Angelo Mosca

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Angelo Mosca
No. 68
Date of birth (1937-02-13) February 13, 1937 (age 87)
Place of birth Waltham, Massachusetts
Career information
CFL status National
Position(s) DT
Height 6 ft 4 in (193 cm)
Weight 275 lb (125 kg)
College Notre Dame
NFL draft 1959 / Round: 30 / Pick: 350
Drafted by Philadelphia Eagles
Career history
As player
1958-1959 Hamilton Tiger-Cats
1960-1961 Ottawa Rough Riders
1962 Montreal Alouettes
1963-1972 Hamilton Tiger-Cats
Career highlights and awards
CFL All-Star 1963, 1970
CFL East All-Star 1960, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1970
Honors 1960, 63, 65, 67, 72 - Grey Cup Champion
Career stats

Angelo Mosca (born February 13, 1937) is a former Canadian Football League player and professional wrestler. He is also known by the wrestling nicknames King Kong Mosca and The Mighty Hercules. Mosca has a son, Angelo Jr., who also wrestled. He was elected to the Hamilton Sports Hall of Fame in 2012, and the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 2013.[1]

CFL career

Mosca attended the University of Notre Dame and was drafted by the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles in 1959 in the 30th round (350th overall.) He had already decided to play in the CFL, in 1958 for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. He was traded to the Ottawa Rough Riders for Hardiman Cureton on August 15, 1960, and played for the Rough Riders in 1960 and 1961 before joining the Montreal Alouettes in 1962. He played his remaining years, 1963 to 1972 in Hamilton. He was a five-time all star.

Mosca played in nine Grey Cup games, more than any other player in CFL history, tied with his teammate John Barrow. Mosca's teams won five Grey Cup games, one with the Ottawa Rough Riders and four with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. He is infamous for the 51st Grey Cup game out-of-bounds and late hit on B.C. Lions star running back Willie Fleming. With Fleming out of the game, the Tiger-Cats went on to win the Grey Cup and Mosca's reputation as being the meanest CFL player grew. It was a reputation he later promoted as the notorious professional wrestler "King Kong" Mosca.[2]

On August 25, 2015, the Tiger-Cats announced that they would retire Mosca's jersey number 68. This is only the second jersey number the club has retired, the other being Hall of Fame quarterback Bernie Faloney's number 10..

Wrestling career

Mosca was brought into wrestling by Montreal promoter Eddie Quinn. He began wrestling in the off-season, and became a full-time wrestler after his retirement from football. He wrestled all across North America, always at or near the top of the card, and almost always as a heel, even in Toronto until the late 1970s, then he became a face, and in the early 1980s, the lead face. He often used a sleeper as his finisher in later years.

In 1981 in the World Wrestling Federation, Mosca wrestled as (often – in a reversal of his character in Canada) as the promotion's most hated heel due to his brutal style. He became a top challenger to WWF Champion Bob Backlund's World Championship, but was not successful in winning the belt. He also engaged in a feud with Pat Patterson, a part-time wrestler who also did color commentary on the WWF's syndicated programs, after Mosca attacked Patterson at a television taping with a water pitcher; Patterson had grown disgusted with Mosca's rulebreaking tactics and, setting off the attack, publicly thanked a referee for disqualifying Mosca for refusing to pin his jobber opponent.

Mosca retired from wrestling in the mid-1980s and was the colour commentator for the WWF TV tapings in Ontario from August 1984 until January 1985. After being fired by the WWF, Mosca promoted the NWA in Ontario in 1985-87. He and Milt Avruskin hosted a TV show featuring compilations of NWA matches. Mosca organized an NWA card in Hamilton in February 1986 called "Moscamania" that drew an excellent house of 12,000 but the follow-up a year later drew only 3,200.

Mosca's son, Angelo Mosca Jr., had a brief but successful wrestling career, and he left the broadcast booth to manage his son's career.

Personal life

Mosca has lived in and around Hamilton for many years, and currently lives in St. Catharines, Ontario with his wife, Helen, a real estate agent. He first met her 1996 at a Ticats game; they married in 1998.[3] He had been divorced once and widowed prior.

He authored a book with Steve Milton called Tell Me To My Face, published by Lulu Canada Inc. The book was released in September 2011.[4]

In 2011, Mosca got into a fight with former B.C. Lions quarterback Joe Kapp at a CFL alumni luncheon regarding a controversial hit Mosca had made in the 1963 Grey Cup game, where Mosca ended up hitting Kapp on the head with his cane.[5] The video of the fight went viral, receiving over 647,000 views on YouTube[6] and mentions on ESPN’s Monday Night Football and on Fox TV’s Bill O’Reilly show.[7] Mosca auctioned off the cane he used against Kapp at the following year's alumni luncheon for $7700, with the money going towards the alumni association’s "dire straits" fund for struggling former players.[6]

Mosca appeared on several Canadian TV commercials in the 1970s and 1980s. Mosca still makes PR appearances for the league and the Ticats and for other businesses.

In February 2015, he revealed that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.[3]

His number 68 football jersey was retired by the Hamilton Tiger Cats football club on August 27, 2015 at a ceremony at Tim Horton Field in Hamilton.

Championships and accomplishments

Professional Football

Professional Wrestling

  • NWA Tri-State
    • NWA Tri-State Brass Knuckles Championship (1 time)

Video clips

Hamilton Sports Hall of Fame member on YouTube

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Heroes of the Game, A History of The Grey Cup - Stephen Thiele, Moulin Publishing 1997
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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