 Patera, c. 1972 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Born | Kenneth Wayne Patera (1942-11-06)November 6, 1942 (age 83)[1] Portland, Oregon, U.S.[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 6 ft 1 in (185 cm)[2] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 322 lb (146 kg)[2] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Professional wrestling career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ring name | Ken Patera | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Billed height | 6 ft 1 in (185 cm)[3] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Billed weight | 267 lb (121 kg)[3] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Billed from | Portland, Oregon | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Trained by | Verne Gagne | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Debut | 1972 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Retired | 2011 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Weightlifting,powerlifting,shot put | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Club | York Barbell Club | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Achievements and titles | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personalbest | SP – 20.10 m (1972)[2][4] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Kenneth Wayne Patera (born November 6, 1942) is an American retiredprofessional wrestler,Olympic weightlifter, andstrongman competitor.[1][2] He was well known in theWorld Wrestling Federation from 1976 to 1981, 1984 to 1985 and 1987 to 1988 andAmerican Wrestling Association.
Ken Patera, from aCzech-American family, was strong and extraordinarily athletic, with many people in his family also successful in athletics. His brother,Jack Patera, played football for theBaltimore Colts and was the head coach for theSeattle Seahawks from 1976 until 1982. Another brother,Dennis Patera, played for theSan Francisco 49ers. Ken played football atCleveland High School in Portland, Oregon, and wrestled at 193 pounds. Track and field was his first love, however, and he competed in the high hurdles and high jump, but a serious ankle injury forced him to switch to the shot put and discus in high school. Ken grew to become one of the nation's premier track and field weight throwers, competing atBrigham Young University. After his disappointing sixth-place[5] finish in the shot-put at the 1968 Olympic trials, he turned his full and complete attention towards Olympic weightlifting.[6][7]
Before becoming a professional wrestler, Patera was a highly decorated Olympic weightlifter. He won several medals at the1971 Pan American Games (including gold in the weightlifting total),[8] and finished second in the1971 World Weightlifting Championships just behindVasily Alekseyev. On his native soil, Patera won four consecutiveU.S. Weightlifting Championships in the super heavyweight class from 1969 to 1972.[9] He was the first American to clean and jerk over 500 lbs (227 kg), which he accomplished at the 1972 Senior Nationals in Detroit.[6] He is also the only American toclean and press 500 lbs (227 kg), and was the last American super heavyweight for years to excel at weightlifting at an international level.[6] At the1972 Summer Olympics inMunich, Germany, Patera was expected to be a serious competitor to Vasily Alekseyev, but he failed to total and was not among the medal recipients.[6] After the clean and press, a lift in which Patera excelled, was eliminated from competition, Patera retired from weightlifting.[2]
official records – all achieved at a meet inSan Francisco on July 23, 1972[10]
When measured for the 1972 Olympics, he weighed 321.4 lb (145.8 kg) at a height of 6 ft 1.75 in (1.8733 m).
Patera competed in the inauguralWorld's Strongest Man contest in 1977, finishing third behindBruce Wilhelm andBob Young.
Being a legitimate weightlifter and strongman, Patera also performed feats of strength during his wrestling career. On an episode ofMid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, in 1978, Patera andTony Atlas performed various feats of strength, including driving nails through boards,blowing up a hot water bottle until it popped, bending spikes wrapped in a towel and bending bars over their necks.[11]
Patera became a "strongman" in professional wrestling in 1972, following his weightlifting career. After a stint in theAWA, his first major feud was in theMid-Atlantic territory against then United States Heavyweight ChampionJohnny Valentine in 1975, with Patera as thebabyface. The Patera-Valentine house show runs were set up by a TV angle in which Valentine would draw a name out of a fishbowl every week, and the next week wrestle the man whose name he drew. For the first few weeks, Valentine drew the names of onejobber after another, all the time voicing his opposition to wrestling Patera. Finally, Valentine drew a name – and it was Patera's. Patera then appeared on screen and revealed that he had replaced every slip of paper with one that said "Ken Patera". The next week, the two men met in a 10-minute time limit match on TV, with Patera putting Valentine under with a headlock/chinlock when the bell rang to signify the time limit had expired. Officially, the match ended in a draw, but with Patera on the verge of defeating Valentine (who had been portrayed as nearly unbeatable) on television. The two were matched in a series of house show main events, with Valentine always coming out on top and retaining the U.S. championship.
