By Dingo
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Roy Heffernan had a compact, well-balanced physique with a strong core, powerful legs, and a sturdy upper body including strong biceps, forearms, and a strong grip. His physique emphasised his core muscles, including his abdominals, obliques, upper and lower back. These muscles were essential for stability, balance, and executing powerful movements. Roy Heffernan focused on muscular strength, high anaerobic power and capacity, above average aerobic power, and flexibility in his training programs. He had a well-defined physique.
He had a tendency to put on weight easily, whether muscle mass or fat, and take it off easily. Heffernan was at his most muscular when a bodybuilder in his teens and twenties and later as a wrestler in his thirties. By his early forties and beyond he was more inclined to replace muscle with fat, while still retaining a strong, solid build compared to many men of his body type and age.
In singles matches the piledriver was a favourite finishing hold of Roy Heffernan. In tag matches with Al Costello in the mid 1950’s to mid 1960’s in the USA and Canada, it was the Boomerang also known as the Slingshot Catapult.
Roy Heffernan was 1.78m; around 5 foot 9 inches in height and weighed in at around 225 lb (16st 01lbs. He was at the lighter end of the Heavyweight Wrestling Class. This put Heffernan at a significant weight disadvantage when he wrestled super heavyweight opponents who were significantly heavier and mostly stronger and taller than himself.
Heffernan admitted in an interview with Piledriver magazine that Killer Kowalski was his most feared opponent. Kowalski was significantly taller at 2m tall, heavier and stronger than Heffernan. Killer Kowalski (273lbs; 19st 07lbs) liked to work over Heffernan’s deep abdominal muscles. A claw hold to Heffernan’s abdominal muscles by Killer Kowalski in the opening seconds of a 1966 TV match caught him off guard and completely by surprise. Heffernan had been going for a referee’s arm and neck hold and had raised his arms in anticipation. Kowalski came in underneath and grabbed Heffernan’s unsuspecting and soft abdominal muscles right over and around his belly button in both hands, digging his fingers in ever deeper. Kowalski had the shorter and much lighter Roy Heffernan submit in a record time of under 30 seconds.
This was Heffernan’s fastest defeat in his 20-year wrestling career. In future matches against Kowalski, Heffernan was both mentally and physically dominated by Killer Kowalski because of this quick, unprecedented, crippling, decisive, and painful defeat at his hands. I saw the TV match. When the referee asked Heffernan if he wished to submit, he cried out “Yes, yes, yes” and sank to the canvas clearly in pain with both of his hands held over his abdominal area.
The complete dominance of a wrestler over Roy Heffernan was a rare event. Heffernan was a tough, skilled opponent. He could deliver a good, solid punch. At times he really roughed his opponent up and bent the rules.
Page added 21/12/2025
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