He won a gold medal in the middleweight division at the 1950 British Empire Games, and he competed in the 1948 Olympics.
He began attending wrestling matches as a small child, and started wrestling at his local YMCA when he was 12.
He also wrestled in the AWA and WWF promotions, where he was commonly known as Mad Dog.
He was married three times in his life, and had six children.
In the AWA, he wrestled against Jesse Ventura in many tag team battles.
