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Ken Patera

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Ken Patera was a former heel professional wrestler better known as "Olympic Strongman" Ken Patera.

Weightlifting career

Patera is a former Olympic Weightlifter and USA powerlifter. His greatest success was as an Olympic Weightlifter. He won several medals at the Pan American Games (including gold), and finished second in the 1971 World Weightlifting Championships. He was the first American to clean and jerk 500 lb (227 kg), which he achieved at the 1972 Senior Nationals in Detroit. He is also the only American to clean and press 500 lb (227 kg), and he was arguably the last American to excel at weightlifting on an international level. He was a serious competitor to the Soviet legend Vasily Alexeev at the 1972 Summer Olympics, but he failed to total and was not among the medal recipients. After the press (a lift Patera was disproportionately talented in) was eliminated from competition, Patera's weightlifting career was over.

Patera's career best lifts were all achieved in a meet in San Francisco on July 23, 1972 (Wilhelm, 1994):

  • Snatch - 387½ pounds (175.7 kg)
  • Clean and press - 505½ pounds (229.25 kg)
  • Clean and jerk - 505½ pounds (229.25 kg)

When measured for the 1972 Olympics, he weighed 340 pounds at a height of 6'1¾" (Wilhelm, 1994).

Patera also competed in the first World's Strongest Man contest in 1977, finishing third behind Bruce Wilhelm and Bob Young.

Early career

Patera was one of the first "strongmen" in professional wrestling following his weightlifting career. He wrestled for the WWF, NWA, and AWA during the 1970s and 1980s. At the height of his career (in the early 1980s) he simultaneously held the WWF's Intercontinental Championship, and the NWA's Missouri Heavyweight Championship - two of the most important non-World Championship titles of that era.

He was an integral part of the Heenan family in the AWA (1982-1984) and later with the WWF (1984-1985). While in the AWA, he feuded with Hulk Hogan and against Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell. Patera won the AWA World Tag Team Champion with Jerry Blackwell, defeating Gagne and Brunzell. Patera and Blackwell would later lose the titles to Baron Von Raschke and The Crusher.

In the WWF, Patera resumed his feud with Hogan and also assisted Big John Studd in his feud with Andre the Giant. Patera was one of the top stars in wrestling when he was forced to leave the business to serve out a 2 year prison sentence.

Arrest and incarceration

On April 6, 1984, Ken Patera and Masa Saito went to a McDonald's in Waukesha, Wisconsin that had closed for the night. When they were refused service, Patera threw a boulder through the front window. When police showed up at the Holiday Inn where the wrestlers were staying, a brawl broke out between the grapplers and the officers. A short time later, Patera left the AWA for the WWF. In June 1985, Patera was convicted on two counts of battery on a police officer, and one count of criminal damage to property. Saito was convicted on three counts of battery on a police officer, and one count of obstructing a peace officer. Both men were sentenced to two years in prison.

Patera's friend and former tag team partner Billy Jack Haynes has a different side to this story. He stated that Patera made a minor threat along the lines of, "Let's hope I don't run into you outside of this place" to the McDonald's employee. Then Haynes went on to say that a female police officer later knocked on the two wrestlers hotel room. When Patera opened the door, the officer maced Saito and Patera without warning, causing a full scale brawl in the hotel which had several officers physically assaulted including the female officer, who suffered a broken nose. This ended the marriage between Patera and his wife.

Later career

After Patera had served his time, the WWF brought him back to the company in the spring of 1987, airing some vignettes entitled "The Ken Patera Story" chronicling his career and the incident. The WWF did not use the McDonald's name, however, instead opting to say that he broke the window of a health food store. To make Patera a babyface, they concocted a story that former manager Bobby Heenan had abandoned him. Patera and Heenan held a debate to air their differences, which naturally 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 began feuding with the Heenan family (at the time comprised of Paul Orndorff, Harley Race, King Kong Bundy, and Hercules Hernandez).

Patera was in top physical condition and had tremendous heat when he returned to the WWF. Some wrestling publications even speculated that Patera would reunite with Heenan to face Hulk Hogan in the main event of WrestleMania IV. But his push was short lived. In less than a year, Patera was being used to put over younger and newer talent for the company.

Patera would sign with the AWA in early 1989. He initially challenged new AWA World Champion Larry Zbyszko for the title, but ended up in a tag team with Brad Rheingans as "the Olympians". The team would defeat Badd Company for the tag team titles shortly therafter. However, their reign would be brief. Fellow weighlifter turned wrestler, Wayne Bloom challenged Patera to a "car lifting challenge" in order to get a title shot. When it was Patera's turn to lift, Bloom, partner Mike Enos and manager Johnny Valiant attacked and injured Patera and Rheingans. This led to the AWA stripping Patera and Rheingans of the titles.

Rheingans would leave wrestling for several months (in order to have a knee operation not related to the incident). Patera continued to feud with Bloom and Enos until he left the AWA. Upon returning to the AWA in early 1990, Rheingans would continue the feud until the AWA's demise.

Patera went on to wrestle for the PWA and on independent cards primarily in the Minnesota area well into the 1990s, sometimes even promoting his own events.

Profile

Championships and accomplishments

Wrestling Observer Newsletter

  • 1980 Match of the Year (vs Bob Backlund)

Championship succession

Preceded by:
Pat Patterson 		WWF Intercontinental Champions Succeeded by:
Pedro Morales

Trivia

Patera is the younger brother of Jack Patera, who coached the NFL's Seattle Seahawks from 1976 to 1982.

Patera is mentioned in the GZA song "Shadowboxing":

I slayed MC's back in the rec room era/My style broke motherfuckin backs like Ken Patera

Reference

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