28 Facts About William Muldoon

William Muldoon was an American Greco-Roman Wrestling champion, a physical culturist, and the first chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission.

William Muldoon once wrestled a match that lasted over seven hours.

William Muldoon was a mainstay in New York sports for over 50 years.

William Muldoon's youth was otherwise characterized by a brutish, flash temper, and his desire to be treated with the respect of an adult despite being a child.

At the time of his resignation in 1881, William Muldoon was a detective.

In 1880, William Muldoon gained recognition when he won the World Greco-Roman Heavyweight Championship with a win over title claimant Thiebaud Bauer.

William Muldoon's rise to prominence brought challengers from across the globe, including Edwin Bibby and Tom Cannon of England, Donald Dinnie of Scotland, "Mat" Sorakichi of Japan, Carl Abs of Germany, William Miller of Australia, and John McMahon and Clarence Whistler, the latter being Muldoon's opponent in a titanic seven-hour match in 1881, where neither could gain a single fall.

William Muldoon became involved in theater around this time, stemming from his fame in athletics.

William Muldoon was one of a party of gentlemen entertained by Robert Emmet Odlum, brother of women's rights activist Charlotte Odlum Smith, on the morning of May 19,1885, the day he jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge and was killed.

William Muldoon assisted in unsuccessful resuscitation efforts and summoned an ambulance, which arrived too late to save Odlum.

In 1889 Muldoon trained John L Sullivan for his famous 75-round fight against Jake Kilrain for the world heavyweight bare-knuckle boxing championship.

William Muldoon had done so on a friendly wager and offered to absorb expenses if Sullivan lost.

Sullivan won and William Muldoon gained national notice for restoring the boxing champion to fighting form.

William Muldoon wrestled in his final championship match in 1890, defeating Evan Lewis in Philadelphia.

William Muldoon symbolically passed his World Greco-Roman Heavyweight Championship to protege Ernest Roeber.

William Muldoon would make his final public appearance as a wrestler in a charity exhibition match against Roeber at Madison Square Garden in 1894.

That same year William Muldoon moved his health farm from Belfast, New York, to White Plains.

William Muldoon continued to train boxers and wrestlers until boxing was banned in New York at the turn of the century.

In 1900, William Muldoon opened what would become the work of his life, the well-known health institute The Olympia at Purchase, New York.

In 1907 there was talk that William Muldoon would be appointed to the president's cabinet to oversee physical health.

William Muldoon dedicated a Civil War monument to the town of Belfast, New York, listing the names of local veterans in 1915, including that of his older brother John.

In 1921 William Muldoon was personally tapped by Governor Nathan Lewis Miller as the inaugural Chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission, when professional boxing's status was legally restored in New York.

In 1927 William Muldoon was profiled by The New Yorker magazine and in 1929 by The Saturday Evening Post.

William Muldoon died at age 81 in Westchester County, New York, and was interred in a grandiose private mausoleum at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.

Sometime after the end of his wrestling career and before the turn of the century, William Muldoon had claimed for years that he was born in 1845, and seven years older than his age verified in the William Muldoon Family Bible, which documents his real birth year.

In 1996, William Muldoon was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

William Muldoon was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1931, though his doctors did not reveal the nature of his illness to him.

William Muldoon was a strong advocate of compulsory military service, equestrianism, physical culture and the Boy Scouts of America, citing the latter as the only organization left devoted to leadership-building for young men.