A true original, Kowalski molded during Golden Age

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." - Robert Frost

It takes a different breed to become a professional wrestler.

But one could hardly imagine Killer Kowalski as anything but.

Taking that road less traveled sums up the colorful life of Walter Kowalski, who recently passed away at the age of 81, leaving behind a legacy as one of pro wrestling's all-time great villains.

Kowalski was one of the sport's true originals, a character molded during the Golden Age of wrestling in the '50s when the business gained powerful media outlets through the advent of television.

The 6-7, 275-pound Kowalski gained worldwide acclaim as one of wrestling's most feared and despised "bad guys."

"There was a time not so long ago, in an America starved for larger-than-life heroes, when I was as close as anyone could become of being the ultimate public villain," Kowalski once said. "For almost 30 years, I was one of the most hated celebrities in America. They called me Killer Kowalski, and mine was not the gentlest of professions."

Outside the ring, though, was a different story. Kowalski was kind and charitable, a gentle giant with a gentle soul who spent the last three decades of his career training others the intricacies of the business.

He also raised funds for countless organizations and charities. Whether it was drug programs, YMCAs, charitable work for children with special needs, or helping a church build a new organ, Walter Kowalski was always there.

"You see the villain in the ring, you see the yelling and screaming during the promos, then you see a man who would go on religious retreats, a man who loved poetry, a man who read voraciously and would talk about philosophy," says Don Bravo, a Kowalski student and friend. "If you didn't have classical music in the car, he wouldn't ride with you."

The hated wrestler and consummate bad guy inside the ring was an image very much at odds with the one that emerged in his retirement, that of a beloved, elder statesman, a former Seminary student who studied theology and metaphysics, a lover of the arts who had a book of photography published in 2001.

America's anti-hero

Kowalski was born Edward Walter Spulnik on Oct. 13, 1926, but legally changed his name 37 years later. The son of Polish immigrants, he was raised in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. He majored in electrical engineering at Assumption College and worked part-time at a Ford automotive plant in Detroit to help pay his way, but pro wrestling would become his ticket to fame and fortune.

During a 30-year ring career that spanned from 1947-77, Kowalski wrestled everyone from Gorgeous George to Lou Thesz to Bruno Sammartino. A giant of a man with an impressive physique and unbelievable endurance, Kowalski was a major attraction throughout the world.

A handsome matinee idol early in his career, Kowalski started out as Tarzan Kowalski, an obvious nod to his chiseled frame.

The more infamous nickname was established after a match in Montreal during the '50s when he climbed to the top rope and delivered his signature knee drop to fan favorite Yukon Eric. His size-16 boot accidentally dislodged his opponent's cauliflowered ear.

As the story goes, Kowalski later visited Eric in the hospital, and the two burst into laughter at the absurdity. When it was later reported in a newspaper that Kowalski visited the hospital to laugh at the sight of his unfortunate victim's missing appendage, his reputation soared to a new level.

Many of his matches ended in riots, and fans once tried to set the ring on fire, with Kowalski still in it. Some would wait with baseball bats and metal pipes in parking lots outside the arenas. Employing a ruthless and relentless style, he had the reputation of being the most hated man in professional wrestling.

"I was the man America loved to hate. I was, in fact, America's premier antihero. And I worked hard at being bad because it taught me the way to peace," Kowalski would boast.

"At the height of my career in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I received a thousand letters a week with the vilest of suggestions. Small riots would accompany my appearances. On several occasions, armed cops formed human walls to protect me. But I loved every minute of it ... I loved stalking the professional wrestling rings across America and the world. I absolutely reveled in twisting, smashing and pounding my opponents in brutal mayhem that made me one of the most loathed and feared men alive."

'Walter's boys'

Kowalski, who settled outside Boston in the '70s, made the transition from wrestler to trainer when he opened a wrestling school shortly after he retired from active competition. It was there a new chapter in his life would begin, and where many aspiring young wrestlers would receive an education of a lifetime.

