Robert Friedrich, who claimed Nekoosa as his boyhood home, devoted his life to wrestling. Born in 1890, he began his wrestling career at sixteen when he challenged a local rival to raise funds for his baseball team. While Assistant Athletic Director at Kentucky University, he studied anatomy and learned which nerve centers he might apply pressure to in order to gain an advantage over opponents, bringing to wrestling a scientific study it had never before known. Adopting the name Strangler Lewis, he became the only man recognized on five different occasions as heavyweight champion of the world. For twenty years he challenged and defeated all contenders, and in 1920 his famed headlock overcame Joe Stecher’s famed scissors hold to capture the crown. He later retired to a life of youth work, devoting his time to underprivileged boys, and as a member of the Athletic Hall of Fame his name stands in the record books alongside Hackenschmidt, Londos, Stecher, and Caddock.