<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=431 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=335>[size=+2]Sun, October 23, 2005
The Crusher dead at 79
[/size]By GREG OLIVER - Producer, SLAM! Wrestling
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</TD></TR><TR><TD>The Crusher in action.
- photo by Terry Dart
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Listen up, you turkeynecks. One of the most memorable characters ever in wrestling has died. Or more correctly, gone to the big beer hall in the sky to start raising hell again with Dick the Bruiser. All praise The Crusher, dead Saturday at age 79.
The Crusher -- Reggie Lisowski to a few -- was a true American original. Promoted as "The Wrestler Who Made Milwaukee Famous," he'd brag about running along the Lake Michigan waterfront with a keg of beer on each shoulder so he could get in shape to polka all night with the town's many Polish barmaids.
In July 1999, The Crusher made an appearance at a racetrack in Kenosha, WI. Some of his comments perfectly sum up who he was and what he meant to wrestling.
"These turkeyneck bums they got wrestling, some of them couldn't shine Crusher or Bruiser's shoes," the gravelly-voiced, cigar-chomping tough guy said. "I come up the hard way. I had all these cage matches. I wrestled in the cage more than any other rassler in the history of rasslin.' I got all the scars to prove it. The time I wrestled Mad Dog [Vachon] in the cage, I had to go to the hospital, and he had to go to the veterinarian to get sown up.
The Crusher dead at 79
[/size]By GREG OLIVER - Producer, SLAM! Wrestling
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=50>
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=46></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- TOP TABLE GOES UNDER HERE --><TABLE style="CLEAR: both" height=263 cellPadding=2 width=260 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD>The Crusher in action.
- photo by Terry Dart
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Listen up, you turkeynecks. One of the most memorable characters ever in wrestling has died. Or more correctly, gone to the big beer hall in the sky to start raising hell again with Dick the Bruiser. All praise The Crusher, dead Saturday at age 79.
The Crusher -- Reggie Lisowski to a few -- was a true American original. Promoted as "The Wrestler Who Made Milwaukee Famous," he'd brag about running along the Lake Michigan waterfront with a keg of beer on each shoulder so he could get in shape to polka all night with the town's many Polish barmaids.
In July 1999, The Crusher made an appearance at a racetrack in Kenosha, WI. Some of his comments perfectly sum up who he was and what he meant to wrestling.
"These turkeyneck bums they got wrestling, some of them couldn't shine Crusher or Bruiser's shoes," the gravelly-voiced, cigar-chomping tough guy said. "I come up the hard way. I had all these cage matches. I wrestled in the cage more than any other rassler in the history of rasslin.' I got all the scars to prove it. The time I wrestled Mad Dog [Vachon] in the cage, I had to go to the hospital, and he had to go to the veterinarian to get sown up.
