There Will Never Be Another Gorgeous George

Before Hulk Hogan. Before Ric Flair. Before “Superstar” Billy Graham. Before Muhammad Ali borrowed the swagger and pro wrestling became television spectacle…

There was Gorgeous George.

He wasn’t the biggest wrestler. He wasn’t the toughest shooter. He wasn’t built like Bruno Sammartino or feared like Lou Thesz. But Gorgeous George understood something before almost anyone else in sports entertainment: if people hated you enough, they would pay to watch you lose.

With his bleached blond hair, fancy robes, perfume, valet, and outrageous arrogance, George Wagner transformed himself into one of the most famous wrestlers in America. He turned entrances into theater. He turned interviews into performance art. He turned boos into money. And in the early days of television, he became exactly the kind of character people could not look away from.

This is the story of Gorgeous George — the man who helped invent the modern wrestling superstar, influenced legends like Ric Flair, Buddy Rogers, Jerry Lawler, “Superstar” Billy Graham, Hulk Hogan, and even Muhammad Ali, and proved that in wrestling, personality could be just as powerful as a headlock.

Before wrestling had larger-than-life characters, Gorgeous George made himself impossible to ignore.