Let's start with an image that honestly just
shouldn't exist. It completely defies biology.
Yeah, it really does. You have to picture this.
You're at a carnival in the late 19th century.
Maybe it's this dusty county fair out in Iowa.
There's a stage, you know, the smell of sawdust
and stale beer. Right, a classic Americana scene.
Exactly. And on that stage is a man. Now, he
isn't a giant. He's maybe 165 pounds, about 5
'10". But he has a neck. that looks like it belongs
on a prized bull. It's massive. It measures 20
inches around. Which, just for context, is larger
than most people's calves. Right. And to prove
just how indestructible that neck is, he doesn't
just lift weights with it. He actually lets a
carnival worker secure a hangman's noose around
his throat. A legitimate execution -style noose.
A real one. The trapdoor opens. He drops six
feet a drop. that is literally designed to snap
the cervical vertebrae and instead of dying he
just hangs there. He smiles at the crowd and
starts whistling Yankee Doodle. It's honestly
one of the most jarring images in sports history.
And the crazy thing is for Martin Farmer Burns,
that wasn't a death wish or some kind of cheap
magic trick. It was a demonstration of what they
called physical culture. It was his way of saying,
you know, my training is superior to your physics.
It's unbelievable. So today we are doing a deep
dive into the life and more importantly, the
mechanics of Martin Farmer. We've got the biographical
records, wrestling history summaries, the Wikipedia
archives, all the source material and. The mission
for you listening today is to understand how
165 -pound farm boy from the Civil War era became
this legendary giant killer. Because he essentially
invented the training regimen that built modern
amateur wrestling. Exactly. And turned Iowa into
the grappling capital of the world. And we really
need to emphasize that giant killer moniker.
I mean, in the modern era, we have weight classes
for a very good reason. You don't put 165 -pound
welterweight in the ring with a 250 -pound super
heavyweight. It's a safety issue. Exactly. But
Burns didn't care. He routinely dismantled men
who outweighed him by 50 to 100 pounds. And he
didn't do it with brute force, but with this
incredibly scientific application of leverage
and pain. Way ahead of his time. So that's the
goal today. We need to figure out how he engineered
a human body to survive a hangings and toss giants
around like hay bales. We have to go back to
the source code for that. Right. 1861. Cedar
County, Iowa. A log cabin. which is a very specific,
pivotal time and place to be born. 1861 is the
outbreak of the American Civil War. Right. Now,
obviously, Martin Burns is just an infant when
the war starts, but he grows up entirely in the
shadow of that conflict, and the Civil War is
actually crucial for wrestling history. Yeah,
because I think people forget that before baseball
really took over as the national pastime, wrestling
was the soldier's sport. It was the primary way
to pass time in the army camps. You have thousands
of young men, bored, full of adrenaline, needing
to prove dominance. So wrestling just exploded
in the 1860s. And remember, the commander in
chief himself, Abraham Lincoln, was a legitimate
grappler in his youth. Oh, right, the rail splitter.
Exactly. He was known for his catch -his -catch
-can abilities. So Burns is born into this culture
where wrestling is seen as a true test of character,
not just some recreational sport. But his childhood
wasn't exactly a montage of organized sports
either. The sources paint a pretty grim picture
early on. His father dies when Martin is only
11. 11 years old. And suddenly, Martin is the
patriarch of the family. He has to support his
mother and six siblings. And we aren't talking
about a paper route. No, not at all. He's working
on neighboring farms for $12 a month. This is
1870s manual labor we're talking about. Clearing
rocks, bailing high by hand, wrestling livestock.
It's that whole farm strength mythos. But in
his case, it's completely real. It is entirely
real. He also worked in what they called grading
camps. OK, what were those? These were camps
set up to grade the land for railroad construction.
And these places were notoriously rough. You
had itinerant laborers, ex -soldiers, grifters.
It was a completely lawless environment. So you're
just a kid surrounded by these massive, tough
guys who probably want to blow off steam after
moving dirt all day. Exactly. And how did they
blow off steam? They wrestled. But here is the
major differentiation point for burns. In those
grading camps, most guys relied purely on bull
strength. They would just grab you and try to
crush you with raw power. Right. Burns was a
teenager. He was undersized. So he couldn't play
that game. He had to be highly intellectual about
it. This is where the catch style comes in. Right.
Because I think a lot of people listening probably
picture Olympic wrestling when we say this, like
Greco -Roman, very upright, no grabbing the legs.