One of those students, Don Bravo, met Kowalski in the spring of 1991 when he took his godson, a grappling fan, to a wrestling show that included an autograph signing by Kowalski. Bravo admits to being only a casual fan at the time, but he used the opportunity to ask Kowalski about vegetarianism, which the wrestler had adopted during his days in the ring.

"Kid, you sure you want to eat that rotting flesh," Bravo recalls Kowalski asking him about his eating regimen. The line at the signing was long, says Bravo, so Kowalski gave him a card and invited him to his wrestling studio.

A classical vocalist who was finishing up his study at the famed Julliard School of Music, Bravo took Kowalski up on his offer.

Before he knew it, Bravo was one of "Walter's boys," a close-knit fraternity who worked for the wrestler at his Killer Kowalski Institute of Professional Wrestling.

"Are you sure I know what I'm doing?" Bravo recalls asking Kowalski.

"Well, you stay around the circus long enough and I'll let you clean up after the animals," Kowalski quipped.

Bravo, who didn't know much about the wrestling business in the beginning, found himself in a colorful new world that had some striking similarities to the music business.

"I was doing 'Verdi's Requiem,' and it's the same business," he jokes. "It's just that now I got to wear a starched, white collar and a tuxedo. But other than that, it's the same business. Whether I am singing Beethoven's Ninth in a tux, or some guy's in wrestling trunks, you still need your technique, you still have to please an audience, you still have to know what you're doing. The best wrestlers are subservient to their opponent in that they need to make their opponent look good. You serve the music; it's not about your big high notes. It's about making Bach or Beethoven or Mozart sound beautiful. Plus you always worry about getting paid and a check clearing."

Bravo would perform a number of duties for Kowalski at the school, and was even prodded into wrestling once as part of a rib played by the veteran grappler. As a replacement for a worker who didn't show up, Bravo was inserted into a 16-man battle royal, and expected to be one of the first eliminated.

Only problem was that nobody wanted to throw him out.

"I blew up after three or four minutes," Bravo recalls. "I begged for everyone to get me out of there. I wasn't thrown out until we were down to the fourth man. The other three finally threw me over."

Bravo says he can laugh about it now.

"That was my baptism by fire. Walter pulled the most beautiful rib on me."

Bravo ended up being part of Kowalski's "wrestling carnival" for 8 1/2 years, and the two remained friends.

"Never a worker, but one of the boys" he says with pride.

School of hard knocks

Being around Walter Kowalski was an education unlike any other.

"You could identify your generation by where you trained," says Bravo. "His students can follow their lineage from Walter to Lou Thesz, and from Lou Thesz to Ed 'Strangler' Lewis. That's a pretty impressive pedigree. And to Walter's progeny, that's something to be proud of."

Kowalski, whose lifelong training regimen and healthy lifestyle helped enable him to wrestle into his 60s, taught his students to respect the history and tradition of the business.

"I enjoy not only the old school, but the school that burnt down before they built the old school," jokes Bravo.

It was special being a part of Walter Kowalski's fraternity. His school was a stepping stone to the next level, but it was always more about wrestling to Bravo and many of his colleagues.

"At the school, chinlocks, armbars, single leg takedowns, works and shoots are all part of the curriculum. That's what you paid for. But what we'd get without charge were the lessons outside of the ring - how to carry yourself as a champion, how to protect your opponent as well as yourself. If you love the business, it's not about you being the Macho Man, it's about making your opponent look good."

Kowalski, one of the most beloved men in the business, was a father figure for many of those students.

He was generous to a fault "if he knew that your love was honest ... that there wasn't a hidden agenda or a secondary motivation behind it," says Bravo. "He always saw the good in people."

"The ones who really loved the business of wrestling," says Bravo, were "his boys." They sported their nicks and bruises like red badges of courage.

"You had to achieve that to be in his fraternity of his boys. It wasn't just enough to pick up a thousand bucks and study and train with Walter. You had to be accepted through your own sweat and blood to get into that fraternity. The dignity that comes with honest sweat is a beautiful dignity. These were the ones who witnessed the real Walter."

Bravo says never failed to take care of his boys.

"This is a guy who, if you didn't have a place to sleep, would slip you the keys to the gym so you'd have someplace warm to sleep. He was that kind of guy."

