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Wrestling "Wik" Known For Fast Moves In The Ring

Posted: Jun 29th 2008 By: CMBurnham

"Oni Wiki Wiki" was known as the barefooted Hawaiian wrestler with a mean flying head-scissors and a deft top-rope ring walk.

"Wik" as his family called him, played the "babyface" good-guy pitted against the villain "heel" in every match. He was strong, with size 18 ring fingers, and gave an action-packed show true to the translation of his name, meaning "Super Fast Fast".

When other wrestlers in the early days of professional wrestling wore plain black or gray trunks, Wik wore bright colored Hawaiian skirts and leis in the ring.

Wallace" Wik" Lam Ho died Monday from complications from a fractured hip. He was 88.

He was born on April Fool's Day 1920 in Oahu, Hawaii, to Inga (Larsen) and Kong Wan Lam Ho. His family took their Hawaiian traditions seriously, waking every day at 4 or 5 a.m. to pick flowers and then sewing leis all morning, said his son Lee Lam Ho.

He played sports, became a star football player in high school and mastered judo. And Wik was known to be onery at times, too, said Lee.

There's a story that "he actually knocked out a cow," Lee said, "and I think it's true."

He went to a few different colleges on the West Coast and played football until he was drafted into the Army in 1942. When World War II ended, he went back to Hawaii and was a fullback for the Hawaii Warriors.

In 1951, Wik visited a friend in Canada, where they sumo wrestled together. At 6 feet tall and 220 pounds at his heaviest, Wik didn't have a sumo silhouette, but he got interested in professional wrestling.

He soon embarked on a 27-year wrestling career in the southeastern United States, sometimes driving 200 or 300 miles one way for a match, said Lee.

He and his young family moved every year, sometimes more. Wik often had his kids in tow when he drove several nights a week to perform at high school gymnasiums and National Guard armories in places such as Shreveport, LA., and Nashville, TN.

He wrestled with different associations, including the National Wrestling Alliance, depending on where he lived at the time. They packed collesiums on the weekends, but there was never any money in it, said Lee.

Sometimes Wik had to stop by the hospital before driving home to have a broken bone set or to get sewn up after a match. "They were ruffians back then; they were tough," said Lee.

But despite what happened in the ring, "the heels and the babyfaces were all very good friends backstage," Lee remembered.

By the time Wik retired in 1978, the sport was waning. He and his family settled in Tulsa, where he worked as a security guard and coached wrestling and football while his sons were in junior high.

Despite losing the tips of two fingers to a wayward shark during a youthful skin dive, he still played the ukulele.

He often sang "Princess Papule," a Hawaiian song about a woman with "papayas aplenty," to his kids, remembered Lee.

He thought modern wrestling "was more soap opera than actual wrestling," said Lee.

Wik preferred the old way, when they didn't need anything but two guys in a ring.

Tags: Oni Wiki Wiki