Crusher Verdu


Title History

 

  • NWA (Los Angeles) Americas Tag Team titles w/Frank Monte defeating Chavo Guerrero Sr. & Butcher Vachon (????, 1976);
  • NWA (Los Angeles) Americas Tag Team titles w/Roddy Piper defeating Chavo & Gory Guerrero (February 28, 1976);
  • NWA (Los Angeles) Americas Heavyweight title defeating Chavo Guerrero Sr. (June 11, 1976);

 

Career Highlights

 


  • Benjamin Edward Drew wrote (2010): I’ve been in contact with one of Crusher Verdu’s daughters. She told me that he moved to Germany in 1982, and that he died “six or eight” years ago. She also didn’t know anything about his name being “Ricardo Ferrara,” that she had only known “Oscar Verdu,” but she did confirm that he was born in Barcelona. She did not indicate whether or not the death certificate indicated a cause of death, only that neither she, nor his sister still living in Spain at the time, were ever able to find out why.

 


Brent Campbell wrote (2012): In 1970, Crusher had a decent main event run in the WWWF against Bruno Sammartino. He even won his first MSG match withBruno, due to a blood stoppage. In fact, one of their first matches was one of thefirst legit wrestling sell-outs in Madison Square Garden for nearly 5years. (Part of this was due to WWWF finally obtaining a time slot for their weekly TV show in the NYC market).

From Wikipedia’s Lou Albano page: Albano’s first high-profile protege was Oscar “Crusher” Verdu. Albanoemphasized Verdu’s physique and insisted that he had never been taken off his feet during a match. The result was a Madison Square Garden sellout when Verdufaced Sammartino in June 1970, the first for the company in five years and athen-record gate for a wrestling event in that arena. The record lasted only a month, when a rematch brought in over $85,000in ticket receipts.

Updated: October 26, 2023 @ 12:08 pm

Trained By

Debut

Birthday

Hometown

Born in Barcelona
Lived in Columbus, Ohio
Retired to Germany (1982)

Gender

Male

Height

Weight

Finishing Move(s)

Favorite Move(s)

Notable Feuds

Joe McClarity
Chief Big Heart
Johnny Powers
Johnny Demchuck
Happy Humphrey
Pretty Boy Floyd
Ruffy Silverstein
Billy Darnell

Status

Living