Patera wrestled mainly as a heel for theWorld Wrestling Federation (WWF),National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), andAmerican Wrestling Association (AWA) during the 1970s.
Patera made his debut for the World Wide Wrestling Federation in 1976. In 1977, he challengedBruno Sammartino for theWWWF Heavyweight Championship.[12] This was a huge draw around the northeastern part of the United States and atMadison Square Garden, and was one of Sammartino's last great challengers before losing the title toSuperstar Billy Graham, which ended his second, shorter WWF title reign. WhenBob Backlund later won the title, Patera also unsuccessfully challenged him. At the height of his career, in 1980, he simultaneously held the WWF'sIntercontinental Heavyweight Championship, and theNWA Missouri Heavyweight Championship, two very prestigious titles of that era. He was one of the most hatedheels in wrestling (winningPro Wrestling Illustrated's Most Hated Wrestler Award in 1977), and often used his swingingfull nelson to "injure" babyface opponents during matches (most notablyBilly White Wolf in August 1977).[13] In 1978, he feuded with WWWF ChampionBob Backlund and left the WWWF later that year.
Patera returned to the Mid-Atlantic territory as a heel, defeating area legend ChiefWahoo McDaniel for the Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship in April 1978. Patera held that title, off and on, for over a year, losing it to, and regaining it from, Tony Atlas. Patera then lost the title to fellow AWA alumnusJim Brunzell, in Richmond, Virginia.
In fall of 1979, Patera returned to the WWWF which was now called the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). He won theWWF Intercontinental Championship on April 21, 1980 in New York City defeatingPat Patterson. Patera would become the second champion ever to hold the title. He dropped the title toPedro Morales on December 8, 1980.
While during his time in the WWWF/WWF, Patera worked in various territories. In 1976, he worked forNWA Tri-State Wrestling and won the Brass Knuckle Championship. During this time Patera worked in Toronto from 1977 to 1981, Central States from 1983 to 1984, Montreal from 1983 to 1984 and St. Louis from 1980 to 1984. He won theNWA Missouri Heavyweight Championship twice.
In 1977, he made his debut in Japan forAll Japan Pro Wrestling. In 1980, he made his debut forNew Japan Pro Wrestling losing toAntonio Inoki. He did two more tours for New Japan in 1981, and 1984.
Patera was an integral part ofthe Heenan Family in the AWA (1982–1983), and later in the WWF (1984–1985). While in the AWA, he feuded withHulk Hogan,Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell. During Heenan's absence in 1983, caused by a neck injury, Patera joined forces with managerSheik Adnan El-Kaissie and formed a tag team with Jerry Blackwell known as "the Sheiks" (with Patera calling himself "Sheik Lawrence of Arabia"); both men wore Arabian-style garments and feuded with the High Flyers (Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell) over theAWA World Tag Team Championship, winning the belts in June 1983. Patera and Blackwell later lost the titles toBaron von Raschke andthe Crusher.
Patera returned to the WWF and resumed his feud with Hogan, challenging him for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship on May 25, 1985 at theSpectrum and also assistedBig John Studd in his feud withAndré the Giant, helping Studd cut Andre's hair after both had attacked him in December 1984. In June 1985, Patera went to prison for assaulting a police officer and did not wrestle for nearly two years.
The WWF brought Patera back to the company in the spring of 1987 after he had spent the previous year in prison (see below), airing vignettes on WWF TV and releasing aColiseum Video cassette entitledThe Ken Patera Story, which chronicled his career and his return. He was in top physical condition at this point, and his appearance had changed, as he wore natural brown hair, rather than his previous bleached blonde look. On theRight After Wrestling program onSirius Satellite Radio Channel 98, Patera told hostsArda Ocal andJimmy Korderas that his natural hair color was brown and he had decided to wrestle in his natural hair color later in his career.[14] To ensure he would be accepted as a babyface, he claimed that formermanager Bobby Heenan had abandoned him and "sold him down the river" while he was in prison. Patera and Heenan held a debate to air their differences, which turned into a physical confrontation between the two that culminated in Patera swinging Heenan with a belt around his neck, causing Heenan to appear on television with a neck brace for months. Patera then began feuding with the Heenan Family (at the time composed ofPaul Orndorff,Harley Race,King Kong Bundy andHercules). In his first match back at Madison Square Garden, the final match of the night, he defeatedthe Honky Tonk Man via submission with a bearhug, to a huge ovation.
