Al Costello Kangaroos once more Who were the Kangaroos? Heffernan debuted as "The Fabulous Kangaroos" on 3 May 1957
What did Al Costello have to do with them?
What did Al Costello have to do with the The Fabulous Kangaroos?
For years, Al Costello had been working on an idea for a new tag team; he even knew who he wanted for a partner: a wrestler he had worked with some years ago named Roy Heffernan. Because Costello and Heffernan had lost touch over the years, the idea remained dormant until Costello toured Hawaii in 1956. Costello mentioned his idea of an "Ultra Australian" tag team to fellow wrestler, and future promoter, Joe Blanchard. Blanchard happened to be a good friend of Roy Heffernan and knew he was working in Stampede Wrestling at the time. Blanchard put the two in touch with each other, and Costello was soon off to Calgary, Alberta, Canada to join Heffernan and finally make his tag team a reality. Costello and Heffernan debuted as "The Fabulous Kangaroos" on 3 May 1957 for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling promotion in a match against Maurice LaPointe and Tony Baillargeon. Only weeks after that first match, The Kangaroos were working with the top tag teams in the promotion. After working in Stampede for a while, The Fabulous Kangaroos started to travel across the United States, headlining shows wherever they went due to their ability to rile up crowds with their heel (bad guy) tactics. On one occasion in August 1958, The Kangaroos, or "Kangaroo Men" as they were billed, nearly caused a riot in Madison Square Garden during a match against Antonino Rocca and Miguel Perez; the fans began to throw fruit and stones at them. After the match ended without a decisive winner, the promoters stepped in, turned up the arena lights, and played the National Anthem to stop a potential riot. This was a common tactic used at the time by the New York promoters in order to prevent riots and help the heels leave the arena unharmed. Later that year, Costello and Heffernan started working for Dory Funk's NWA Western States promotion based in Amarillo, Texas. Here, The Kangaroos won their first title as a team when they defeated Pepper Gomez and El Medico to win the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship on 17 November 1958. Their first title reign was short lived, however, as Gomez and Rito Romero defeated them to regain the titles two weeks later. Between 1957 and 1965, The Kangaroos wrestled in the United States, Canada, Asia and select tours of Australia and New Zealand. They worked for such companies as Capitol Wrestling Corporation (the future World Wrestling Entertainment), Championship Wrestling from Florida, NWA Ohio, the Japan Wrestling Association and the World Wrestling Association in Los Angeles, California. The Kangaroos never forgot their roots and continued to work in Canada off and on through the years; in addition to Stampede Wrestling, the team also worked for NWA All-Star Wrestling based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Costello featured in a National Film Board of Canada short subject La Lotta/Wrestling/Le Catch. Their stint in NWA All-Star Wrestling was the last time Costello and Heffernan teamed together. In June 1965, The Kangaroos lost to Don Leo Jonathan and Jim Hardy and then split up. Heffernan had left Australia to tour the world in 1953 and wanted to return to his homeland, while Costello was determined to remain in the United States for a while longer. Heffernan returned to Australia and began working for World Championship Wrestling (the Australian version, not the North American wrestling federation) under booker Jim Barnett as a singles wrestler. Costello was originally supposed to return to Australia as well and work for WCW, but those plans never came through. Instead, Costello remained in the United States and kept working in the tag team division, never seeking a career as a singles wrestler. Costello began wrestling for Georgia Championship Wrestling, where he teamed up with Louis Tillet to form a tag team known as "The Globetrotters"; a name that played off Costello's Australian and Tillet's French heritage. The Globetrotters defeated the Mysterious Medics in the finals of the Georgia NWA World Tag Team Championship but only held the titles for a week before losing them to Kurt and Karl Von Brauner on 4 February 1966. After this, the Globetrotters broke up due to differences in their approach to tag teaming. Costello then moved to the NWA Mid-America territory near Nashville, Tennessee. In Mid-American, Costello teamed with Herb Welch to win the Mid-American version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, which they held for just over 2 months. While still working in Mid-America, Costello began to team with Karl Von Brauner, who used a "German Nazi" gimmick despite being American. Under the management of "Playboy" Gary Hart, Costello and Von Brauner were billed as "The Internationals"; the team was later managed by George "Crybaby" Cannon. The Internationals worked mainly in Tennessee and Texas for NWA Western States. In Texas, Costello and Von Brauner won the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, a title Costello and Heffernan had held in 1958. The team was also billed as the first NWA American Tag Team Champions, titles that were also recognized by World Class Championship Wrestling in addition to the Western States promotion. The Internationals lost the American Tag Team title to Fritz and Waldo Von Erich on 21 February 1967. Kurt then decided to go back to teaming with his storyline brother, Karl Von Brauner. After the Internationals broke up, Costello returned to Australia to visit friends and relatives and to recuperate after many years on the road. On his way back to the United States, Costello had a stop over in Detroit, Michigan, where he met Cleo Williams. The two fell in love and married shortly afterwards, remaining together for the rest of Costello's life. In 1967, Al Costello reformed The Fabulous Kangaroos, this time teaming up with Ray St. Clair. The team had been touring non-stop for about six months when St. Clair was forced to retire due to knee problems. A few months after St. Clair retired, Costello found a new man to don the bush hat: Don Kent. Kent, who was from Michigan, adopted the Ultra-Australian gimmick (but retained his American accent) and the two formed the third overall and second most well-known version of The Fabulous Kangaroos. Costello and Kent teamed together on a regular basis from 1968 until 1974, approximately the same amount of time that Costello spent teaming with his original partner, Roy Heffernan. Costello and Kent continued in a tradition that was reminiscent of the original Kangaroos; when a federation needed a new tag team title, The Kangaroos were brought in and acknowledged as champions upon arrival instead of holding a tournament to determine the champions. In 1967, the Japanese federation "International Wrestling Enterprise" (IWE) brought The Kangaroos in as the first Trans-World Wrestling Alliance World Tag Team Champions. They held this title until 10 January 1968 when IWE mainstays Toyonobori and Thunder Sugiyama beat them for the gold. Over the years, many more title reigns came from various promotions all over the globe. In Canada, The Kangaroos were the first Eastern Sports Association International Tag Team Champions. In the World Wrestling Association of Indianapolis, they held the WWA World Tag Team Championship twice. In addition to winning titles all over North America, Costello and Kent also made appearances for the World Wide Wrestling Federation (now known as WWE). The Kangaroos frequented NWA Detroit, where they held the Detroit version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship for most of 1971. By the end of 1972, The Kangaroos began working for Nick Gulas' NWA Mid-America. In Mid-America, they held the local version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, the Mid-America version, on three occasions. After a match at Cincinnati Gardens, an enraged fan took a fire extinguisher off the wall and threw it at Costello and Kent from the balcony of the Gardens. The extinguisher hit Costello in the hip, damaging it so much that he needed hip replacement surgery later that year. The fan was arrested, served 15 days in jail, and fined fifty dollars for damaging the fire extinguisher. The hip injury left Costello unable to wrestle, and The Fabulous Kangaroos split up once again. Costello had a full hip replacement and was forced to retire from active competition. CANNOTANSWER
Al Costello had been working on an idea for a new tag team;
Giacomo Costa (14 December 1919 – 22 January 2000) was an Italian Australian professional wrestler best known by his ring name, Al Costello. Costello was the first professional wrestler to be nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Holds" because of his innovative and very technical style.