"Gee, Boss, I'm desperate, can I just borrow maybe a hundred bucks till next month?" was heard more than once in the Kowalski camp.

"Where are you? I'll be there in an about an hour," Kowalski would say.

"Then he'd arrive and slip you an envelope with about seven times what you begged for. No lecture ... no guilt. Just 'I know you'll give it back to me when you have it. I trust you.'"

Kowalski, says Bravo, would always finish with those words: "I trust you."

"That 'I trust you' was more than my credit card or my mortgage loans, etc. That 'I trust you' was a bond ... that I had to pay back as a matter of my own dignity."

Bravo remembers the evening "Walter's boys" waited until after class before shutting down the lights and breaking into "Happy Birthday."

"What ... nobody baked me a cake?" Kowalski asked.

"Boss, you don't eat cake," they reminded him.

"Oh, that's right, OK, let's go to dinner," he replied.

"Walter led his band of merry men to one of his favorite restaurants," Bravo recalls of the birthday dinner. "Six or seven large, scarred men with broken noses and tattoos sat around a table, and we became 7- and 8-year-olds listening to our favorite uncle tell war stories. What we were were disciples, breaking break, listening to our master. And his sermon would be "Love one another as I have loved you.'"

To Don Bravo, and countless others, he was "Walter" and he was their friend.

Trainer of champions

Kowalski was a world champion, but he also was a trainer of world champions. The most famous graduate of his school, Triple H (Paul Levesque), went on to become one of the premier performers in WWE history. Levesque made a rare appearance at a show in honor of Kowalski's 70th birthday. After working a match with Scotty Too Hotty, The Game grabbed the mic and shouted, "I want Kowalski! I want Kowalski in this ring!"

"Walter gets in there, and he doesn't know what to expect," relates Bravo. "I'm looking at his eyes, and he's looking to grab an appendage."

"You go around this country saying you trained me, and I would be nothing without you. You know something? You're right," said his former student, bowing to his knees in an "I'm not worthy" pose.

"Walter was really, really touched by that," says Bravo.

Levesque also had the honor of presenting his mentor when Kowalski was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 1996.

His teacher, he says, passed down his wisdom so "guys could live the dream he lived."

"Live the dream, and you'll make it," Kowalski would always tell his young charges. And many did.

The list includes such names as Big John Studd, Chyna, Perry Saturn, John Kronus, Matt Bloom, Frankie Kazarian, Kenny Dykstra and Chris Nowinski.

To the boys who never made it to the big time, the consolation of working for Kowalski was reward enough.

"It's still one of the best times of your life ... telling war stories at three o'clock in the morning and having bad Chinese food with your buddies," says Bravo.

On the road with Killer

It was always an adventure traveling with Killer Kowalski.

"Those long car rides ... talking about life in general," reflects Bravo. "Those were times I'll never forget."

Many referred to him as "Uncle Walter," says Bravo, adding that was a term of endearment and respect. "Kind of like 'Godfather.'"

But Walter "Killer" Kowalski, the Polish giant, remained a formidable figure throughout his career, whether mauling good guys in the ring or training wrestlers when his ring days had come to an end. Just the name alone was one of the most recognizable in pro wrestling history.

Bravo says he will never forget Kowalski introducing him "as one of his boys" to the great Lou Thesz at a Cauliflower Alley event. Thesz, regarded as one of the greatest wrestlers in the history of the sport, had served as a mentor to Kowalski early in his career, and that alone earned Kowalski universal respect among his peers.

To be in the presence of two greats such as Thesz and Kowalski was a bit overwhelming for Bravo.

"I was ready to kiss Lou Thesz's ring," he jokes. "But the way he (Kowalski) described me as 'one of his boys' ... I was touched."

The enormity of Kowalski's reputation hit home again when Bravo was backstage at a wrestling show in New England where the promoter, the late Tony Rumble, was going over a finish with Abdullah The Butcher.

"He looked at me with that look that you don't want him to look at you with," says Bravo.

"You guys don't need me here," Bravo told them, quietly slipping outside the locker room.

