches the following month in a neck brace. Kox made his final wrestling-related appearance at VCCW Quest for the Crown II in August 2011, taking part in a meet and greet as well as later presenting the championship to Scot Summers.
On November 10, 2011, Kox died at the age of 80 following a heart attack and a stroke he had suffered nearly three weeks prior.
Read more about this topic: Killer Karl Kox
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“They want to play at being mothers. So let them. Expressing tenderness in their own way will not prevent girls from enjoying a successful career in the future; indeed, the ability to nurture is as valuable a skill in the workplace as the ability to lead.”
—Anne Roiphe (20th century)