Stan Hansen

John Stanley "Stan" Hansen (born October 12, 1949 in Knox City, Texas) is a retired American professional wrestler. Hansen, who spent much of his career wrestling in Japan, currently works for All Japan Pro Wrestling. He is perhaps best known for his "cowboy" gimmick - complete with cowboy hat and chewing tobacco - and his stiffness.

Career
Stan Hansen started wrestling in 1973 in his hometown promotion at Amarillo, Texas. He had initially taken up wrestling as a part-time job while trying for the Detroit Wheels, but with their folding, he began wrestling full-time.

He wrestled in the World Wide Wrestling Federation in the late 1970s, and achieved his first amount of infamy there by breaking Bruno Sammartino's neck. It was from this incident that Hansen - and promoters who booked him - claimed enormous power for his Lariat move, although what had caused Bruno's broken neck was actually a botched bodyslam.

In the mid to late 1970s, Hansen wrestled in Georgia Championship Wrestling where he teamed with Tommy Rich and Ole Anderson. He also made forays into New Japan Pro Wrestling, where he feuded with its top star, Antonio Inoki. In 1981, however, Hansen abruptly jumped to All Japan Pro Wrestling, which remained his foreign affiliation until his retirement. Hansen is the only man to pin Inoki and Giant Baba in singles matches for titles.

He wrestled in the American Wrestling Association in 1985 and 1986 and won their World Title. He no-showed a title defense on June 29, 1986 forcing the AWA to default the title to his opponent, Nick Bockwinkel. Hansen was in the building that night and had been informed by AWA promoter Verne Gagne that night of the pending loss to Bockwinkel. Rumors say Hansen called All Japan Pro Wrestling president Giant Baba to ask if this was acceptable. Baba had already lined up challengers for Hansen and thus said no. Hansen was given the option of dropping the title to Bockwinkel or being stripped, Hansen chose the latter. Hansen returned to Japan and defended the AWA title there. Due to the fact Hansen had the physical title belt a new one had to be made. To compensate, Bockwinkel was given one of the tag team titles the night the title was stripped. The AWA threatened legal action if Hansen continued to carry the title and refer to himself as the organiztion's champion, so Hansen ended up mailing the belt back after running it over with his truck and with the mud tracks still on it.

He wrestled most of his latter career in All Japan, where he formed teams with Bruiser Brody, Terry Gordy, Ted DiBiase and Genichiro Tenryu.

In 1990, Hansen wrestled in World Championship Wrestling and feuded with Lex Luger over the United States Title while it was still under the banner of the NWA. He would leave the organization in for All Japan Pro Wrestling in 1991 after a disagreement of trying to group him with The Desperados, a threesome of bumbling cowboys looking for Hansen through a series of vignettes. When Hansen left, the threesome were made into jobbers. From there Hansen continued to trade the Triple Crown with Mitsuharu Misawa and others. When Giant Baba died, Misawa became the new booker, and began de-emphasizing Hansen and other foreign talent to favor new native recruits such as Takao Omori and Yoshihiro Takayama. Nevertheless, when in 2000 Misawa and most of the natives left to form Pro Wrestling NOAH, Hansen remained an integral wrestler in the beginning stages of the rebuilding process.

Nevertheless, it was too late; Hansen was already suffering from nagging lumbago that cut his career short. Hansen's last match was in 2000, during a tournament for the vacant Triple Crown, a semifinal match against the returning Tenryu. He officially retired later in the year and in 2001 he became President (Commissioner) of All Japan's Pacific Wrestling Federation title governing body. He often appears during Triple Crown and Double Cup matches (in civilian clothes) to issue "proclamations" of the matches.

In wrestling

 * Finishing and signature moves
 * Western Lariat (Lariat)
 * Brazos Valley Backbreaker (Boston crab)
 * Elbow drop


 * Managers
 * Freddie Blassie
 * Buck Robley
 * Larry Sharpe


 * Nicknames
 * The Lariat
 * The Man
 * The Bad Man From Borger

Championships and accomplishments

 * All Japan Pro Wrestling
 * 1-Time AJPW International Tag Team Champion (with Ron Bass)
 * 4-Time AJPW Triple Crown World Heavyweight Champion
 * 9-Time AJPW Unified Tag Team Champion (with Gary Albright once, Dan Spivey once, Terry Gordy 3 times, Genichiro Tenryu 3 times and Ted DiBiase once)
 * 1-Time AJPW United National Champion
 * 1-Time NWA International Heavyweight Champion
 * 3-Time PWF Heavyweight Champion
 * 4-Time PWF Tag Team Champion (with Ted DiBiase twice, Bruiser Brody once and Austin Idol once)


 * American Wrestling Association
 * 1-Time AWA World Heavyweight Champion


 * Georgia Championship Wrestling
 * 2-Time NWA Georgia Heavyweight Champion
 * 3-Time NWA Georgia Tag Team Champion (with Tommy Rich twice and Ole Anderson once)


 * Mid-South Wrestling
 * 1-Time Mid-Southern International Champion


 * National Wrestling Alliance
 * 1-Time NWA Tri-State North American Champion
 * 1-Time NWA United States Heavyweight Champion
 * 1-Time NWA World Tag Team Champion (with Ole Anderson)


 * NWF
 * 1-Time NWF Heavyweight Champion


 * Pro Wrestling Illustrated
 * PWI ranked him # 16 of the 500 best singles wrestlers of the PWI Years in 2003.
 * PWI ranked him # 7 with Bruiser Brody, # 24 with Ted DiBiase, # 34 with Terry Gordy and # 66 with Ole Anderson of the 100 best tag teams of the PWI Years.
 * PWI Most Hated Wrestler Award (1976)
 * PWI Match of the Year (1976; versus Bruno Sammartino)


 * World Class Championship Wrestling
 * 1-Time WCCW Texas Tag Team Champion (with Killer Tim Brooks)


 * Wrestling Observer Newsletter
 * He is a member of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (inducted in 1996)
 * 1982 Tag Team of the Year (with Ole Anderson)
 * 1985 Best Brawler
 * 1990 Best Brawler

Trivia

 * Hansen appeared in the 1989 movie No Holds Barred that starred Hulk Hogan. At the time there had been a rumor that Hansen would join the WWF, but as that would imply having to vacate the PWF and United National titles (and interrupt the Triple Crown unification process) and permanently burning bridges with AJPW promoter Giant Baba, nothing came out of it.
 * Hansen formed a tag team with Riki Chōshū called "The Lariat Combo" due to them both using a lariat clothesline as a finisher.
 * Hansen has a nephew who wrestles named Silas Young.
 * Hansen is one of the most famous users of the lariat in Japan. The lariat is a very respected finisher in Japanese Puroresu, largely due to Hansen.
 * Hansen first teamed with Bruiser Brody (then wrestling under his real name, Frank Goodish) in 1975 in Leroy McGuirk's Tri-State territory.
 * Japanese wrestling commentators would often yell "LARIATO!" when Stan Hansen performed his finisher. They often do the same for other wrestlers who perform the Lariat.
 * His legendary in-ring stiffness met its greatest victim in Big Van Vader in All-Japan Pro Wrestling. Hansen punched Vader in the head, which caused his eye, unsevered, to pop out of his head. Vader pushed his eye back in the socket and continued the match.