by Mark Long
Luther Lindsay is the ultimate example of what could have, and probably should have been. He was an outstanding athlete who used his immense talent to be an established grappler considered the finest African-American wrestler of his generation and has finally been recognized as one of the best of all time.
Luther Jacob Goodall was born on December 30, 1924 near Norfolk, Virginia, with two brothers and a sister. His father died when Luther was five years old and he was raised by his mother and stepfather, a local minister. After growing up in Gibsonville, North Carolina, he returned to the Norfolk area to attend Norfolk State University, a historically Black university where he was a standout player in football, standing 5’ 9” and weighing 235 lbs. He later transferred to Hampton Institute, another HBCU school where he continued his football career and also competed in wrestling, named Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association champion. On the football field, he was touted as a Negro All-American, playing tackle and guard for the Pirates. At the time, however, he was unable to gain national recognition because segregation laws throughout the south prevented him from competing against white athletes. After college, unable to play in the segregated National Football League, he moved to Canada to play football professionally for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League for two years.
Goodall’s first recorded professional match was against Al Tucker in Chicago, Illinois on November 21, 1951. He wrestled under the name Luther Lindsay at the suggestion of Ohio promoter Al Haft (Lindsay being the maiden name of Luther’s wife Gertrude, whom he had met in college in 1949). Within two years, he had moved to the state of Washington where he began competing against the top wrestlers in the region. As one of the few Black wrestlers in the business, he was often billed as the U.S. Colored or Negro Heavyweight Champion, wrestling against other Black performers such as Woody Strode, Jack Claybourne, Dory Dixon, Sailor Art Thomas and Bearcat Wright (due to segregation in much of the south, Blacks were only allowed to wrestle against one another). While this was for the most part simply a titular designation rather than a competitive one, it did help in terms of recognition throughout the country. Thus, when the National Wrestling Alliance world champion Lou Thesz came to Tacoma, Washington in July 1953, he met Lindsay for a world title match. Lindsay was only the second Black wrestler to challenge for the most coveted title in the world (the first being Seelie Samara in 1950). The match resulted in a time limit draw and Luther’s performance impressed the world champion immensely, with Thesz later suggesting that Lindsay was one of the top 25 professional wrestlers of all time.
“(Luther was) without question, the best black wrestler ever. Luther had a fantastic body and limitless energy to compliment his skill. Like many other industries, wrestling was not open to African-American wrestlers during his career, so it was an amazing accomplishment for Luther to even learn his craft. His place in history is not because he was black; it is in spite of the fact he was black… Stu Hart was not alone in his admiration of Luther. We should never forget the hardship on him in just travelling during the times of segregation and extreme discrimination. He was truly isolated from the rest of the boys. He was a hell of a talent and a hell of a man.” -Lou Thesz
In 1960 he decided to move north to work for his friend Stu Hart’s Calgary Stampede Wrestling promotion. He captured a win over Don Leo Jonathan and then teamed with Oattem Fisher to win the Stampede International Tag Team Championship. While in Canada he would match up unsuccessfully four times in April and May of 1960 against NWA Champion Pat O’Connor.
After returning briefly to Capitol Wrestling, he moved back to Portland in 1961 and won the NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Championship from “Iron” Mike DiBiase on May 26. He would find his best years in the Portland territory, also winning the NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team title, once with Bing Ki Lee on June 10, 1961 and once with Herb Freeman on August 10, 1961. After losing his Heavyweight title to Nicholai Volkoff, he traveled to the United Kingdom, winning a match against Mike Marino at the Royal Albert Hall on November 15.
He left for a quick tour of Japan in 1962 and teamed with Ricky Waldo to defeat the great Rikidōzan and Toyonobori for the All Japan Pro Wrestling’s All Asia Tag Team Championship on February 3, 1962. This was a great milestone in being able to capture a belt from the Japanese legend and after dropping the belts, he moved back to the Pacific Northwest where he received an NWA World Heavyweight title match against the “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers on June 18, 1962 in Seattle Washington. Rogers was too much for him though, and Luther once again came up short in his quest for professional wrestling’s greatest title. His return to Portland was a positive one, though, as he teamed with his former rival Shag Thomas to grab the NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team belts from Kurt Von Poppenheim & Fritz Von Goering on July 21, 1963. He would then go one on one against Goering and defeated him to win the NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight title on August 24. His collaboration with Thomas would prove quite fruitful as they would hold the NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team on four separate occasions. Later in the year he teamed with Danny Hodge and the two found initial success but Lindsay was severely injured in an automobile accident and was out for the rest of the year. Over the next few years, he traveled to Hawaii where he captured the NWA Hawaii United States Heavyweight Championship belt twice and continued to dominate in tag team action, collecting title belts with Shag Thomas, Pepper Martin and Bearcat Wright. On January 27, 1965, Luther became the first Black wrestler to battle a white wrestler in the deep south when he met Ron Wright in Kingsport, Tennessee (although he had previously wrestled Thesz in Texas in 1955). The National Guard was brought out in fear of rioting but Luther was overwhelmingly the crowd’s favorite, thus opening the box office for Black wrestlers to perform in Dixie.
“He was a real tough wrestler… He was a great athlete. He was a good football player, he was a good wrestler. I can’t say enough about how good Luther was in the ring, and how he conducted himself as an individual.” – Dick Beyer (The Destroyer)
At the tail end of his career, Luther’s body began to deteriorate and his health began to fail. He suffered from high blood pressure and would often suffer nosebleeds during matches. On February 21, 1972, Lindsay was facing Bobby Paul at Park Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. At the end of the match, Lindsay hit his opponent with a diving belly-flop. After securing the pinfall, Luther didn’t move off of his opponent, and when the referee checked on him, he failed to respond. He was moved to the dressing room where he was pronounced dead, the victim of a heart attack.
Luther Lindsey was the finest gentleman I ever met in my life, period, end of story—of ANY color, or description. – Les Thatcher