Wild Bull Curry and the wrestling riots

0:00You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. Upload an episode, and we distribute it to Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this. Even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start free at RSS.com. You know, usually when we go to see a show, whether it's like a movie or a play or sporting event, there's this unwritten contract between us and the performers. Like a boundary. Exactly. We sit in our seats, we suspend our disbelief, and we basically just agree to pretend that what we're watching is real. Yeah, it's a safe illusion. I mean, you buy a ticket, knowing the villain on the stage isn't going to leap into the front row and actually attack you. Yeah, the danger is entirely contained within the frame of the stage or the screen.

1:04But what happens when a performer is legitimately dangerous? Like what happens when they are so terrifyingly authentic that the audience just completely forgets it's a show? It's the scary thought. It really is. And the story we're diving into today completely obliterates that boundary. It really does. We're taking a deep dive into a single, incredibly detailed Wikipedia article covering the life and career of Fred Thomas Cory Sr., who is a much better known to the world as wild bull curry. A legendary name. Right. So our mission today is to uncover the fascinating origins of hardcore professional wrestling. And to explore how this one man blurred the lines between real world survival, theatrical villainy, and genuine danger. So let's unpack this. Yeah. To really understand the mechanics of how bull curry forced an entire industry to rewrite its rules, we have to look at the environment that forged him. Right. Because it didn't start in the wrestling ring.

2:04Not at all. We have to rewind to well before he ever stepped foot in a professional wrestling ring. He was born in 1913 in the east end of Hartford, Connecticut. Okay. And he was of Lebanese descent growing up in a crowded house with five siblings. And if you look at the timeline there, he's hitting his teenage years. Just as the Great Depression is taking a stranglehold on the country. Man, the desperation of that era is just hard overstate. The article notes that at just 16 years old, he left high school. Yeah. And he didn't just go get a job like sweeping floors at a local factory. He joined the circus. Right. Which is wild. And he did it specifically to help provide for his four brothers and sisters. And his job in that circus is really the skeleton key to his entire future career. As he wasn't, you know, setting up tents, he was employed as the tough man, which on its face sounds like an incredible job title. It really does. But how did that actually work in practice? Like was he just flexing for the crowd? Oh, no, it was a brutal physical grind. I mean, in a 1930s traveling circus, the tough man attraction was a staple.

3:09The carnies would set up a ring and Curry's entire role was to stand in the center and take on all comers from the audience. Wait, like a legitimate, unstripted fight? Yes. Entirely legitimate. The circus would offer a cash prize to any local guy who could last a certain amount of time or, you know, knock the tough man down. Wow. And keep in mind, this is the depression. The five or $10 was an absolute fortune. Right. So you had the biggest, most desperate local men stepping up to try their luck against a 16 year old kid. Exactly. And here's the statistic from the source that absolutely blew my mind. He had 65 straight wins. 65. It's unreal. Not a single one of those challengers made it past a single five minute round. Like he was dismantling grown men, tough guys fighting for meal money in under five minutes night after night, which gives you a staggering level of real world trial by fire experience. Seriously, it's like a comic book origin story. But instead of falling into a vat of chemicals, his superpowers were forged by extreme poverty

4:13and circus brawl. Yeah, he learned how to read an opponent's body language, how to absorb an actual punch, and how to end a conflict immediately. But the circus life isn't exactly stable. Right. So in 1939, he took that raw survival instinct and channeled it into a formal career. He joined the Hartford Police Department. Talk about a pivot. And he brought that circus tough man background straight to the streets of Hartford. Oh, absolutely. He quickly earned a massive reputation for his physical toughness as a cop, which kind of brings us to the first great piece of professional wrestling mythology in our deep dive today. The Wild Steer. Yes. So the lore is that he got the nickname bull because a wild steer broke out of the Hartford stockyards ran wild through the streets and he literally wrestled the animal to the ground. It's a great story. But I have to ask, how much of this early tough guy lore was just marketing versus actual reality? Well, the wild steer story is almost certainly a promoter's lie. I mean, it's an apocryphal tale devised to sell tickets.

