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Gene Kiniski stirs the pot

Broadcast Date: March 8, 1978

After he's introduced as the meanest man in Canada, a mock scowl flashes across the huge bulldog face of Gene Kiniski. Resplendent in an eye-popping suit, the legendary wrestling heel wastes no time in turning a purported interview with Peter Gzowski on CBC Television's 90 Minutes Live into a series of lectures. Declaring "I am a super cook," he gives housewives tips on cooking pork sausage.

Kiniski also gives the audience a piece of his mind about cops who take free coffee, his old wrestling foe "God" — "Whipper" Billy Watson — and the beauty of Vancouver. Later, when audience members boo, he takes a charge at them. Gzowski advises: "You'd do better if you could get that twinkle out of your eye, you know."

Gene Kiniski stirs the pot

• Built like a bear and highly articulate, Gene Kiniski is one of many top stars that Canada has contributed to the world of professional wrestling. Born in Edmonton in 1925, Kiniski was a teenager when he started learning amateur wrestling holds at a YMCA in the late 1930s. After distinguishing himself on the mat, Kiniski played football for the Edmonton Eskimos but was sidelined by a serious knee injury in 1953.

• Kiniski turned to pro wrestling. His six-foot-four, 272-pound frame, freight-train fighting style and rapid-fire patter pushed him quickly to wrestling's top rung. "He was spectacular in the ring and a great talker," wrestling promoter Stu Hart is quoted as saying of Kiniski in the Hart biography, Lord of the Ring. Playing the villain, Kiniski "could whip the fans up with his bragging, about how great an athlete he was."

• Kiniski held many wrestling titles. He beat Vern Gagne for the American Wrestling Association world title in 1961. His biggest win came on Jan. 7, 1966 when he conquered Lou Thesz — considered by some the greatest wrestler of all time — to become National Wrestling Alliance world champion; then the sport's most prestigious crown. He kept the title until February 1969 when he succumbed to a "Funk spinning toehold" administered by Dory Funk Jr.

• Kiniski's trademark greeting for televised matches was, "Hello out there in TV land. I'd like to welcome you as Canada's greatest athlete." Nicknamed "Big Thunder," many of his most popular matches were against "Whipper" Billy Watson, whose in-ring persona was as angelic as Kiniski's was dastardly. After moving to Vancouver in 1962, he continued to fight and became, for a time, a partner in the All-Star Wrestling promotion.

• Sportswriter Trent Frayne said of Kiniski in 1969: "As an entertainer Kiniski is one of the world's most successful in his game, a big, quick, furious, exciting performer with a big round tough-looking kisser who comes on like a demented storm trooper."

• Kiniski's sons Kelly and Nick have both wrestled. Kiniski's Polish-born mother, Julia, served as an Edmonton alderman from 1963 until her death in 1969. The next year Kiniski's brother, a meteorologist and television weatherman, was elected to replace her. He served on council for one year and then again from 1983 until 1989. As of March 2004, Gene Kiniski was retired and living in Washington State.

• Although the goal in both professional wrestling and amateur wrestling is to pin your opponent's shoulders to the mat, they are very different sports. Pro wrestling has an abundance of showmanship, spectacular moves and a usually pre-determined outcome. Amateur wrestling is an Olympic sport with no pay, rigid rules and no pre-decided winner.

Gene Kiniski stirs the pot

Medium: Television

Program: 90 Minutes Live

Broadcast Date: March 8, 1978

Guest(s): Gene Kiniski

Host: Peter Gzowski

Duration: 5:56

Last updated:
Sept. 16, 2010