Although Verne Gagne was a 16 time world champion, he was relatively more famous for being the owner and promoter of one of the top wrestling promotions during the 70s and mid 80s, the American Wrestling Association (AWA). He also holds the record for the third longest single world title reign in the history, by holding the AWA title for more than 7 years! Also, very few are aware of the fact that Verne Gagne earned a spot on the United States team at the 1948 Summer Olympics. Gagne became one of the most recognized and well known wrestling stars during the golden age of television, and impressed the wrestling fans with his technical prowess. After he formed AWA, he ran the promotion on the ideology and belief that technical wrestling should be the basis of a professional wrestling company, and not sports entertainment. Gagne was also known for putting on old school wrestling shows, emphasizing more on the technical abilities of the wrestlers with amateur backgrounds, rather than the muscled performers. Verne Gagne also gave Hulk Hogan his big break when he recruited Hogan after he was let go by the WWF. With Hogans popularity, especially after the release of Rocky 3, Gagne inserted Hogan into a program with the then AWA champion, Nick Bockwinkel, but with Hogan refusing to give bulk of the revenues he made from the merchandise sales and his matches in Japan, he wasnt given the belt, and was later acquired by Vince McMahon Jr. With the WWF acquiring most of the big names from various promotions, AWA suffered heavy losses, and was later shut down. There were also rumors about Gagne bribing The Iron Sheik to inflict severe damage on Hulk Hogans knee before he left AWA for the WWF! Verne Gagne was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in the year 2006, and also holds the distinct honor of being one of the very few wrestlers to have been inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, WCW Hall of Fame, Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame, and Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame.
Sports journalist, writer, poet, quiz master and an engineer. I have been writing about contact sports for years, and have interviewed UFC fighters such as Miesha Tate, Cung Le and John Hathaway. I had also covered TUF - China finale and UFC Fight Night - Macau.