5:14Right. But the crucial mechanism behind why that lie worked is that it was anchored in the absolute truth of his 65 circus wins and his legitimate reputation on the police force. Ah, I see. The promoters exaggerated the details, but they didn't have to invent the aura of danger. Right. Because you look at the guy, you hear he's a street tough cop who knocked out 65 desperate men in a circus tent and suddenly wrestling a runaway steer doesn't sound entirely impossible. Exactly. The public bought it because Curry physically looked and acted the part, but applying that raw, uncooperative brutality into the highly choreographed world of professional wrestling proved to be a massive shock to the system. They just weren't ready for them. The industry simply didn't know what to do with him. And that transition happens in the 1940s, right? Right. Curry leaves the police force and starts wrestling in Detroit under a promoter named Adam Weissmiller. And Detroit is where Curry really begins to develop his signature style because standard wrestling at the time was heavily reliant on technical grappling, you know, amateur

6:17wrestling holds and a clear cooperative rhythm between the performers, which is not what he was doing. Not at all. Curry's style was the complete opposite. It was a street fight. It was the genesis of what we now call hardcore wrestling, relying on closed fists, brawling outside the ring and just a chaotic energy that felt legitimately dangerous. It felt real because he learned how to fight for real. Exactly. He even faced the legendary retired boxer Jack Dempsey in a July 1940 exhibition match. And true to form, Curry spent years later claiming he knocked Dempsey out. Well, according to the historical records, Dempsey actually stopped Curry in the second round. Right. Of course. But the fact that Curry was even in the ring with a heavyweight boxing champion and successfully blurred the lines of the outcome afterward shows you how his mind worked. He was building an undeniable mystique. And that mystique explodes when he relocates to Texas in the early 1950s. Like he arrives and almost overnight, he becomes the territory's absolute biggest draw.

7:24It was immediate. The fans are just pouring into the arena specifically to see him. And we should clarify what that means for the era. In the 1950s, wrestling wasn't one massive national television company. It was broken up into regional fiefdoms called territories operating under the umbrella of the National Wrestling Alliance or NWA. In Texas, it was one of the hottest territories in the country to be the biggest draw meant you were the person single-handedly responsible for selling the most tickets. People were paying their harder into money just to see the uncontrollable violence bull curry blown to the ring. Okay, wait. I'm stuck on this. If he's their biggest star in making them the most money, why wouldn't the promoters just make him the main champion? That's a great question. Because it feels like terrible business to isolate your most popular guy. It comes down to protecting the credibility of the entire product. Wait, me. Well, the promoters and the bookers, the guys behind the scenes writing the storylines and deciding the match outcomes, they had a major problem. The main Texas heavyweight championship was supposed to represent the pinnacle of traditional

8:26technical wrestling. Ah, I see where this is going. Right. I put that prestigious belt on a chaotic brawler who throws chairs and refuses to follow the traditional rules of a match, you devalue the championship and you insult the traditional wrestlers on your roster. So here's where it gets really interesting. Because they couldn't ignore his massive box office appeal, the bookers literally invented a brand new championship just to match his style. They had to. Mark VI, 1953, he won the inaugural NWA Texas brass knuckles championship in a tournament final over a wrestler named Danny McShane. The Texas brass knuckles championship. I mean, the mechanism of that title is right in the name. Yeah, it is. It's signal to the audience that the normal rules were suspended. Close fifths were allowed, brawling was expected. It makes me think of a video game developer having to create a custom ultra violent difficulty level just to contain one overpowered boss character. That's a perfect analogy.