Costello was the creator and original member of the tag team The Fabulous Kangaroos, whose "Ultra Australian" gimmick complete with boomerangs, bush hats and the song "Waltzing Matilda" as their entrance music, existed in various forms from 1957 until 1983. Costello was either an active wrestler, or a manager in all versions of The Fabulous Kangaroos. He and Roy Heffernan are arguably the most famous version of The Kangaroos, regarded as one of the top tag teams to ever compete in professional wrestling, and are often credited with popularizing tag team wrestling in the late 1950s and 1960s.

Costello later formed other versions of The Fabulous Kangaroos with Ray St. Clair, Don Kent and Tony Charles. He also managed the team of Don Kent & Bruno Bekkar and later on "Johnny Heffernan" under The Fabulous Kangaroos name.

Costello officially retired from wrestling in 1983 but still made a few brief returns to the ring after that. In 1993, he managed The New Fabulous Kangaroos (Denny Kass and Al Snow) before retiring completely from the wrestling business. Both Costello and his tag team partner Heffernan died before Kangaroos were honored as the first tag team to ever be inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2003, which started a tradition of inducting a new team every year.

Early life
Costa was born in the village of Lingua, in the Italian island of Santa Marina Salina, Sicily, and lived there until his family immigrated to Australia when he was six years old. The family settled in Rockdale, New South Wales, where Costa helped out in his father's fruit store. He excelled at school sports, and became interested in weightlifting at an early age. At age 16, Costa took up amateur boxing despite his father's wishes that he should become an opera singer. Costa was approached by Australian middleweight wrestling champion "Basher Bonas", who convinced him to try wrestling. Costa made his debut under an assumed name; his father still had hopes of him becoming an opera singer, and he did not want his parents to find out that he was wrestling. He came up with the name "Al Costello", thinking it sounded tough like a portmanteau of Al Capone and Frank Costello.

