William Joseph Cobb (July 16, 1926 – March 14, 1989), best known by his ring and screen names of Happy Humphrey, Happy Farmer Humphrey, and "Squasher" Humphrey, was an American
professional wrestler
Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring o ...
, known as the heaviest professional wrestler of all time. His most active period was in the 1950s and 1960s when he billed himself as "the world's largest wrestler".
Humphrey averaged during his career.
[Stokes, Mike. "XXXXL: from Kamala the Ugandan Giant to Yokozuma to Haystacks Calhoun, we present the 10 greatest super-heavyweights in wrestling history - Special section: the heavyweights." ''Wrestling Digest'' August 2002]
/ref> Several times, he weighed in at over , and on one occasion he weighed over .
Professional wrestling career
Humphrey, who at the time was working on a farm where he was known for his uncommon strength, began his wrestling career in 1953 by wrestling a bear for 28 minutes.[Schramm, Chris. "Happy Humphrey was the giant." ''SLAM! Wrestling'' April 1, 1999]
/ref> For about eight years, Humphrey wrestled a number of matches, some of them televised, often against Haystacks Calhoun
William Dee Calhoun (August 3, 1934 – December 7, 1989) was an American professional wrestler, who used the professional name "Haystack" or "Haystacks" Calhoun.
Early life
Born on August 3, 1934, William Dee Calhoun grew up on a farm i ...
who regularly weighed over himself. Humphrey's most notable match was a sold-out main event against Calhoun at Madison Square Garden, promoted by Vince McMahon Sr.
Humphrey's promoters had a 1951 Pontiac Pontiac may refer to:
*Pontiac (automobile), a car brand
*Pontiac (Ottawa leader) ( – 1769), a Native American war chief
Places and jurisdictions Canada
*Pontiac, Quebec, a municipality
** Apostolic Vicariate of Pontiac, now the Roman Catholic D ...
heavily modified to carry the wrestler around: seats were removed and extra shocks were installed to support Humphrey's enormous weight (and also as a gimmick). In addition, he was usually weighed before matches on meat scales at rendering facilities.
In 1960, Humphrey met future multiple NWA World Champion
The NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship is a world heavyweight professional wrestling championship owned and promoted by the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), an American professional wrestling promotion. The current champion is Tyrus, who is in ...
Harley Race, who was only 17 at the time. Race, who was just beginning his own career, was hired as Humphrey's driver and he also wrestled Humphrey on multiple occasions. Race earned $5 per day, plus room and board, for driving Humphrey, and $25 for each match he wrestled with Humphrey. According to Race, Humphrey was so large that normal showers could not accommodate him. As a result, Humphrey was obliged to lie naked on the ground while Race would apply liquid soap to his body, scrub him with a mop and then rinse him off with a garden hose. Race also stated that Humphrey, who taught Race how to take bumps
A bumps race is a form of rowing race in which a number of boats chase each other in single file, each crew attempting to catch and ‘bump’ the boat in front without being caught by the boat behind.
The form is mainly used in intercollegia ...
properly, was a very kind person and one of the few wrestlers of his era who took the time to sign an autograph for everyone and to socialize with fans.
Outside wrestling
Humphrey had difficulty fitting in with regular society due to his great size. People stared at him on the street, and he was often refused service at restaurants. In one incident in Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = "Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County
, LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham
, area_total_km2 = 135,765 ...
, he became stuck in a telephone booth
A telephone booth, telephone kiosk, telephone call box, telephone box or public call box is a tiny structure furnished with a payphone and designed for a telephone user's convenience; usually the user steps into the booth and closes the booth ...
and eight police officers were required to extract him. In another incident (this time in ), Humphrey attended a movie and became stuck in the theater seat. Welders had to cut the seats around him in order to get him out. Towards the end of his regular career, he recognized his problem and had an operation to remove of fat from his body; however, he gained the weight back soon afterwards.
Doctor-regulated lifestyle
In 1962, Humphrey was forced into early retirement
Retirement is the withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from one's active working life. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours or workload.
Many people choose to retire when they are elderly or incapable of doing their j ...
due to a heart condition. After retiring, his weight ballooned to over . At this weight he would tire after about 10 steps and have to sit down (in two chairs). Humphrey attempted to control his eating habits (which sometimes included eating up to 15 whole chickens in one sitting), but after consulting with doctors, he decided to volunteer for obesity research and checked himself into the Medical College of Georgia
The Medical College of Georgia (often referred to as MCG) is the flagship medical school of the University System of Georgia, the state's only public medical school, and one of the top 10 largest medical schools in the United States. Established ...
's Clinical Investigation Unit in Augusta. Upon entering the clinic, he weighed .
For two years, Humphrey followed a strict doctor-controlled diet regimen. He was not allowed to exercise (in order to avoid fluid loss via sweat
Perspiration, also known as sweating, is the production of fluids secreted by the sweat glands in the skin of mammals.
Two types of sweat glands can be found in humans: eccrine glands and apocrine glands. The eccrine sweat glands are distrib ...
) and was confined to the air-conditioned clinic itself. The regimen included strictly measured amounts of food and water, with about 1,000 calories
The calorie is a unit of energy. For historical reasons, two main definitions of "calorie" are in wide use. The large calorie, food calorie, or kilogram calorie was originally defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of o ...
total per day and a rotation in 56-day cycles. The first cycle consisted of high-protein
Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, res ...
foods, including eggs
Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ...