About 10 minutes later, after Abdullah and the promoter had gone over the finish, the door opened.

"He (Abdullah) comes out, and it's like a scene out of 'The Godfather,'" recalls Bravo. "He comes over to me and says, 'You're one of Walter's boys? Hey, I didn't know who you were with, I'm sorry. Please give Walter my love. Next time you're in Atlanta, come to my restaurant, and I'll buy you dinner.'"

"Just the fact that being one of Walter's boys would have that much carriage," says Bravo. "And I truly was one of Walter's boys ... But Walter had hundreds of children. And they were all boys. Even the girls were his boys."

The final bell

Kowalski, who had been residing in recent months in a rehabilitation center recovering from a knee injury, suffered a massive heart attack on Aug. 8, never regained consciousness and was taken off life support 10 days later. But, like the character he portrayed in the ring, he battled until the very end.

The finish came at 12:45 a.m. on Aug. 30 when the Killer's heart finally gave out.

A number of his friends and former students had held vigil at the hospital. Bravo admits it was difficult to watch this giant of a man struggle as his hour of departure approached.

"He was such a towering physical specimen, and to see him go through this was hard. Looking at this shell in the bed struggling to breathe ... this was not the Walter I loved. This was basically the vessel that held that spirit I loved. The Walter I'll remember was so full of life. That's what I'll remember about Walter."

John Cena's father had spent the day and evening at the wrestler's bedside. "That's when we had last rites holding hands around the bed and praying for Walter," says Bravo.

A visit by former WWWF champion Bob Backlund nearly moved Bravo to tears.

"Mr. Kowalski, you've got to get your shoulders up. One, two, get your shoulders up," Backlund exhorted, hoping that the wrestler might kick out one final time.

"He (Backlund) looked at me, and I knew that he just couldn't bring himself to say three," says Bravo.

A confirmed bachelor for most of his life, Kowalski married for the first time at age 79. His twice-widowed wife was two years his junior at 77, but he would quip when asked, "I had to marry her. She told me she was pregnant."

"The more I found out about him, the more odd that nickname seemed," wife Theresa told the Boston Herald earlier this year. "He never smoked, never drank; in fact, he was a vegetarian. And he was serious about his religion. I found him to be a wonderful guy."

Bravo says his friend couldn't have found a better partner.

"She is the definition of 'love, honor and cherish, in sickness and in health, til death do we part,'" Bravo says. "She was there every day and took wonderful care of him. Her vigil ... just being with him. It was such a testament to her. It was sweet, and it was lovely."

"She would be the strong New England widow out of central casting," he adds. "You think of those cold, winter months in those port towns with their whaling ships, waiting for their men to come home."

"Walter was an easy guy to care for because he was such an easy guy to love," she would say.

Killer Kowalski, indeed, touched many lives.

"The pro wrestling world lost an irreplaceable figure with the passing of Killer Kowalski. No one will ever duplicate his career inside the ring," said longtime friend Jeff Archer, author of "Theater in a Squared Circle." "More important, the world lost a rare person: one who put the needs, desires and wishes of others far above those of himself. Altruism was Walter Kowalski's lifeblood."

"The world lost a great and kind human being in Walter Kowalski. I'll never forget him," said wrestler and former student Bryan Walsh.

"The people I have met, the relationships I have made, and my success in and out of the ring are a direct result of him," wrote Kowalski disciple Kazarian. "Walter loved angels. We had many conversations about them on our regular trips to church that we both enjoyed on Sundays. To me, and anyone who knew him, Walter was an angel. He was a gentleman, friend and honestly one of the best people to come into my life."

Pro wrestling great Cowboy Bill Watts credited Kowalski with putting him over and making him a success in the then WWWF (World Wide Wrestling Federation) when he was a newcomer to the business in the mid-'60s.

"Walter 'Killer' Kowalski came into my life for a moment and made a huge impact with who he was. He was a man of ethics. His word was good ... his heart was huge."

Into that good night

Bravo thought of many spiritual things during his mentor's final days.