Right. But catch wrestling is a totally different
beast. Oh, absolutely. Catch as catch can is
really the direct ancestor of modern mixed martial
arts. It's nasty. It literally means catch a
hold where wherever you can. Anything goes. Pretty
much. Unlike Greco -Roman, you can attack the
legs, you can twist joints. Burns realized early
on that if he understood human anatomy, how a
wrist turns, how a knee hyperextends, he could
use a larger opponent's own momentum against
them. He was playing chess with their skeletons
while they were trying to play checkers with
their muscles. That is a perfect way to put it.
Yes. So he's perfecting this violent geometry
in the railroad camps. When does he decide to
actually get paid for it? Right around 1880,
he hits age 19 and tastes his first official
pro match against a guy named David Graft. And
the result of that match gives you a real glimpse
into the sheer insane endurance of this era.
Oh, man. Yeah. They wrestle to a draw. Which
usually implies they ran out of time. But back
then, tie limits were a very loose concept, weren't
they? Oh, a very loose concept. That specific
match lasted two hours and 19 minutes. Over two
hours. I mean, just imagine grappling at full
intensity for the length of a feature film. It's
exhausting just to think about. And that was
merely the warm up for his career. The moment
he truly becomes Farmer Burns the Legend, the
brand happens in Chicago in 1889. This is a fantastic
story. It is because it highlights the whole
culture clash so well. Burns is visiting Chicago
and he sees a sign outside the Olympic Theater.
It's the classic open challenge setup. Exactly.
$25 to anyone who can last just 15 minutes against
either Jack Carleek or Evan Lewis. Now remember...
$25 is two solid months of backbreaking farm
wages for Burns. Is an absolute fortune to him.
Fortune. So he walks right in, but he doesn't
have a corner, man. He doesn't have fancy wrestling
tights or specialized boots. He's literally wearing
his worn -out, everyday farmer's overalls. I
love his visuals so much. The theater crowd must
have just eaten him alive. They completely laughed
him off the stage, or at least they tried to.
The announcer introduces him as Farmer Burns
almost certainly as a joke, like, hey, look at
this rube who wandered in. Right. But then the
bell rings. Burns is facing Jack Carlick, who
is a very polished, dangerous professional. And
Burns doesn't just survive the 15 minutes to
win the money. He completely dismantles him.
He made a monkey out of him. That is the actual
quote from the newspapers at the time. He was
tossing Carlick across the stage, still wearing
his overalls. The crowd went from mocking him
to... absolutely cheering him on. He won over
the whole room. He did. He won the money. And
then he immediately had to face the champion,
Evan Lewis. And incredibly, he managed to hold
the champ to a draw until the time limit finally
ran out. OK, we need to pause on Evan Lewis for
a second. Yeah. Because looking at the deep dive
notes here, this rivalry really defines the next
phase of Burns life. And just for clarity, for
anyone listening who knows their wrestling history,
this is Evan Strangler Lewis. Yes. Not to be
confused with Ed Strand. to Lewis, who comes
along much later than 1920s. Correct. Two completely
different stranglers from different eras. Evan
Lewis was feared precisely because of his stranglehold.
It was a legitimate devastating choke. In fact,
in an earlier encounter they had, Burns actually
lost to Lewis specifically because he got caught
in that exact choke and couldn't break it. And
for a pure technician like Burns, losing to one
specific move must have been infuriating. It's
like a puzzle he couldn't solve. It obsessed
him. He realized his neck... was his structural
weak link. If he wanted to be the absolute best,
he had to make his neck entirely immune to strangulation.
So he developed this radical, almost obsessive
training program. This is where we get the famous
bridging exercises, right? Bridging, yes, where
you support your entire body weight on your head
and feet, but also intense isometric tension.
He would tense his neck muscles against extreme
resistance for hours. Just building pure density.
Exactly. He built these thin layers of muscle
all around his trachea and his carotid arteries,
he effectively turned his neck into a 20 -inch
cylinder of biological armor. Wow. And this is
exactly what led to those hangman stunts we talked
about at the start. He wasn't just showing off
for the crowd, he was field testing the structural
integrity of his own work. He literally armor
-plated his own throat. He did, and it paid off
perfectly. April 20th, 1895, the big rematch.
Burns versus Strangler Lewis for the American
Heavyweight Championship. The stakes are huge.
Massive. During the match, Lewis goes for his
famous stranglehold. He locks it in tight, but
this time, it's like trying to strangle a mature
oak tree. It just doesn't work. Burns doesn't
fade. He doesn't panic. He fights right through
it, reverses the position, and pins Lewis to
the mat. And just like that. The 165 pound kid
in overalls is the heavyweight champion of America.