Wrestling career
Al Costello made his professional wrestling debut in 1938, but the man that would be known as "The Man of a Thousand Holds" 20 years later, found little success early in his career. The general belief in Australian professional wrestling at the time was that a wrestler had to go to North America and learn how to be a pro before the bookers would even consider pushing them up the card. Costello travelled across Asia, where he did see some success; he won the Malaysian Heavyweight title in 1939, as well as the South Africa trophy in 1949. During the 1950s, Costello finally started to turn heads at home by winning the Australasian title. In 1952, Costello began wrestling in America, hoping to finally break through and make a big name of himself.

Fabulous Kangaroos

For years, Al Costello had been working on an idea for a new tag team; he even knew who he wanted for a partner: a wrestler he had worked with some years ago named Roy Heffernan. Because Costello and Heffernan had lost touch over the years, the idea remained dormant until Costello toured Hawaii in 1956. Costello mentioned his idea of an "Ultra Australian" tag team to fellow wrestler, and future promoter, Joe Blanchard. Blanchard happened to be a good friend of Roy Heffernan and knew he was working in Stampede Wrestling at the time. Blanchard put the two in touch with each other, and Costello was soon off to Calgary, Alberta, Canada to join Heffernan and finally make his tag team a reality. Costello and Heffernan debuted as "The Fabulous Kangaroos" on 3 May 1957 for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling promotion in a match against Maurice LaPointe and Tony Baillargeon. Only weeks after that first match, The Kangaroos were working with the top tag teams in the promotion.

After working in Stampede for a while, The Fabulous Kangaroos started to travel across the United States, headlining shows wherever they went due to their ability to rile up crowds with their heel (bad guy) tactics. On one occasion in August 1958, The Kangaroos, or "Kangaroo Men" as they were billed, nearly caused a riot in Madison Square Garden during a match against Antonino Rocca and Miguel Pérez; the fans began to throw fruit and stones at them. After the match ended without a decisive winner, the promoters stepped in, turned up the arena lights, and played the National Anthem to stop a potential riot. This was a common tactic used at the time by the New York promoters in order to prevent riots and help the heels leave the arena unharmed. Later that year, Costello and Heffernan started working for Dory Funk's NWA Western States promotion based in Amarillo, Texas. Here, The Kangaroos won their first title as a team when they defeated Pepper Gomez and El Medico to win the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship on 17 November 1958. Their first title reign was short lived, however, as Gomez and Rito Romero defeated them to regain the titles two weeks later.

Between 1957 and 1965, The Kangaroos wrestled in the United States, Canada, Asia and select tours of Australia and New Zealand. They worked for such companies as Capitol Wrestling Corporation (the future World Wrestling Entertainment), Championship Wrestling from Florida, NWA Ohio, the Japan Wrestling Association and the World Wrestling Association in Los Angeles, California.

The Kangaroos never forgot their roots and continued to work in Canada off and on through the years; in addition to Stampede Wrestling, the team also worked for NWA All-Star Wrestling based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Costello featured in a National Film Board of Canada short subject La Lotta/Wrestling/Le Catch. Their stint in NWA All-Star Wrestling was the last time Costello and Heffernan teamed together. In June 1965, The Kangaroos lost to Don Leo Jonathan and Jim Hardy and then split up. Heffernan had left Australia to tour the world in 1953 and wanted to return to his homeland, while Costello was determined to remain in the United States for a while longer.

Between Kangaroos
Heffernan returned to Australia and began working for World Championship Wrestling (the Australian version, not the North American wrestling federation) under booker Jim Barnett as a singles wrestler. Costello was originally supposed to return to Australia as well and work for WCW, but those plans never came through. Instead, Costello remained in the United States and kept working in the tag team division, never seeking a career as a singles wrestler. Costello began wrestling for Georgia Championship Wrestling, where he teamed up with Louis Tillet to form a tag team known as "The Globetrotters"; a name that played off Costello's Australian and Tillet's French heritage. The Globetrotters defeated the Mysterious Medics in the finals of the Georgia NWA World Tag Team Championship but only held the titles for a week before losing them to Kurt and Karl Von Brauner on 4 February 1966. After this, the Globetrotters broke up due to differences in their approach to tag teaming.

Costello then moved to the NWA Mid-America territory near Nashville, Tennessee. In Mid-American, Costello teamed with Herb Welch to win the Mid-American version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, which they held for just over 2 months. While still working in Mid-America, Costello began to team with Karl Von Brauner, who used a "German Nazi" gimmick despite being American. Under the management of "Playboy" Gary Hart, Costello and Von Brauner were billed as "The Internationals"; the team was later managed by George "Crybaby" Cannon. The Internationals worked mainly in Tennessee and Texas for NWA Western States. In Texas, Costello and Von Brauner won the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, a title Costello and Heffernan had held in 1958. The team was also billed as the first NWA American Tag Team Champions, titles that were also recognized by World Class Championship Wrestling in addition to the Western States promotion. The Internationals lost the American Tag Team title to Fritz and Waldo Von Erich on 21 February 1967. Kurt then decided to go back to teaming with his storyline brother, Karl Von Brauner.

