Title History
- NYSAC (New York) World Heavyweight title defeating Dick Shikat (June 6, 1930);
- NWA (National Wrestling Association) World Heavyweight title defeating Dick Shikat (June 6, 1930);
- NYSAC (New York) World Heavyweight title defeating Jim Browning (June 25, 1934);
- (Maryland) World Heavyweight title defeating Bronko Nagurski (October 4, 1937);
- (Los Angeles) World Heavyweight title defeating Bronko Nagurski (November 18, 1938);
- (Maryland) World Heavyweight title Awarded (February 26, 1939);
Career Highlights
- Theophelus — which Londos would explain meant “Friend of God.”
- Jim Londos’s mother wanted him to be a priest and whose father wanted him to be a soldier..
- Jim Londos ran away from home at the age of 13..
- Jim Londos headed for America and served as a grocer-store errant boy, an electrician and the catcher in an acrobatic act..
- Jim Londos got his name from Roscoe Fawcett (a sports editor) after a match in dense “London” fog in Portland..
- Jim Londos vs Ray Steele drew at least 40,000 to Yankee Stadium or the Polo Grounds..
- Jim Londos engaged in more than 2,500 matches, losing only a handful between 1930 and 1946..
- June 6, 1930: Jim Londos defeated Dick Shikat for the NWA Heavyweight Wrestling title & the NY World Heavyweighg title..
- November 19, 1931 – Toronto: Jim Londos wrestled George Zaharias in front of a sell out Maple Leaf Gardens crowd..
- Jim Londos was a World Heavyweight champion for almost 16 years — mostly in the post-Depression era..
- Jim Londos, during World War I, toured the Pacific Coast as “Chris Theophelus, the Wrestling Plasterer.”
- ~~~Jim Londos would crawl through the ropes in working clothes, his shoes daubed with property plaster..
- 1946: Jim Londos retired from wrestling..
- Jim Londos donated large sums of money to Greek war orphans in World War II..
- ~~~1970: President Nixon cited him for his benefit work..
- ~~~1970: King Paul bestowed on him the Golden Cross Order of Greece..
- August 19, 1975: Jim Londos died of a heart attack at Palomar Memorial Hospital in Escondido, California..
Dale Pierce wrote: Jim Londos wrestled the first main event at the Phoenix Madison Phoenix Garden when the building was built in September of 1929. The building wa soficially opened a few days before the wretsling bout ,with a boxing card and over 50 cars had their tires slashed (possibly a rival promoter trying to keep fans from going to the shows as wrestling and boxing was being held in another arena at the time).
A few weeks later, Londos and Dick Davencourt caused a riot in the main event that resulted in several fans being arrested. Both wrestlers were suspended by the state athletic commission. Londos simply let a front man run the Garden shows where he was involved with the officew and wrestled on the Indian reservations outside the Phoenix city limits, where the commission held no juristiction, until a settlement against the suspension was made..
Jim Londos was once Worshipful Master (roughly akin to a Grand Pubah so to speak) of the Matincock Masonic Lodge in Oyster Bay, New York, the same lodge once attended regularly by Teddy Roosevelt.