Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
Grappling with Tragedy is a series of articles that deal with unfortunate, tragic incidents that have occurred throughout the history of professional wrestling. It is unlike the ‘Wrestling with Sin’ series that deals more with the seedier side of wrestling like arrests, murders and suicides. Grappling looks more at particular tragic incidents that have in some instances altered pro wrestling in some way.
Karol Krauser
He was born Karol Piwoworczyk in Massachusetts in August of 1912 of Polish immigrants. In school, Karol excelled in various sports including weight-lifting, track, swimming, skiing and wrestling. He began is pro wrestling career in 1936 under the name of ‘Max Piwoworczyk’…but found that fans and promoters had a very difficult time pronouncing his ring name. He changed it to ‘Max the Panther’ and eventually settled on Karol Krauser. With his rugged good looks and chiseled physique…newspapers began to tout Krauser as the new ‘Golden Boy’ in professional wrestling.
Krauser’s looks landed him some modeling work in 1939 for Fleischer Studios. His image was used as the outline for the studio’s animated ‘Superman’ series. Krauser would continue to pursue wrestling full time and was nicknamed the ‘Polish Apollo.’ Krauser really hit it big under the name of ‘Karol Kalmikoff’ teaming with his kayfabe brother Ivan as the Kalmikoff Brothers. The duo won several regional tag team titles in the NWA.
Karol would briefly leave the team to try his hand at a singles career, but eventually rejoined Ivan Kalmikoff in the AWA and won the world tag team titles. Karol would marry a female wrestler named Sophia Demetrion aka ‘Zoszka Burska’. On September 11, 1964, Karol wrestled a match in Salt Lake City, Utah. After the match, Karol felt dizzy and unwell and sadly collapsed and died from a fatal heart attack. He was just 52 years old at the time of his death.
To read more entries in the Grappling with Tragedy series…Please Click Here.