After the Internationals broke up, Costello returned to Australia to visit friends and relatives and to recuperate after many years on the road. On his way back to the United States, Costello had a stop over in Detroit, Michigan, where he met Cleo Williams. The two fell in love and married shortly afterwards, remaining together for the rest of Costello's life.

Kangaroos once more

In 1967, Al Costello reformed The Fabulous Kangaroos, this time teaming up with Ray St. Clair. The team had been touring non-stop for about six months when St. Clair was forced to retire due to knee problems. A few months after St. Clair retired, Costello found a new man to don the bush hat: Don Kent. Kent, who was from Michigan, adopted the Ultra-Australian gimmick (but retained his American accent) and the two formed the third overall and second most well-known version of The Fabulous Kangaroos. Costello and Kent teamed together on a regular basis from 1968 until 1974, approximately the same amount of time that Costello spent teaming with his original partner, Roy Heffernan. Costello and Kent continued in a tradition that was reminiscent of the original Kangaroos; when a federation needed a new tag team title, The Kangaroos were brought in and acknowledged as champions upon arrival instead of holding a tournament to determine the champions. In 1967, the Japanese federation "International Wrestling Enterprise" (IWE) brought The Kangaroos in as the first Trans-World Wrestling Alliance World Tag Team Champions. They held this title until 10 January 1968 when IWE mainstays Toyonobori and Thunder Sugiyama beat them for the gold. Over the years, many more title reigns came from various promotions all over the globe. In Canada, The Kangaroos were the first Eastern Sports Association International Tag Team Champions. In the World Wrestling Association of Indianapolis, they held the WWA World Tag Team Championship twice. In addition to winning titles all over North America, Costello and Kent also made appearances for the World Wide Wrestling Federation (now known as WWE).

The Kangaroos frequented NWA Detroit, where they held the Detroit version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship for most of 1971. By the end of 1972, The Kangaroos began working for Nick Gulas' NWA Mid-America. In Mid-America, they held the local version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, the Mid-America version, on three occasions.

After a match at Cincinnati Gardens, an enraged fan took a fire extinguisher off the wall and threw it at Costello and Kent from the balcony of the Gardens. The extinguisher hit Costello in the hip, damaging it so much that he needed hip replacement surgery later that year. The fan was arrested, served 15 days in jail, and fined fifty dollars for damaging the fire extinguisher. The hip injury left Costello unable to wrestle, and The Fabulous Kangaroos split up once again. Costello had a full hip replacement and was forced to retire from active competition.

Managing
In 1975, Costello surprised everyone by returning to professional wrestling as the manager of the team known as "The Love Brothers" (Hartford and Reggie Love). He actually stepped into the ring on occasion as part of special six-man tag team matches.

After recovering from his hip surgery, Costello returned to active competition at age 56. The fact that he was able to recover from such a major injury is credited to his almost-fanatical style of healthy living. As a devout vegan, Costello credited his meat-free diet with his recovery, as well as the remarkable shape he was in for a man of his age.

Costello reformed The Fabulous Kangaroos once more, this time teaming up with wrestler Tony Charles. The team defeated Dominic DeNucci and Chris Markoff to win Detroit's version of the NWA World Tag Team title, the same title that Costello and Kent had previously held. The Kangaroos title run was short, however, and they lost their gold to "Crazy" Luke Graham and Ripper Collins.

In 1977, Tony Charles was replaced by Don Kent and the two reunited for a tour of Puerto Rico with the World Wrestling Council (WWC). In Puerto Rico, The Kangaroos arrived billed as the WWC World Tag Team Champions, once more to give a newly created title legitimacy. They dropped the titles to Carlos Colón and Jose Rivera on 12 March 1977 and remained in the WWC until 1978 chasing, but never regaining, the WWC World Tag Team Championship. After their tour in Puerto Rico ended, Don Kent returned to singles wrestling, and Costello refocused on managing.

Still a Kangaroo
In 1981, Costello convinced Kent to once again don the bush hat and pick up the boomerang. Costello got Kent to team up with Bruno Bekkar, who was mostly known from working in his native New Zealand and Australia. Kent and Bekkar worked a tour for the WWC, while Costello served as their manager. The team won the WWC North American Tag Team titles from Jack and Jerry Brisco on 22 October 1981. They then lost the titles to Invader I and Super Gladiator but quickly gained them back before dropping the titles for good to Invader and Gladiator on 26 January 1982. The Kent and Bekkar team only lasted through one tour of the Caribbean, after which Bruno Bekkar returned to Australia and New Zealand to work for the local promotions there.