And he holds onto that title for two full years.
Keep in mind, this is the absolute peak of the
legitimate era of wrestling. Right, the outcomes
weren't predetermined. Not at all. These weren't
staged matches. If you held that belt, you were
genuinely the toughest man on the continent.
Let's dig into those giant killer mechanics a
bit more, because you mentioned he was 165 pounds,
but he's regularly fighting guys who are 200,
220, sometimes way more. We talked about leverage,
but what were the astrophysical tools he used?
What was in his arsenal? His absolute favorite
weapons were pain compliance holds. Things like
the full Nelson, which brutally cranks the cervical
spine. The hammer lock, which isolates and targets
the shoulder joint. The double wrist lock, which
fans today would recognize as a kimura in Brazilian
jiu -jitsu that can easily snap a shoulder or
an elbow if you don't tap out. And of course,
the chicken wing. The chicken wing. Burns basically
invented that as a legitimate combat hole, didn't
he? He definitely popularized it as a highly
effective submission, yes. And toe holds. He
was absolutely notorious for grabbing a larger
man's foot and just twisting the ankle until
the opponent simply couldn't stand up anymore.
He's a brutal. Brutal, highly efficient, and
incredibly technical. Using those methods, he
claimed to have wrestled over 6 ,000 matches
in his career. 6 ,000? Yeah. I mean, if you just
do the math on that, that's a match every other
day for over 30 years. It's staggering. And he
claimed to have lost only about seven of them.
Now even if that win -loss number is slightly
exaggerated for marketing purposes, the sheer
volume of bouts is completely undeniable. Yeah,
you use everywhere. He traveled constantly, taking
on all comers at carnivals, state fairs, opera
houses. He even beat Surikichi Matsuda, who was
famously Japan's very first professional wrestler.
Oh, wow. An international crossover match? Yeah.
Matsuda was a highly respected pioneer of Japanese
wrestling, and Burns pinned him in just four
minutes during a match in Troy, New York. So
he conquers America. He dominates the international
competition. He's the undisputed king of the
mat. But usually this is where the sports story
ends, right? The athlete gets old, their body
breaks down, they retire, and they fade away.
Right. But for Burns, the trainer arc is almost
more impressive than the wrestler arc. I would
argue it's significantly more impressive. He
was smart enough to realize he couldn't wrestle
forever. So he started systematizing everything
he knew. In 1893, he actually opens a gym in
Rock Island, Illinois. OK. But the truly pivotal
moment for his legacy comes in 1899. He's back
in Iowa, and he wrestles this local 21 -year
-old kid. Frank Gotch. Frank Gotch. Now. Burns
beats him because he's still the master, but
he feels this incredible raw power in the kid.
Gotch was ungodly strong, fast, and mean, but
he was totally unpolished. Like a wild horse.
Exactly. Burns sees a diamond in the rough. So
instead of just taking his win and leaving town,
he recruits him. It's that classic movie moment,
you know? I could teach you how to harness that
power. Precisely. Burns becomes Gotch's full
-time manager and trainer. He takes that raw
Iowa farm strength and meticulously layers his
sophisticated catch mechanics right on top of
it. Lethal combination. Under Burns' tutelage,
Frank Gotch goes on to become the world heavyweight
champion. He actually becomes the single biggest
sports star in America at the time. And that's
not hyperbole. Gotch was like... Babe Ruth level
famous. Oh, he was a household name everywhere.
And his epic wins over George Hackenschmidt,
the Russian lion, completely cemented professional
wrestling as a major mainstream spectator sport.
And Burns was the architect behind all of that.
He was right there in the corner directing the
traffic. And the incredible thing is the coaching
tree didn't just stop with gotch. No, the volume
of his influence is massive. He trained over
1 ,600 wrestlers. 1 ,600? Including Earl Caddick,
who became another world champion. He trained
Tutsmont. Okay, Tootspont is a name any wrestling
historian will recognize. Absolutely. Mont is
one of the three men who created the Goldust
Trio, which eventually revolutionized pro wrestling
into the entertainment spectacle we see today.
The storylines, the drama, the pacing. And he
learned his fundamental mechanics from Farmer
Burns. He did. And I was even surprised to see
a boxer on his client list, Jim Jefferies. the
heavyweight boxing champion. The very same. When
Jeffries was preparing for his massive title
about the famous fight of the century against
Jack Johnson Burns, was actually brought into
his camp as the head conditioning coach. That
really tells you how high his reputation was.
