Killer Kowalski, the founder and owner of Killer Kowalski’s Professional Wrestling School, was born on October 13, 1926 in Windsor, Ontario, the son of Polish immigrants. For a time, he worked in an auto plant with his father before getting the call to go into professional wrestling.

Kowalski began wrestling professionally in 1947 and continued to wrestle for 26 years in over 6,000 bouts. In August of 1950, he won the NWA Texas Title. He held several titles in the 1950’s in the Pacific Coast League, NWA and AWA. In January of 1953, Kowalski was involved in the first professional wrestling match to be televised in Canada. He was matched against Yukon Eric in the Montreal Forum. In 1954, also at the Montreal Forum, Kowalski knee dropped Yukon Eric, severing a piece of his ear in the process. As the story goes, he was now a heel.

Indeed, many of the high points of Kowalski's career involved spontaneous and often gory altercations which combined to make him the most hated man in his era of wrestling: breaking the leg of "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers, the first man to hold both the NWA and WWF championships; powerslamming Dr. Bill Miller from the ring to the arena floor. Kowalski's unapologetic stance outside of the ring and his brutality within it are the hallmarks of a lauded career that continues to fascinate each new generation of wrestling fan.

In 1963, he held one-half of the WWWF (the precursor to the WWF) US Tag Team Titles. In the 1960’s, he wrestled in Australia and held several titles. In the 1970’s, he teamed up with John Studd as The Executioners and won the WWWF Tag Team Title. In 1976, they lost the Tag Team Titles to Chief Jay Strongbow and Billy White Wolf.

Kowalski faced all of the top names over the years including Whipper Billy Watson and Gorgeous George. He made headlines in the mainstream press when he applied his dreaded claw hold on talk show host Don Lane. Lane was goading Killer about wrestling being fake so Kowalski took matters into his own hands - literally. The question of wrestling legitimacy never came up after that.

Kowalski is regarded as one of the greatest all around wrestlers in the history of the sport. His achievements in the squared circle have been compared to those of baseballs' Ted Williams and hockey's Bobby Orr. In 1977, he retired and opened Killer Kowalski’s Professional Wrestling School. Some of his most famous proteges include Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Chyna, Perry Saturn and A-Train as well as many local independent wrestling stars.

Walter passed away on August 30, 2008.