Bekkar was replaced with Johnny Heffernan (Canadian wrestler Bob Della Serra), a storyline cousin of Roy Heffernan, for what was the final version of The Fabulous Kangaroos. The team ended Terry and Dory Funk Jr.'s year and a half run with the WWC World Tag Team championship on 1 May 1982. Kent and Heffernan held the gold for less than two months before losing the WWC World Tag Team titles to Invader I and Pierre Martel. After a tour in Puerto Rico, Costello, Kent and Heffernan returned to work for Championship Wrestling from Florida (CWF), a promotion The Kangaroos last worked for in 1962. In Florida, The Kangaroos won the NWA Florida Global Tag Team Championship four times. The final storyline involving The Fabulous Kangaroos saw Al Costello bring in J.J. Dillon to act as his short term replacement while he was "away on business". When Costello returned from his business trip, Dillon kayfabe refused to give up The Kangaroos' contracts and was backed up by both Kent and Heffernan. This angle was designed to write Al Costello out of The Fabulous Kangaroos' storyline and allow him to retire from wrestling altogether. Not long after Costello retired, Kent and Johnny Heffernan went their separate ways.

Retirement
After retiring from wrestling, Al Costello became the head of security at College Harbor, Florida. In 1992, at the age of 71, Costello retired from his job in Florida and began teaching wrestling. He also started to manage The New Fabulous Kangaroos in 1993, a team consisting of Mickey Doyle and Denny Kass who worked for "Motor City Wrestling" (MCW). By the fall of 1993, Mickey Doyle had been replaced by a young wrestler by the name of Al Snow; with Costello's help The New Fabulous Kangaroos defeated "Canadian Lighting" (Otis Apollo and "Irish" Bobby Clancy), on 29 December 1993, to win the MCW Tag Team Championship. On 14 May 1994, Kass and Snow defeated Canadian Lighting again to win the Border City Wrestling (BCW) Can-Am Tag Team Championship, unifying the two tag team championships. A week later, The New Fabulous Kangaroos lost both sets of titles to Scott D'Amore and "Irish" Bobby Clancy. After losing the unified MCW/BCW Tag Team championships, The New Kangaroos split up; Snow focused on his World Wrestling Federation career while Costello retired for good, never making another wrestling related appearance.

Death
On 22 January 2000, Costello died from a combination of pneumonia and heart problems, in Clearwater, Florida. In 2003, Al Costello and Roy Heffernan became the first tag team to ever be inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame. Since that time, the Hall of Fame has honored other tag teams, but The Fabulous Kangaroos were given the honor of being the first. In the tradition of the Kangaroos, they were "billed as champions on arrival" one last time.

Championships and accomplishments
Alex Turk Promotions (Winnipeg)
International Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Roy Heffernan
Capitol Wrestling Corporation
NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Northeast version) (3 times) - with Roy Heffernan
Cauliflower Alley Club
Other honoree (1994)
Championship Wrestling from Florida
NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Florida version) (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Florida version)(1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
Eastern Sports Association
ESA International Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Don Kent
Georgia Championship Wrestling
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Georgia version) 1 time – with Louie Tillet
International Wrestling Enterprise
Trans-World Wrestling Alliance World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Don Kent
Japan Wrestling Association
NWA International Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
Midwest Wrestling Association
NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Ohio version) (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
Mike London Promotions
Rocky Mountain Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
National Wrestling Alliance
NWA Hall of Fame (Class of 2013)
NWA All-Star Wrestling
NWA Canadian Tag Team Championship (Vancouver version) (4 times) - with Roy Heffernan
NWA Big Time Wrestling
NWA American Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Karl Von Brauner
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Texas version) (2 times) - with Roy Heffernan (1), Karl Von Brauner (1)
NWA Detroit
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Detroit version) (3 times) - with Roy Heffernan (2), Ray St. Clair (1)
NWA Mid-America
NWA Southern Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Mid-America version) 4 times) - with Don Kent (3), Herb Welch (1)
New Zealand Wrestling Union
NWA Australasian Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Class of 2003 - with Roy Heffernan
Western States Sports
NWA International Tag Team Championship (Texas version) (1 time) - with Roy HeffernanA
 NWA World Tag Team Championship (Amarillo version) (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
World Wrestling Association
WWA World Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Don Kent
Worldwide Wrestling Associates
WWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Roy Heffernan
WWA International Television Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Roy Heffernan
World Wrestling Council
WWC World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Don Kent
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (Class of 1996) with Roy Heffernan