Shortly after his return, Patera ruptured the biceps tendon in his right arm, which led him to miss some time and re-emerge afterward with a stiff and bulky full-length brace for protection. Within six months, Patera was being defeated by newer, younger talent and found himself floundering in a mid-card tag team with fellow OregonianBilly Jack Haynes. The pair would later feud withDemolition after a televised match where Demolition left Haynes, Patera, andBrady Boone (who played Haynes' cousin) beaten and lying in the ring.[15] In his final televised WWF matches in late 1988 (losses toBad News Brown,Dino Bravo,"Outlaw" Ron Bass,One Man Gang,"Ravishing" Rick Rude,Curt Hennig,Ted Dibiase,"Dangerous" Danny Davis,Haku (wrestler),Boris Zhukov,The Honky Tonk Man,Greg Valentine, and "Red Rooster"Terry Taylor), commentatorsGorilla Monsoon andLord Alfred Hayes remarked on-air that Patera's skills were in decline and that he should consider retirement. His final appearance for the WWF was at the1988 Survivor Series on November 24, where he was the first member of his team to be eliminated when"Ravishing" Rick Rude pinned him with the Rude Awakening.
Patera returned to the AWA in early 1989 and unsuccessfully challenged the new AWA world championLarry Zbyszko for the title. He then teamed withBrad Rheingans as "the Olympians." The team defeatedBadd Company for theAWA World Tag Team Championship shortly thereafter, but their reign was brief. Fellow weightlifter-turned-wrestlerWayne Bloom challenged Patera to a "car-lifting challenge" in order to get a title shot for him and his partner,Mike Enos. When it was Patera's turn to lift, Enos and manager Johnny Valiant attacked and (kayfabe) injured Patera and Rheingans. This led to the AWA stripping Patera and Rheingans of the title. Rheingans left wrestling for several months in order to have a legitimate knee operation. Patera continued to feud with Bloom and Enos until he left the AWA. Upon his return to the AWA in early 1990, Rheingans resumed the feud until the AWA's demise.
Patera went on to wrestle forHerb Abrams' UWF, as well as PWA and on independent cards primarily in the Minnesota area well into the 1990s, sometimes even promoting his own events. In December 1991 he traveled to Graz, Austria and unsuccessfully challengedRambo for theCWA World Heavyweight Championship. On August 12, 2011, Patera made a special in-ring appearance atJuggalo Championship Wrestling's "Legends & Icons" event, facing Bob Backlund in a losing effort.[16]
Patera is the younger brother ofJack Patera, who coached theNFL'sSeattle Seahawks from1976 to1982. He is also the brother of former San Francisco 49ers playerDennis Patera.
He has been married (and divorced) three times and has two daughters.[17]
On April 6, 1984, Patera was denied service after hours at aMcDonald's restaurant inWaukesha, Wisconsin, prompting the angry wrestler to throw a rock through a window of the building (Patera claims that a former employee threw the rock, but he received the blame). He and fellow AWAheelMasa Saito later assaulted the police officers sent to arrest Patera at the hotel where they were sharing a room. Sixteen months later, at which point Patera was in the WWF, he was sentenced to two years inprison.[1][18]
In July 2016, Patera was named part of aclass action lawsuit filed against WWE which alleged that wrestlers incurred traumatic brain injuries during their tenure and that the company concealed the risks of injury. The suit was litigated by attorney Konstantine Kyros, who has been involved in a number of other lawsuits against WWE.[19] In September 2018, US District JudgeVanessa Lynne Bryant dismissed the lawsuit.[20] In September 2020, an appeal for the lawsuit was dismissed by a federal appeals court.[21]
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