He remembers a statue depicting a pair of hands, with wrists touching and opening up, as if to pray, at the hospital chapel. He was struck by the sheer size of Walter's hands and how they resembled the beautiful statue.

"The hands are oversized because they're bigger than life. The hands are the size of Walter's hands. The hands are open as if, perhaps, to place our lives and trust in our creator. If we're lucky, we use our hands to build a good and meaningful life, and when it's over, we use them to offer it back to our master. And here was Walter, who used his powerful hands with the dexterity of a concert cellist to build an extraordinary career, yet could also use them lovingly, to guide students, always shake a fan's hand, write poetry, create masterful photos and expound on the power of love."

Those same famous hands were wrapped around a rosary and a statue of the Virgin Mary as he later lay in a casket. His hands had clutched it as they had in the hospital room.

"God would only let Killer Kowalski put a claw hold on the Blessed Virgin," says Bravo, "and I mean that in its most delicate and touching ways. Only he would have the delicacy to work it so that it would be so gentle."

"I felt like the squire Sancho Panza, standing at the water's edge, as his Don Quixote goes forward to perhaps his greatest adventure ... praying for his gentle passage into the night to that mysterious and beautiful unknown island. And what will our friend find there? I'd like to believe his beloved Blessed Virgin, who will take him into the great house where, to quote Matthew 25, the master will say, "Welcome and well done, thou good and faithful servant.'"

Bravo also thought about the time he and his wife took Walter to the opera. Old-time fans would have been stunned to see the image of Killer Kowalski taking in such an event. Many had only known him as the ruthless Killer Kowalski.

"We also took him to Boston Pops, and we went to vocal recitals where they did classic Polish folk songs. He enjoyed the relaxation of classical music without having a true working knowledge of it. He couldn't identify the different Beethoven symphonies, but he loved to sit there and listen to it. He had a great appreciation of it."

It was the same Killer Kowalski who told Esquire magazine last year: "Someone once threw a pig's ear at me. A woman once came up to me after a match and said, 'I'm glad you didn't get hurt.' Then she stabbed me in the back with a knife. After a while, I got police escorts to and from the ring."

"Yet he could be as sweet and docile and shy as a lamb," says Bravo. "Out of his element, he was genuinely like a schoolboy, he was so shy. And there's a sweetness to that."

To Bravo, Kowaski was the avuncular, grandfatherly figure who would go to his favorite restaurant and order the same meal every time. He was someone with whom he shared a love of classical music and the arts, as well as headlocks and kneedrops.

Hundreds of people, many of them younger wrestlers, gathered Thursday at a Malden, Mass., church to pay their respects to the Killer. The Boston Globe reported that the crowd at the church included young men with shaved heads, long ponytails and long feathered curls, who had been Kowalski's students. A few women were also among those in the crowd. Many had traveled from far away to attend.

In the final stanza, the man known as Killer was given a champion's send-off, with his boys paying their respects to a man they honored and respected. Among the boys was Paul Levesque, who left the Triple H moniker at home and served as a pallbearer for a man he loved and respected.

This was the Killer's final main event, and Levesque did everything he could to be anonymous, staying in the back of the room and out of the limelight. He was there not as a celebrity, just as one of "Walter's boys."

"He (Levesque) gave it a lot of dignity and class," said one attendee. "Walter would have been proud, because he really handled himself like the title suggests. He handled himself as a champion."

Bravo, who delivered a moving eulogy, says he will always cherish the time he spent with his mentor, and taking the time to go down that road less traveled.

"Sometimes you don't recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they're happening. There was always an adventure at the next exit with Walter. You go to a town, and there was always an adventure there for you waiting to happen."

- George's Sports Bar, 1300 Savannah Highway, will air the Unforgiven pay-per-view at 8 p.m. today. Cover charge is $7.

- Halligans Restaurant and Bar, 3025 Ashley Towne Center, Suite 201, will air the Unforgiven pay-per-view at 8 p.m. today. Admission is free.

Reach Mike Mooneyham at (843) 937-5517 or mooneyham@postandcourier.com. For wrestling updates during the week, call The Post and Courier Info Line at (843) 937-6000, ext. 3090.