Abe Coleman, a Polish-born professional wrestler promoted as the "Hebrew Hercules" and "Jewish Tarzan" and credited in the 1930s with popularizing the drop-kick move, likened to a flying kick in the jaw, died Wednesday at Meadow Park nursing home in New York. He was 101 and had kidney failure.
But his pièce de résistance was the drop kick, a still-common tactic in which a wrestler turns himself into a human missile. Coleman said he learned it from kangaroos on a 1930 trip to Australia.
He was never a champion, but a middle-card standby who fought about 2,000 matches, continuing into his 50s, according to the Slam Sports Web site. His foes included giants of the 1930s like Jim Londos, with whom he dueled before 60,000 spectators in a Mexico City bullring.