References

External links
 New Fabulous Kangaroos Tribute page
 Roy Heffernan Interview

1919 births
2000 deaths
Australian male professional wrestlers
Italian emigrants to Australia
Italian male professional wrestlers
Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum
Sportspeople from the Province of Messina
Stampede Wrestling alumni
Deaths from pneumonia in Florida
Laurence Roy Heffernan (12 July 1925 – 24 September 1992) was an Australian professional wrestler. Roy Heffernan toured all over the world, but is most famous for being one half of the original version of the tag team the Fabulous Kangaroos (with Al Costello). The Kangaroos used an "Ultra Australian" gimmick complete with Boomerangs, bush hats and "Waltzing Matilda" as their entrance music. The first incarnation of the Kangaroos is the most famous of all the Kangaroo versions and is often credited with popularizing tag team wrestling in the late 1950s and 1960s. Costello and Heffernan are also regarded as one of the top tag teams to ever compete in professional wrestling.

When the Kangaroos broke up, Heffernan left America to return to his home of Australia. In Australia, Heffernan was involved with Australia's version of World Championship Wrestling under booker Jim Barnett where he worked as a face (good guy), the polar opposite of his time spent as a Fabulous Kangaroo. Both Heffernan and Costello died before the team was honored by being the first tag team inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2003. The induction of the Fabulous Kangaroos started a tradition of inducting a new team every year.

Biography

Starting out
Roy Heffernan was a native Australian, born in Lithgow NSW, and was an avid weightlifter and bodybuilder in his teens. He was trained by his father, who was also a bodybuilder, and won the Mr. Australia title before making his wrestling debut at the age of twenty. Heffernan did not have an easy time moving up the ranks in Australian pro-wrestling, as the belief at the time was that a wrestler really had to go overseas to North America and learn to be a pro before the bookers would even consider moving them up the rankings of the promotion. After working on the lower cards in Australia, Heffernan left his home country in 1953 and moved to America in the hopes of attaining more success there.

Fabulous Kangaroos

For years, Al Costello had been working on an idea for a new tag team and even had an idea of who his partner should be in this new tag team: a wrestler he had worked with some years ago (Heffernan). The problem was that Costello and Heffernan had lost touch over the years, so the idea remained dormant until Costello went on a tour of Hawaii in 1956. Costello mentioned his idea of an "Ultra Australian" tag team to fellow wrestler and future promoter, Joe Blanchard. Blanchard was good friends with Heffernan and knew that he was working in Stampede Wrestling at that point in time. Blanchard put the two in touch with each other, and soon after, Costello was off to Calgary, Alberta, Canada to join up with Heffernan. Costello and Heffernan made their debut as the Fabulous Kangaroos on 3 May 1957 for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling promotion in a match against Maurice LaPointe and Tony Baillargeon. Only weeks after making their debut, the Kangaroos were working with the top tag teams of the promotion.

After working in Stampede for a while, the Fabulous Kangaroos traveled across the United States, headlining shows wherever they went due to their ability to rile the crowd up with their heel (bad guy) tactics. On one occasion in August 1958 the Kangaroos, or "Kangaroo Men" as they were billed, nearly caused a riot in Madison Square Garden during a match against Antonino Rocca and Miguel Pérez. The fans began to throw fruit and stones after the match ended without a decisive winner, and the promoters had to step in, turn up the lights in the arena and play the National Anthem to stop a potential riot from breaking out. Everywhere the team went, they seemed to win championships; be it the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship in Dory Funk's NWA Western States promotion, or the forerunner to the WWWF United States Tag Team Championship, the North East version of the NWA United States Tag Team Championship.

During their time together from 1957 until 1965, the Kangaroos wrestled in the United States, Canada, Asia and select tours of Australia and New Zealand. They worked for such companies as Capitol Wrestling Corporation (the future World Wrestling Entertainment), Championship Wrestling from Florida, NWA Ohio, the Japan Wrestling Association and the World Wrestling Association in Los Angeles.

The Kangaroos never forgot the territory that started it all and worked in Canada off and on over the years. The team not only worked for Stampede Wrestling while in Canada, but also worked for NWA All-Star Wrestling based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Fabulous Kangaroos' 1965 run in NWA All-Star Wrestling turned out to be the last time the original Kangaroos teamed together. In June 1965, the Kangaroos lost to Don Leo Jonathan and Jim Hardy and then split up. Heffernan left Australia to tour the world in 1953 and wanted to return to his homeland, while Costello was determined to remain in the United States at least for a while longer.

Return to Australia
Roy Heffernan returned to his native Australia, and became one of the main wrestlers for World Championship Wrestling (WCW) (the Australian version) under promoter Jim Barnett. Heffernan retained his "Ultra Australian" gimmick complete with Bush hat and boomerang, but what had made him a heel (bad guy) in the United States made him a beloved face (good guy) in Australia. Heffernan's Fan Club Yearbook circa 1966 gives the following physical statistics for Roy Heffernan: neck 17.5 inches; chest 48.5 inches; waist 32.5 inches; thigh 27 inches; biceps 17.5 inches; calf 17.5 inches. He was billed in 1967 as weighing 225 lb. Costello was originally supposed to join Heffernan in Australia but it never worked out that way, leaving Costello in the United States while Heffernan wrestled as a singles wrestler. Later in his career, Heffernan became involved in the actual running of WCW before retiring in the 1980s.

