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LOOKING BACK AT THE CAREER OF THE LATE LEN ROSSI

Memphis Wrestling legend Len Rossi, real name Len Rositano, passed away on Friday 10/9 following a battle with Alzheimer's Disease at the age of 91.

Rossi was an incredible talent, who held the NWA World Tag Team Championship on 14 different occasions before retiring officially in 1972.  He was inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2004 and the official NWA Hall of Fame in 2016.

Rositano, a native of Utica, NY born to parents who had emigrated from Italy, first became acquainted with wrestling when he was working out, as a teenager, at YMCA when a coach there talked him into trying it in 1945.  Although the coach completely bested him, Rositano became interested in collegiate wrestling and began wrestling there regularly.  After spending several years in the United States military, he found himself breaking into the business, working for Ed Don George, a promoter who ran events in New York in the 1940s and 50s.

Rositano became christened Len Rossi early on with the belief that his last name was too long and would be earlier to fit into advertising with a shorter surname,

Like all the grapplers of that era, Rossi was a road warrior, working every territory you could think of beyond his native New York, including Boston (which was his first full-time territory), Florida, Illinois, Wisconsin, Texas and even Utah, where he feuded with the soon to be legendary Gypsy Joe.  Tennessee's NWA Mid-America was scheduled to be the next on the endless loop of areas Rossi would work, originally a two-week run before Rossi was heading to Canada.

However, with his son Joseph (who he would later tag team with) approaching schooling age, making it harder to move from place to place and his wife tiring of the travel overall, the family put roots down in Tennessee, pretty much remaining a staple of the area for the rest of his career.

Founded by Nick Gulas and Roy Welch, NWA Mid-America at the time ran TN, Alabama and Kentucky as a member of the National Wrestling Alliance.  Rossi was a regular babyface, teaming with Tex Riley for a long period of time through the early 1960s, where the pair were the babyface team of the area for an extended period, feuding with the likes of Jackie and Don Fargo and the team of Mephisto and Dante. 

In the 1960s in Birmingham, Rossi would help break down the walls for integration, teaming with Bearcat Brown.  Rossi had to convince the promoter to make Brown his partner.  Rossi would later say Brown was his very best friend in the business.  He would later team with Mario Milano and Jackie Fargo (they even once recorded a song together for a record.)    For a time, he also worked under a mask as part of a tag team known as The Crusaders.

In the early 1970s, Rossi would team with his son Joey as well.  Joey sadly passed away in 2003 after battling cancer.

As a singles competitor, Rossi would later go one to become the NWA Mid-America Champion for a run as well.  He also held the NWA Southern Junior Heavyweight Champion and for a time was a massive babyface in Alabama as one of the primary stars of Birmingham's Live Studio Wrestling series on Channel 42.  

Rossi's career ended unceremoniously in an 1972 car accident when he was traveling to perform in Tupelo, MS.  Despite suffering multiple broken bones, including his right arm, both his feet and numerous ribs, Rossi realized after the crash that a tractor trailer was likely to hit the car, and with his one good arm, was able to pull himself out of the car and down into a ditch on the side of the road.  While he amazingly suffered no major internal injuries, it was the end of his in-ring exploits.

Rossi did train some wrestlers after retiring, but mostly focused on moving into the next chapter of his life.  He returned to school to study nutrition and healing and opened Len Rossi's Health Foods, which for a time was the oldest operating store in Brentwood, TN.    Rossi opened a second store in Hermitage, TN and also invented his own vitamin line. 

Rossi was among those interviewed and featured in the excellent Memphis Heat documentary on the life and legacy of that wrestling territory, noting that he probably had 6,000 matches, many of which was Best of Three Falls, over the course of his career.  He was extremely proud that over the course of his career, he never missed a booking intentionally unless he was too sick to perform.

Upon learning of Rossi's passing, Les Thatcher wrote:

On behalf of everyone at PWInsider.com, we'd like to express our deepest condolences to the family, friends and fans of Len Rossi.

Some excellent pieces on Rossi's career over the last several days:

 

 

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