Sonnenberg, Gustavus A.
Football, Wrestling
b. March 6, 1898, Ewen, MI
d. Sept. 12, 1944
After winning some All-American mentions as a tackle at Dartmouth College in 1920, Sonnenberg went to Detroit University for his final two years of college. He played in the National Football League with the Columbus Tigers in 1923, the Detroit Panthers in 1925 and 1926, and the Providence Steamroller in 1927 and 1928. He was named to unofficial All-Pro teams each year. He also played one game for Providence in 1930.
The 5-foot-8, 190-pound Sonnenberg began wrestling professionally in 1928. He developed the tactic of the "flying tackle," in which he flew through air the and hit his opponent with his head. As a result, he was sometimes known as "Gus the Goat."
In his first big match, in May of 1928, Sonnenberg beat the 270-pound Wayne "Big" Munn, a former world champion. The Boston Evening Globe said of the match, ". . . it looked like a rough and tumble football game, with Munn representing a live tackling dummy. Only when he had flopped Munn to the floor with his flying tackles did Sonnenberg resort to an orthodox wrestling hold."
Sonnenberg had five matches against Ed "Strangler" Lewis and won four of them. His first victory over Lewis, before a crowd of 20,000 at Boston Garden on January 4, 1929, brought him the world heavyweight championship. However, he lost the title to Ed "Don" George on December 10, 1930, and never regained it, though he continued wrestling for nearly nine years.
After winning an estimated $1 million in the ring, Sonnenberg was barred from wrestling in Rhode Island, his home base, in 1939 because of an irregular heartbeat. While serving as a physical training instructor in the U. S. Navy during World War II, Sonnenberg developed leukemia and died in a naval hospital in Maryland.