Death
Roy Heffernan died on 24 September 1992 at St George Hospital in Sydney from a heart attack. In 2003, the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame inducted Roy Heffernan, along with Al Costello, as the first ever tag team to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. From 2003 and forward, the Hall of Fame has honored other tag teams, but the Fabulous Kangaroos were given the honor of being the first team to enter the Hall of Fame; in the tradition of the Kangaroos they were "billed as champions on arrival" one last time.

Championships and accomplishments
Alex Turk Promotions (Winnipeg)
International Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Al Costello
Capitol Wrestling Corporation
NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Northwest version) (3 times) - with Al Costello
Championship Wrestling from Florida
NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Florida version) (1 time) - with Al Costello
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Florida version) (1 time) - with Al Costello
International Wrestling Enterprise
Trans-World Wrestling Alliance Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
Japan Wrestling Association
NWA International Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Al Costello
Midwest Wrestling Association
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1. Title also recognized by World Class Championship Wrestling.

References

1925 births
1992 deaths
Australian male professional wrestlers
Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum
Sportspeople from Sydney
Stampede Wrestling alumni The Lives of Animals (1999) is a metafictional novella about animal rights by the South African novelist J. M. Coetzee, recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. The work is introduced by Amy Gutmann and followed by a collection of responses by Marjorie Garber, Peter Singer, Wendy Doniger and Barbara Smuts. It was published by Princeton University Press as part of its Human Values series.

The Lives of Animals consists of two chapters, "The Philosophers and the Animals" and "The Poets and the Animals," first delivered by Coetzee as guest lectures at Princeton on 15 and 16 October 1997, part of the Tanner Lectures on Human Values. The Princeton lectures consisted of two short stories (the chapters of the book) featuring a recurring character, the Australian novelist Elizabeth Costello, Coetzee's alter ego. Costello is invited to give a guest lecture to the fictional Appleton College in Massachusetts, just as Coetzee is invited to Princeton, and chooses to discuss not literature, but animal rights, just as Coetzee does.

In having Costello deliver the arguments within his lectures, Coetzee plays with form and content, and leaves ambiguous to what extent the views are his own. The Lives of Animals appears again in Coetzee's novel Elizabeth Costello (2003).

Coetzee's novella discusses the foundations of morality, the need of human beings to imitate one another, to want what others want, leading to violence and a parallel need to scapegoat non-humans. He appeals to an ethic of sympathy, not rationality, in our treatment of animals, to literature and the poets, not philosophy. Costello tells her audience: "Sympathy has everything to do with the subject and little to do with the object ... There are people who have the capacity to imagine themselves as someone else, there are people who have no such capacity ... and there are people who have the capacity but choose not to exercise it. ... There are no bounds to the sympathetic imagination."

Synopsis

The Lives of Animals
Elizabeth Costello is invited to Appleton College's annual literary seminar as a guest lecturer, much as Coetzee was invited to Princeton. Despite her stature as a celebrated novelist (much like Coetzee), she opts not to give lectures on literature or writing, but on animal cruelty. Much like Coetzee, Costello is a vegetarian and abhors industries that experiment on and slaughter animals.

The story is framed by a narrative involving Costello and her son, John Bernard, who happens to be a junior professor at Appleton. Costello's relationship with Bernard is strained, and her relationship with John’s wife, Norma, even more so. Bernard was not instrumental in bringing his mother to campus. In fact, the university's leaders were unaware of Bernard's relationship with Costello when they issued the invitation. Bernard’s fears that his mother’s presence and opinions will be polarizing and controversial are entirely prophetic. In his private thoughts, he more than once wishes she had not accepted Appleton’s invitation. Costello gives two lectures, then contributes to a debate with Appleton philosophy professor Thomas O’Hearne.

"The Philosophers and the Animals"

Costello's first lecture begins with an analogy between the Holocaust and the exploitation of animals. Costello makes the point that, just as residents in the neighborhoods of the death camps knew what was happening at the camps, but chose to turn a blind eye, so it is common practice today for otherwise respectable members of society to turn a blind eye to industries that bring pain and death to animals. This turns out to be the most controversial thing that Costello says during her visit, and it causes a Jewish professor of the college to boycott the dinner held in her honor. In her first lecture, Costello also moves to reject reason as the preeminent quality that separates humans from animals and allows humans to treat animals as less than the equals of humans. She proposes that reason might simply be a species specific trait, "the specialism of a rather narrow self-regenerating intellectual tradition ... which for its  own motives it tries to install at the center of the universe."

