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Vale: ‘Killer Karl Kox’

Former TV wrestler "Killer Karl Kox", who appeared on Nine's World Championship Wrestling during the 1960s and '70s, died on the weekend.

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Former TV wrestler “Killer Karl Kox”, who appeared on Nine’s World Championship Wrestling during the 1960s and ’70s, died on the weekend.

US-born Kox, whose real name was Herb Gerwig, had already suffered a massive heart attack on October 22nd, then had a stroke a few days later.

“My dad didn’t want a funeral, but we might have some sort of memorial for him within a few weeks. Once that is decided, I will let everyone know,” said his son, Cody Gerwig.

As Slam notes, when he was at his peak in the 1960s and 1970s, nobody messed around with Karl Kox. A lot of villains would try to get a rise of out a crowd, then tone down things just a tad to keep fans from rioting. Not Kox. “Nah, I toned it up. It’s just the way I was,” he said.

“There was nobody tougher than Killer Karl Kox,” marveled Don “Lawman” Slatton, who wrestled him regularly. “The son of a gun could go. To get a crowd roused up, there was nobody in his class. He just looked like he didn’t like you. He was something else.”

His most famous wrestling hold was the ‘brainbuster’ and on one notable occasion gave it to host Jack Little at the end of a match at Melbourne’s Festival Hall, with Little having to host the show in a neck brace for many weeks.

“He had the greatest gimmick ever. KKK — he didn’t have to say a word,” wrestler Ernie Ladd recounted.

Kox once said, “I didn’t have the background and the knowledge to be a babyface. I played semi-pro football and ice hockey as a heel. It was easy for me. It just came natural.”

7 Responses

  1. Yes i have many fond childhood memories of Killer Karl Kox way back in the 1960’s when he wrestled in Australia. He was one of my favourite wrestlers.

    He was a nice guy out of the ring with a great sense of humor.

    He could really stir up the crowds and pull a big crowd.

    My brother and I along with a few school mates would watch these legends wrestle at the Thebarton Town Hall in Adelaide and on the TV on Sundays.

    Those where the good days where life was simple and people where real and genuine.

    Rest in Peace Herb Gerwig AKA Killer Karl Kox.

    I send my condolences to his family in the USA.

  2. I used to get my pillow in the head lock and pretend I was Mario Milano…the pillow was Killer Kowalski. He was dead meat in my hands! After a lenghty and ferocious battle I would finally get him into the sleeper hold and it was lights out, sorry Killer! 🙂
    Condolences to Karl’s family.

  3. Trix – they filmed – well, videotaped the matches at the 9 studios at Willoughby each Saturday arvo – went to air live, setting up the angles for the following Friday Stadium programme. Then they’d fly to Melbourne to do the show at Festival Hall Sat night and do a live Sunday lunchtime show at GTV studios to set up the angles for the Melb show.

    Rated so highly (and was cheap programming for 9, free advertising for the promoters Jim Barnett and Johnny Doyle) the stations ended up showing the Sydney shows in Melb, and the Melb shows in Sydney.

    Ask me what happened 45 years ago at the wrestling and I remember – ask me what happened in Wild Boys 2 weeks ago and I forget!

    Ain’t life wonderful????

  5. @D@GP, wow, you actually got to see the program filmed! This takes me straight back to childhood, watching weekly on the old black and white TV with my two brothers living every kick, punch and throw. It was years before I realised it wasn’t real and the wrestlers involved were actually amazing athletes. My only regret was there wasn’t a wrestled named Harry Highpants as they all managed to wear them up around their armpits 🙂

  6. Yep, the Friday night walks from St James Station to the Stadium at Rushcutters Bay were always exciting as we schoolboys would speculate who would anihilate who at the wrestling.
    Mongolian Stomper, Skull Murphy, Brute Bernard, Slamming Sammy Menacker, goold ole Killer Kowalski (he died a year or two ago)… life was so much easier back then…

  7. Thanks David for posting this — with the passing of Killer Karl Kox as well as King Curtis back in December 2010, only a few of those who wrestled during the glory days of World Championship Wrestling are with us, including Mario Milano, Mark Lewin and Ron Miller.

    I remember Karl Kox giving Jack Little the ‘brainbuster’, one I don’t think was planned and backfired badly (although not in the show’s ratings) — I remember Kox going from being a very bad guy to a very handy good guy, and ferrocious tag team matches with Bulldog Brower, Big Bad John and Tiger Singh….ah, childhood memories…

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