From the archives: Chris Taylor, Iowa State's larger-than-life wrestling star

Editor's note: This story by Register sports reporter Buck Turnbull is part of our Des Moines Sunday Register's Iowa Sports Hall of Fame database, where we our Hall of Fame members, from Heisman winners Jay Berwanger and Nile Kinnick to six-on-six girls' basketball stars Lynne Lorenzen and Jan Jensen.

A gentle giant. That's what they called Chris Taylor when he wrestled at Iowa State, and it is a most fitting epitaph.

Seldom will two words sum up a man any better than that. One tells you about his character, the type of friendly person he was, and the other describes his enormous physical size.

It seems safe to say that the state of Iowa will never see the likes of this mammoth man again — at least not in collegiate wrestling, which now limits the weight of its heaviest competitors to no more than 275 pounds.

Taylor passed that figure early in his high school years at Dowagiac, Mich.

By the time he enrolled at Iowa State in 1971 to become a two-time national champion, he weighed 415 pounds.

Depending on the time of day, before or after practice, before dinner or after a few beers, his weight fluctuated between 410 and 450 pounds.

"I think he might have been the greatest athlete for his size who ever lived," said his former Cyclone coach, Harold Nichols.

Taylor never lost a match in two seasons at Iowa State, pinning almost everyone he faced while winning two Big Eight Conference championships and two NCAA finals without surrendering a point.

Taylor died at the age of 29 in 1979. He was posthumously inducted into The Des Moines Sunday Register's Iowa Sports Hall of Fame in 1993, the 136th inductee.

Although by nature he was not one to seek attention or controversy, his physique made him both a curiosity for the fans and often an object of scorn by teams and opponents who couldn't beat him.

To many, Taylor won simply because he was so huge. Few were willing to give him credit for also being a good athlete.

It is noteworthy that the National Wrestling Hall of Fame has yet to honor him with a place alongside the other greats of yesteryear.

In what was the biggest disappointment of his career, Taylor lost a 1972 Olympic match to eight-time world champion Aleksandr Medved of the Soviet Union, 3-2, on a controversial stalling call.

The referee later said he felt Chris had an unfair size advantage, so he wanted to even things for Medved. It was faulty reasoning, and the referee was not allowed to work any other matches, but the damage had been done.

Medved went on to win the gold medal and Taylor had to settle for the third-place bronze.

"That was a tremendous disappointment for Chris," recalled his widow, Lynne Taylor Lawrence. "He thought the referee was very biased.

"They changed a lot of things after that Olympics, including the way they did the draw. Chris and Medved were in the same bracket and met in the first match.

"Chris was more disappointed about the draw than anything else. He felt he should have at least gotten the silver medal."

Taylor was a 380-pound football center and defensive tackle in high school, but early success in wrestling made him concentrate on that sport. He won 58 of 60 matches and two state titles at Dowagiac.

His career almost came to a sudden end when he broke the neck of an opponent while wrestling one season at Muskegon (Michigan) Junior College. Chris decided he should quit the sport.

"The only thing that kept me going was the parents of the paralyzed wrestler," he said later at Iowa State. "They told me it wasn't my fault.

"If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be at Iowa State. I'd be one of the local boys around home working in the factory."

Taylor went 41-0 in dual meets and won the national junior-college heavyweight title at Muskegen and then rolled to an 87-0-1 record at Iowa State. He pinned 42 of 48 opponents as a senior, setting a Cyclone record.

"I'd go around before a meet and ask the guys if they were warmed up," Nichols recalled. "When I got to Chris, he'd wiggle his fingers and say, 'Yeah, I'm warmed up.'

"That's about all he'd do. He never warmed up. He didn't have to."

After he became a well-traveled pro wrestler, Taylor looked back on his college years with fond memories.

"I had a good time at Iowa State," he said. "Sometimes I wish I had worked harder. Then I realize if I had worked harder, I wouldn't have had all that fun.

"So, if I had to do it all over again, I'd go the same route.

"Because my liver is scarred, I've had to quit drinking, but it doesn't bother me. I know in my day I've downed more beers than most people have in a lifetime.

"I wasn't a goof-off, though. I put out 110 percent. But it came easy for me. I always had a lot of athletic ability — and being over 400 pounds sure as heck didn't hurt."

He credited roller skating as a youngster with helping him gain his amazing agility.

"Chris was an incredible dancer — like a feather on his toes," said his best friend growing up, Chuck Burling, now a dentist in Dowagiac.

"He was always twice the size of everybody else. But he wasn't really what you'd call a big eater."

Taylor found diets to be a hopeless cause, and one time when a doctor told him he should trim down to 180 pounds, Chris said: "I just laughed at him."

Health problems overtook Taylor while he was a pro wrestler — first blood poisoning and then bouts with phlebitis and hepatitis.

"A lot of people wanted to attribute his dath to drinking," Burling said. "But I'll tell you what I think had more to do with it than anything.

"He was in a 12-man pro match in Minneapolis one night — what they called a battle royal. The last guy left standing was the winner.

"To start with, the 11 other guys attacked Chris so they could get him out of the way. In the melee, he came down hard on one of the corner posts, and he hit right on his liver."

After Taylor retired from pro wrestling, he died in 1979 while taking a nap at his home in Story City. He and Lynne had a daughter, Jennifer, who was 3 at that time.