, skim milk
Skimmed milk (British English), or skim milk (American English), is made when all the milkfat is removed from whole milk. It tends to contain around 0.1% fat.
Background
Historically, skimmed milk was used for fattening pigs, and was recommended ...
, ground beef
Ground beef, minced beef or beef mince is beef that has been finely chopped with a knife, meat grinder (American English), mincer or mincing machine (British English). It is used in many recipes including hamburgers, bolognese sauce, meatloaf, ...
, margarine with toast, tomato soup, ketchup, green peas, and applesauce. The next cycle was high-carbohydrate, including toast, corn, lima beans, shortbread, peach
The peach (''Prunus persica'') is a deciduous tree first domesticated and cultivated in Zhejiang province of Eastern China. It bears edible juicy fruits with various characteristics, most called peaches and others (the glossy-skinned, non-f ...
es, applesauce, pineapple, puffed rice
Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...
, skim milk, grape juice, orange juice, and small amounts of sugar. The third cycle was a high-fat diet: salt-free mayonnaise and butter, tomato
The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...
es, eggs, whipped cream, and cream cheese.
Massive weight loss and obesity study
In the spring of 1965, Humphrey left the clinic where he had lived the previous two years. He weighed a comparatively healthy , a total loss of since he was admitted. Humphrey won a place in the '' Guinness Book of World Records'' as "champion slimmer" for this weight loss.
According to the two-year study headed up by Unit Director Dr. Wayne Greenberg, Humphrey's weight loss on each of the three diets was approximately the same; however, the nature of the actual body matter lost during each differed significantly. The vast majority of the weight lost on the high-protein diet
A high-protein diet is a diet in which 20% or more of the total daily calories comes from protein.Longe, Jacqueline L. (2008). ''High-protein diet''. In ''The Gale Encyclopedia of Diets: A Guide to Health and Nutrition''. Gale. pp. 524-526. Most ...
was body fat
Adipose tissue, body fat, or simply fat is a loose connective tissue composed mostly of adipocytes. In addition to adipocytes, adipose tissue contains the stromal vascular fraction (SVF) of cells including preadipocytes, fibroblasts, vascular e ...
and Humphrey's hunger was satisfied for longer periods between meals as well. On the high-fat regimen, about two-thirds of the weight lost was body fat with the rest being water, with an undesirable side effect of high blood cholesterol
Cholesterol is any of a class of certain organic molecules called lipids. It is a sterol (or modified steroid), a type of lipid. Cholesterol is biosynthesized by all animal cells and is an essential structural component of animal cell mem ...
. On the carbohydrate
In organic chemistry, a carbohydrate () is a biomolecule consisting of carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) atoms, usually with a hydrogen–oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 (as in water) and thus with the empirical formula (where ''m'' may or m ...
-based diet, half of the weight lost consisted of body fat and the other half was water and muscle tissue. Greenberg noted at the end of the study that dieters who only use a scale as a means of determining weight loss cannot tell how much of what they lose is body fat and how much is water and muscle tissue.
Life after the study
After leaving the clinic, Humphrey got a job at an Augusta, Georgia shoe-repair shop and never returned to the ring. He stated that he missed the sport and mixing it up with other wrestlers but was looking forward to a new life as a normal-sized individual.
In 1975, Humphrey appeared in the film ''Moonrunners
''Moonrunners'' is a 1975 action comedy film starring James Mitchum, about a Southern family who runs bootleg liquor. It was reworked four years later into the popular long-running television series ''The Dukes of Hazzard'', and the two product ...
'' as "Tiny the Syndicate Man". The TV show ''The Dukes of Hazzard
''The Dukes of Hazzard'' is an American action comedy TV series that was aired on CBS from January 26, 1979 to February 8, 1985. The show aired for 147 episodes spanning seven seasons. It was consistently among the top-rated television serie ...
'' was based on this film.[Happy Humphrey](_blank)
In later years, Humphrey regained much of his weight, and died of a heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...
on March 14, 1989. At the time of his death, he weighed over . He was buried at Southlawn Cemetery, Aiken County, South Carolina
Aiken County is a county in the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 Census, its population was 168,808. Its county seat and largest city is Aiken. Aiken County is a part of the Augusta- Richmond County, GA-SC Metropolitan Statistic ...
.
See also
* Man Mountain Mike and The McGuire Twins
Billy Leon McCrary (December 7, 1946 – July 14, 1979) and Benny Loyd McCrary (December 7, 1946 – March 26, 2001), known together as The McGuire Twins, were American professional wrestling, professional wrestlers listed in the ''Guinne ...
, who, along with Calhoun, wrestled under similar superheavyweight gimmicks as Cobb in the years following his retirement
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Humphrey, Happy
1926 births
1989 deaths
20th-century American male actors
Male actors from Augusta, Georgia
American male professional wrestlers
American male film actors
Male actors from Georgia (U.S. state)
People from Bibb County, Georgia
Professional wrestlers from Georgia (U.S. state)
Sportspeople from Augusta, Georgia
20th-century professional wrestlers