He was considered the absolute ultimate authority
on human physical conditioning, regardless of
what sport you competed in. Which perfectly leads
us to his mail order course. Yes. The Lessons
in Wrestling and Physical Culture, published
in 1914. Looking through the sources, this really
feels like the first time a high -level elite
athlete tried to democratize their secret training
methods for the general public. And it was incredibly
successful. He sold thousands and thousands of
copies. And the fascinating thing is, it wasn't
just a pamphlet saying, here is how you do a
headlock. It was a comprehensive, holistic health
system. What was actually in it? If I'm a guy
in 1914 and I order this out of the back of a
magazine, what am I doing in my living room?
You are doing the official Farmer Burns workout.
It was broken down into three distinct phases.
First, breathing exercises and body weight warm
-ups. Burns was completely obsessed with diaphragmatic
breathing, taking these deep, highly controlled
breaths to oxygenate the blood. He believed deep
breathing was the absolute core secret to endless
stamina. Which is very modern. I mean, we see
that exact same philosophy. now with things like
the Wim Hof method or high performance breathing
protocols. Exactly. He was a century ahead of
the curve. Then phase two was calisthenics and
dumbbell work. But not heavy lifting, right?
Right, no heavy lifting. He strongly advocated
using light dumbbells moved at very high speeds.
He wanted to build aerobic capacity and snappy,
functional muscle. He was totally against slow,
bulky hypertrophy because it made you rigid.
That makes sense for a grappler. And phase three.
Phase three was partner resistance exercises,
literally using another person's body weight
to train your core and your balance. Brilliant.
And here is a crazy historical connection. Ed
Strangley Lewis, the future dominant champion
of the 1920s and 30s we mentioned earlier, he
actually started his wrestling career by buying
this exact mail order course. No way. Yes. He
learned the absolute basics of grappling as a
kid from Farmer Byrne's mail order pamphlets.
So Byrne's directly trained one generation of
champions in person and indirectly trained the
next generation through the mail. That's why
all roads in wrestling eventually lead back to
Iowa. I mean, today, if you follow NCAA collegiate
wrestling, The University of Iowa is the absolute
gold standard. The International Wrestling Institute
and Museum is located in Iowa, and that is all
directly because of Martin Burns, isn't it? 100%.
He planted the flag there. He single -handedly
made Iowa the center of the amateur wrestling
universe. He took it from this rough grading
camp activity and carnival sideshow, and he turned
it into a highly disciplined, respected, athletic
endeavor. So Martin Burns passed away in 1937
in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and obviously he's in
every Hall of Fame that matters, the WWE Hall
of Fame, the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame,
all of them. Rightfully so. But when you look
at the totality of his life, from that log cabin
to the world title to the massive coaching legacy,
what is the real key takeaway here for you? I
think the biggest takeaway is the triumph of
system over brute force. Burns proved that true
physical dominance wasn't just about being the
biggest, angriest dog in the fight. It was a
science. He codified the knowledge of human leverage.
Before him, wrestling techniques were basically
folklore passed around camps. Right. After him,
it was a curriculum. He took a carnival out of
the wrestler and put the athlete in. And he did
it all. while being perfectly able to whistle
a tune with a rope around his neck. Which certainly
helps sell the tickets, you have to admit. Yeah,
certainly. But you have to remember, the stunt
was just the hook to get them in the tent. The
actual substance was his flawless technique.
It really makes you think about how we view fitness
today. We live in this era of extreme hyperoptimization.
We have cryotherapy chambers, peptides, high
-tech resistance machines, AI -driven workout
plans on our phones. Everything is tracked and
monitored. Everything is designed to make us
stronger and faster with minimal friction. But
Martin Burns built a 20 -inch neck and world
-class unbeatable functional strength using nothing
but childhood manual labor, a pair of light dumbbells,
and just pure grit. He didn't have a fancy gym
membership. He had a farm. Exactly. And it leaves
you with a really provocative question to mull
over. In our modern quest for the perfect scientifically
optimized routine, have we actually lost something
essential about that raw farm strength? That's
a great question. Could a kid today armed with
absolutely nothing but a pair of denim overalls,
a relentless work ethic, and a 1914 Farmer Burns
manual still step into the ring and topple the
high -tech giants of today. I think true strength
might just be simpler and a lot harder to earn
than we want to admit. There's definitely something
to think about during your next workout. Thanks
for joining us on this deep dive into the incredible
life of the giant killer. Go do some push -ups
and we'll catch you on the next one.