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Wrestling Great, Angelo Savoldi Passes Away, Aged 99

Posted: Sep 21st 2013 By: CMBurnham

The Savoldi family, through the official Facebook for their promotion Wrestling on Fire, announced that Angelo Savoldi passed away today at the age of 99. At the time of his passing, Savoldi was the oldest living professional wrestler.

Born in April 1914, began wrestling during the Great Depression as a way to make a living, working in the Northeast territory run by Jack Pfefer. He soon made his way to different territories. As a heel, had several runs with the NWA Junior Heavyweight championship, defeating Irish Mike Clancy, Dory Funk Sr. and Ivan the Terrible (later known as Pampero Firpo).

He was considered an awesome heel, especially when feuding with Danny Hodge. There was a well known incident where a fan decided to stab Savoldi as he returned to the locker room. In one of those "only in wrestling" stories, the fan turned out to be Hodge's own father, who had not been indoctrinated in how the business worked due to the secrecy of the time.

As Savoldi moved into the latter part of his career, he settled down in Parsipanny, NJ where he worked as an undercard talent for the WWWF. At one point, he was also a minority owner in the company. It was often said that if anyone knew all the skeletons in the WWWF's closet after all these years, it was Savoldi.

Savoldi also had a hand in training a number of wrestlers, including former NWA World champion Jack Brisco.

Later on The Savoldi family (Angelo and his sons Mario, Tom and Joe) would run a number of different promotions, including ICW (later IWCCW) and the current Wrestling on Fire promotion. A number of stars, including Taz, Tommy Dreamer and Little Guido had their earliest TV appearances with that promotion.

Savoldi was inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in Amsterdam, NY in 2004. The previous year, he was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Cauliflower Alley Club.

As recently as a few years ago, Savoldi had talked of writing an autobiography. How far that project got, if it even got started, is unknown.

Our deepest condolences to the Savoldi family and all of Angelo's friends and family on their loss.