Martin Burns

ABOUT MARTIN BURNS

World champion wrestler who toured around the country performing in stage shows, carnivals and fairs, in the days before organized wrestling.

He took on men outweighing him sometimes by as much as 100 pounds, and defeated them with his variety of submission holds.

He formed his own wrestling school, developing what came to be called the Farmer' Burns Workout, and continued to show off his prodigious strength in sometimes death-defying stunts.

He was born in Cedar County, Iowa, and grew up amidst the Civil War, learning wrestling from fellow soldiers.

Ralph Paracaut became another popular wrestler in the early 1900s.