Yusuf İsmail
Turkish professional wrestler
Yusuf İsmail (1857 – July 4, 1898), also known as Youssouf Ishmaelo, was a Turkish professional wrestler who competed in Europe and the United States as Yusuf Ismail the Terrible Turk during the 1890s. During his lifetime, native Turks knew him as Şumnulu Yusuf Pehlivan. However, writer Rıza Tevfik posthumously awarded him the honorific Koca ("Great"), and thus he was later remembered as Koca Yusuf.
Known for his massive size and brute strength, he was recognized as one of the top three strongmen in the world by Alan Calvert, a pioneer of American weight training, and photographer Edmond Desbonnet during the turn of the century. Prior to his arrival in the United States, he remained undefeated in his near four-year career and successfully challenged Evan "Strangler" Lewis for the American Heavyweight Championship in 1898. Yusuf Ismail was the original wrestler to be known as "the Terrible Turk", but several others, including Kızılcıklı Mahmut (promoted as his son) and Armenian-American Robert Manoogian, also used the name throughout the first half of the 20th century.
After earning a small fortune wrestling in the United States, Yusuf was heading back home to Europe on the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique's 12 year old ship, the SS La Bourgogne. He distrusted banks and carried all of his winnings, estimated to be between $8,000 and $10,000 in gold coins, in a heavy canvas money belt strapped around his waist. The sheer volume of gold coins weighed around 40 to 50 pounds. When the La Bourgogne collided with the Cromartyshire and sank on 4 July 1898, İsmail was lost in the sinking.
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