9:26And what's fascinating here is that Curry completely predated the famous hardcore legends we usually think of when we hear about weapon-filled wrestling matches. Oh, really? Yeah, guys like the chic, Abdul, the butcher, Bruiser Brody, they all came years later. Curry was doing this in the 1950s. He forced an entire industry to adapt to his limitations rather than conforming to theirs. And he absolutely owned that championship. From 1953 until 1967, he held the Texas brass knuckles championship in astounding 20 times. 20 times. He was defeating massive names in the industry, Pritzvon Eric, Tony Bourne, Waldovon Eric, Killer Karl Cox, Brut Bernart. I mean, he did briefly hold the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship with Lucas Prattano in 53. And he even won the main NWA Texas heavyweight championship, but he only held that traditional belt for three weeks. His true domain was always the brass knuckles title. Because that title gave him permission to be exactly what he was.

10:28And that terrifying persona was heavily amplified by his physical appearance. We have to talk about the look. Because the source describes it so vividly. It really does. He had these massive bushy eyebrows and he would make these maniacal facial expressions, but it was his eyes. Yeah, the eyes. The article specifically notes his insane eyes that could terrify a crowd just by scanning the front row. And it wasn't just the atrical posturing. There's a documented incident where he stared down a girl at ringside and he frightened her so deeply that she literally had to be carried away from the ring in terror. Oh my God. And it wasn't just the fans who were terrified, either. Other professional wrestlers actively hated working with him. Which in the mechanics of professional wrestling tells you everything. The entire art form relies on cooperation. When one wrestler performs a move, the other has to sell it. They have to react physically to show the audience that the move caused pain. It requires absolute trust. But Curry routinely broke that fundamental rule.

11:29He seldom showed the effects of his opponent's offense. It's like an improv comedy scene where one actor completely refuses to accept the premise. Exactly. If you pretend to hit a guy with your most devastating maneuver and he just glares at you without blinking, the entire illusion shatters. It makes you look weak and it makes him look like an unstoppable monster. Which is exactly why he became one of the most disliked heels. The industry term for the villains. In the history of the business. I can imagine. He was so hated, so viscerally despised that the anger of the crowd frequently spilled over the barricades. And this is where the story shifts from a fascinating look at early sports entertainment into something genuinely alarming. The audience riots. Yes. We aren't talking about people throwing popcorn and booing loudly. We are talking about terrifying, uncontained chaos. The list of altercations detailed in the source is staggering. Let's run through the specific incidents. Because they're wild. Go for it. In 1955, during a match against Ray McIntyre, a riot broke out in the arena that was so

12:30severe over 140 fans had to be sent to the hospital. It's hard to even picture. Wait, 140 people from a crowd watching a staged fight. Were they fighting each other or were they trying to kill him? What is the terrifying reality of mob mentality in a confined space? Wow. When an audience of thousands completely buys into the illusion that a villain is legitimately maiming their local hero, the civic outrage just takes over. You have people throwing wooden folding chairs, fans rushing the ring to attack the wrestler, the police stepping in with Billy Clubs to protect the performer, and then the inevitable stampede of people trying to escape the violence. Yes, like a war zone. A 140 people hospitalized means total structural breakdown of the event. And it didn't stop there. In 1956, a fan was so furious over Curry's brutal treatment of a local star named George Becker that the fan physically jumped Curry. Bad idea. Yeah, Curry responded by breaking the fan's jaw with a single punch.

13:31And then in 1958, he was wrestling Pepper Gomez in Galveston, Texas. A fan actually struck Curry with an iron pipe. An iron pipe. Yeah. And Curry didn't wait for a rena security to handle it. He chased the fan out of the ring all the way up into the balcony, beat him up right there in the stands. It's absolute chaos. And then in 1968, in Worcester, Massachusetts, wrestling, and meal, Dupree, a fan jumped into the ring and onto Curry's back. Right. Curry punched the fan so hard he was reportedly unconscious for two days. Two days. And in another unknown year in Texas, a fan literally dumped a bucket of yellow paint over his head, which is just bizarre at what point does being a successful villain become a liability? I mean, putting 140 people in the hospital sounds like a catastrophic disaster, not a successful night of entertainment. Well, this raises an important question about the psychology of the wrestling heal. The primary goal of the villain is to generate what the industry calls heat. To make the audience so angry, they buy tickets, hoping to see you finally get beaten up by

