Volume 6 , Issue 35

Alva Lad - Roy Dunn - World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion

"Watching the Olympics this evening brought back memories of Roy Dunn of Alva. Roy was father to Bruce and Blake, both attended Washington elementary before the family moved to Colorado sometime in the mid-50's.    My father and Roy were friends and we attended several matches in Wichita, this was during the time professional wrestling was legitimate. Anyway, back to Roy.  Roy Dunn participated in the 1936 Olympics in freestyle wrestling but did not medal.  He wrestled professionally and was crowned World Champ by the National Wrestling Alliance.  Roy retired in 48, but came out of retirement in 49, wrestling until 53.

During that period of time was when the epic movie David and Goliath was popular and the "actor" that played Goliath was also a popular professional wrestler as well.  If I recall correctly Goliath was 7 feet tall and weighed over 300 pounds.  The movie made Goliath very popular within the wrestling circuit and eventually he rose to a level that paired him with Roy for a match.  My dad, Paul Wiebener, took me to Wichita to see this match.

Roy was well respected and always wrestled by the rules, on the other hand Goliath was known to be a showboater and violated rules regularly.  Goliath used every trick in the book, including rubbing something abrasive in Roy's eyes in an effort to win.  Eventually, the referee stopped the match and gave Roy the win due to Goliath's cheating. This enraged Goliath and he followed Roy to his dressing room and sucker punched him.  Roy was injured and spent the night in a local hospital.  He retired soon after that undefeated, I believe.

My mother, Veva, was the Cub Scout leader of Pack (???) which included, in addition to myself, Bruce Dunn, Bob Whisman, Gene Smith, Bill Joachims, Ed Stewart and others. From time to time Roy would come to the meetings and talk with the scouts, show his championship belt and wrestle all of us, of course he'd let us pin him. Bruce is a dentist living near Denver now, I don't know what Blake is doing." -- Marvin   |  View or Add Comments (1 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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