So you jocks think your strong.....

[RedEarth]

You think benching 500 lbs is something to cheer about, a squat of 400-500 is an accomplishment.....well, how about crushing an apple or bending a pair of pilers with your bare hands, or ripping a phone book in half. Try that on for size....Danny Hodge could do it, can you? Even today at 70 years old, he can still turn apples to applesauce.

below are some links about this man who some consider to be the best amateur wrestler ever.......





http://www.kayfabememories.com/Stories/tomhankins/th39-2.htm

I was really looking forward to seeing and talking to Danny Hodge again too. Danny is the greatest amateur wrestler in the history of the sport and his work as a professional was flawless as well. Hodge has got to be one of the nicest guys I've ever met in the business. When we got together last year and reminisced about the good old days in Sam Muchnick's St Louis promotion it was the first time I'd talked with him in 29 years.

Danny was always known for his tremendous strength in his hands. He could crush apples into instant applesauce. He could bend pliers and rip massive phone books in half with little effort. He told me his secret was, that in addition to working on his hand strength with rigorous exercises daily, he had double tendons in his hands. I know from first hand experience that you feel the trememdous power in his hands when he clamps you in a headlock. He wouldn't squeeze hard but his hands locked together were like welded steel and you knew that he could crush your head in a snap, but luckily he was such a nice guy that he would never do anything like that. Danny's 69 now and he's rock hard and just as powerful as ever.


http://www.canoe.ca/SlamWrestlingBiosH/hodge_danny.html


As a nineteen-year-old straight out of high school, Hodge was at the time the youngest wrestler ever to represent the U.S., placing fifth at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki in the freestyle competition.

From high school, Hodge found a spot on the wrestling squad at the University of Oklahoma where he went onto to win three NCAA national titles. It was in university that the Hodge toughness first emerged. Ineligible to compete his freshman year, Hodge went undefeated his remaining three years at Oklahoma, winning 46 matches. Amazingly, he was never ever taken down to the mat from standing position.

In 1956, he represented the U.S. in the Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, winning the silver medal in the freestyle competition after losing a controversial match to Nikola Stanchev of Bulgaria in the gold medal match. Even the loss couldn't dim Hodge's rising star as he graced the cover of the April 1st, 1957 issue of Sports Illustrated.




http://www.rockymountainnationals.com/celeb_hodge.html

Danny Hodge's career covered 30 years of wrestling championships - from Junior High to World's Professional Champion. One of the strongest wrestlers ever to step on a mat, the stories of Danny Hodge's strength sound like fiction. Walking into a hardware store and bending pliers with his grip. His laurels would cover several pages, but the following lists the highlights of an outstanding career.

In the collegiate style of wrestling, he had no peer, indeed no challenger. He won every one of his 46 bouts for the University of Oklahoma, 36 of them by fall, an astonishing 78 per cent. During his junior and senior years, he pinned 22 consecutive opponents. And no collegiate foe ever took him to the mat from the standing position.

Three times a National Collegiate champion at 177 pounds, he twice was voted the outstanding wrestler of the NCAA tournament.

In one 10-day span in 1956, his junior year, Hodge won the NCAA title and National AAU championships in both Greco-Roman and freestyle, winning every bout in those three tournaments by fall.

Twice he was an Olympic wrestler, placing fifth in 1952 at Helsinki before his college career started, and winning the silver medal in the 1956 Games at Melbourne. There, in the championship bout, he led his Bulgarian opponent by a wide margin when a controversial rolling fall was called against him.

Over five years starting in 1952, his only three defeats in any style of wrestling were administered by three Olympic champions, a Russian, an American and a Bulgarian.

After his collegiate wrestling career, Dan Hodge won national Golden Gloves and National AAU championships in boxing, becoming the first athlete in more than 50 years to win national titles in both sports.

For his legendary achievements as a wrestler, Dan Allen Hodge is honored as a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

[Jack_Dawson]

1. Dude's pretty cut n/t