14:32the hero. Right. That's the whole business model. Exactly. But there is a razor thin line. If you are too effective at your job, you tap into a primal space where the audience completely forgets. It's a show. They lose their minds. They no longer see a performer playing a bad guy. They see a genuine threat to their community that needs to be destroyed. And Curry lived his entire career on the wrong side of that razor thin line. He didn't just cross the line. He obliterated it. He really did. But as terrifying as his professional life was, there is a stark, almost unbelievable contrast waiting for us when we look at his personal life and legacy. Oh, it changes your entire perspective on the man behind the bushy eyebrows. Right. So what does this all mean? Let's look at his family. Bull Curry had a son, Fred Thomas Cory Jr. And his son decided to follow his father into the family business, wrestling under the name, flying Fred Curry, a great wrestling name. Now logic dictates that the son of the originator of hardcore wrestling would be a brawling

15:33bloodthirsty monster, right? You would think so. But the reality is the exact opposite. Really? Yeah. Flying Fred was a clean cut, high flying face that the industry term for good guy. He was a technical athletic fan favorite who played strictly by the rules. He was the polar opposite of everything his father represented in the ring. Yet despite this massive clash in styles, they teamed up regularly. They did. And they were incredibly successful together. Between 1964 and 1966, the father, son duo won the NWA International Tag Team Championship. Amazing. They also beat Nikolai and Boris Volkov to win the Ohio version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship. And what's truly remarkable here is the interpersonal dynamic. Well, in an industry famous for massive egos, backstage politics, and intense jealousy. Fred's eventual attempt to step out of his father's shadow and forge his own path never caused any tension between them. That's actually really sweet. It is. Bol was incredibly supportive of his clean cut son. Which brings us to the end of his career.

16:36Bol finally retired from the ring in 1979. Yeah. And the man famous for inciting mass public riots, breaking jaws, and terrorizing thousands of people. He takes a job as a corrections officer. The irony is just staggering on a prison guard. But if we connect this to the bigger picture, it reveals something deeply profound about human nature and performance. What do you mean? The teenager who dropped out of high school at 16 to fight grown men in a circus tent, so his brothers and sisters wouldn't starve. That is the exact same man who happily shared the spotlight with his polar opposite son. Right. The exact same man who calmly walked the halls of a prison keeping order. It tells us that Bol Curry viewed the chaos entirely as a profession. It was just a job. He understood exactly what the audience needed him to be in order to feed his family. And he delivered it with a chilling level of commitment. You really did? He passed away from liver disease on Momma 8th, 1985, at the age of 71. And the legacy continues to this day, with his grandson, Fred Curry Jr., also taking up

17:41the wrestling mantle. He utilized his real world survival skills to accidentally invent a massively influential, violently chaotic genre of entertainment. He really changed the game. He took the desperation of his youth and weaponized it into a character so authentic it caused literal riots. It's a masterclass in how authenticity can erase the line between fiction and reality. Which leaves us with a fascinating final thought to chew on. We look back at those audiences in the 1950s rioting over a staged wrestling match, sending 140 people to the hospital, and it's easy to think they were just incredibly gullible. Right. Like they just didn't know better. Exactly. But look at our modern parasocial relationships. Look at how we treat celebrities, influencers, and reality TV stars today on the internet. Oh, absolutely. When someone plays the villain online, the death threats and the mob mentality are immediate. Have we really gotten any better at separating the character from the actual human being? Or did we just move the riots from the arena floor to the comment sections?

18:42That's a great point. Something to think about the next time you find yourself getting furious at a screen. You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. We upload an episode, and we distribute it to Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this. Even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start free at RSS.com.