Joseph Anthony Savoldi

(5 Mar 1908 – 25 Jan 1974)

Biography by THR on FindaGrave:

Star Notre Dame athlete, World Champion professional wrestler, WWII OSS covert agent in Italy, and educator. Joseph Anthony Savoldi. Jr. was born in Italy where his 21 year old mother had just arrived from the States upon news of her father’s serious condition from an assault by brigands. Savoldi, Jr., was born the day his grandfather died from his wounds. Due to his fragile state as an infant, several illnesses, and WWl, he was left in care of his grandmother until he could return to his mother and America in 1918. He resided in Three Oaks, Michigan with his parents. Savoldi attended the Three Oaks High School and entered Notre Dame University. There, starting in 1928, he became a university football star, playing for the Fighting Irish team coached by Knute Rockne. It was in those years that he acquired two nicknames, “Galloping Joe,” and the one that was to follow him throughout his life, “Jumping Joe” which he had earned after a magnificent touchdown during the 1929 season, against the Carnegie Tech team, when in one vast leap he cleared the whole of the opposing team’s defensive line on the goal line.
He accepted an offer in 1930 to become a professional with the Chicago Bears, and that team won numerous games in the American national championships, the National Football League.
The game that changed his life, however, was when Notre Dame invited him to join up with them against a team made up of some of the best players in southwest America. The match in the Los Angeles Coliseum ended with a victory for the “Irish” who won 20 to 7. [All the publicity revealed the fact he had married his college sweetheart, and he was expelled by Notre Dame for violation of its no-married students policy. Savoldi’s part in the match was decisive, and two of the spectators were talent scouts for wrestling, one was the world wrestling champion. They offering him a contract for the coming season offering as much money in one match as he could earn a whole year with the Chicago Bears. He accepted. Wrestling in that era was a true, competitive sport, unlike the scripted entertainment spectacle it has become.
Savoldi became a star of the wrestling world; his best-known ‘technical move’ was his ‘dropkick’ which he used to end almost every match. On 7 April 1933, at the Chicago Stadium, Savoldi won a decisive match against the heavyweight world champion, Jim London, becoming the new the champion. despite later defeats in major matches, Savoldi continued as a professional wrestler for about another ten years, taking part in numerous tours in New Zealand, Hawaii and Australia in 1936 and 1937.
In 1941 Savoldi started a distribution company for a beer known as Red Top Beer and thought up a special drink, a precursor of today’s ‘energy drinks, that he named ‘Dropkick. The business closed with WWIl due to sugar rationing that made production of the new drink impossible.
Savoldi was called to serve in early WWII. With his Italian heritage and fluent Italian, he was considered the ideal candidate to join the OSS, precursor to the CIA. He was trained as a secret agent to be sent to Italy with a false identify. Savoldi spent the war in Italy as an undercover agent, collaborating with the Italian resistance and leading and taking part in a series of sensitive, dangerous and courageous operations actions behind the enemy lines. His was a risky and unusual role as he served in a civilian capacity for the OSS.
After the war, Savoldi returned to pro wrestling in 1946, but suffered from severe arthritis and eventually retired from the sport in 1950, having discovered and trained the first successful African-American in pro-wrestling, Houston Harris, “Bobo Brazil,” credited with integrating the sport. Savoldi was known as a coach who trained wrestlers to be honest athletes in the ring and not tp take short shots on anybody to win a match. He then did work as a promoter and manager, did some refereeing, made some guest TV appearances, briefly had his own sports radio show, and worked in the insurance business.
In 1962, Savoldi set a new goal and pursued a diploma as a science teacher. He then became a teacher for the Henderson County High School in Kentucky, where he taught until he retired in 1973.