At the same time that Costello rejects reason as the premier human distinction, she also challenges the assumption that animals do not possess reason. Her argument rests on the fact that, while science cannot prove that animals do abstract thinking, it also cannot prove that they do not. In support of this argument, Costello summarizes an ape experiment that was conducted in the 1920s by Wolfgang Kohler. The principal player in the experiment was an ape named Sultan who was variously deprived of his bananas until he reasoned his way into obtaining them. Faced with the challenge of stacking several crates into a makeshift ladder, in order to reach the bananas that have been suspended above his reach, Sultan succeeds in demonstrating this elementary form of reasoning.

What Costello objects to, however, is the basic inanity of the exercise which in no way explores any higher intellectual functions that Sultan might be capable of. The experiment, Costello objects, ignores any emotional hurt or confusion that the ape might be experiencing in favor of concentrating on what is, after all, a very elemental task. The ape might be thinking about the human who has constructed these tests: "What is wrong with him, what misconception does he have of me, that leads him to believe it is easier for me to reach a banana hanging from a wire than to pick up a banana from the floor?" Animal experiments, Costello concludes, fail to measure anything of real interest, because they ask the wrong questions and ignore the more interesting ones: "a carefully plotted psychological regimen conducts him [Sultan] away from ethics and metaphysics toward the humbler reaches of practical reason."

"The Poets and the Animals"
In her second lecture, Costello suggests that humans can come to understand or "think their way into" the nature of animals through poetic imagination. As examples, she invokes Rilke's "The Panther" and Ted Hughes's "The Jaguar" and "Second Glance at a Jaguar." "By bodying forth the jaguar," Costello says, "Hughes shows us that we too can embody animals – by the process called poetic invention that mingles breath and sense in a way that no one has explained and no one ever will." Costello also takes issue with what she calls the "ecological vision" harbored by most environmental scientists, which values biological diversity and the overall health of an ecosystem above the individual animal. This is not a point of view shared by individual animals, all of whom will fight for their individual survival, she argues. "Every living creature fights for its own, individual life, refuses, by fighting, to accede to the idea that the salmon or the gnat is of a lower order of importance than the idea of the salmon or the idea of the gnat," Costello explains.

The third organized event of Costello's visit is a debate of sorts with Appleton philosophy professor Thomas O'Hearne. O'Hearne begins the debate by proposing that the animal rights movement is a specifically "Western crusade" which arose in nineteenth-century Britain. Non-western cultures can, with justice, argue that their cultural and moral values are different and do not require them to observe the same respect for animals mandated by Western animals rights activists. To this assertion, Costello responds that "kindness to animals ... has been more widespread than you imply." As an example of kindness to animals, she offers the keeping of pets, which is universal. And she notes that children enjoy a particular closeness to animals: "they have to be taught it is all right to kill and eat them." Costello also proposes that industries that have been enacting animal cruelty for profit should have the greater role in atoning for that cruelty.

O'Hearne next puts forward the argument that animals do not perform abstract reasoning, as demonstrated by the failure of apes to acquire more than a basic level of language, and are therefore not entitled to the same rights as humans. In response, Costello more or less restates her skepticism about the value of animal experiments. She refers to such experiments as "profoundly anthropocentric" and "imbecile." O'Hearne then proposes that animals do not understand death with the full consciousness of self with which humans regard death; therefore, to kill an animal quickly and painlessly is ethical. O'Hearne's final point is that people cannot be friends with animals because we do not understand them. As an example, he uses the bat. "You can be friends neither with a Martian nor with a bat, for the simple reason that you have too little in common with them." In her response, Costello equates the belief that animals are not entitled to equal rights because they do not reason abstractly, with racism. She then, once again, rejects reason as a valid basis for the animal rights argument, concluding that, if reason is all she shares with her philosophical opponents, then she has no use for it.

"Reflections"

Peter Singer

In responding to Coetzee's novella, the philosopher Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation (1975), writes a somewhat mocking short story featuring himself as "Peter" in a conversation with his daughter Naomi over the breakfast table. The fictionalized Peter complains to Naomi that Coetzee hasn't really delivered a lecture on animals rights. Instead, Coetzee has, Peter asserts, hidden behind the veil of fiction and the alter ego of Elizabeth Costello and so has not fully committed himself to any particular animal rights platform.

Singer uses his imagined narrative to take issue with Costello's equation of a human life with a bat life. The human life is clearly more important, Peter argues, because the human invests so fully in the future and because of the human's superior intelligence and what he can accomplish. Peter also says that Costello provides no valid argument against the painless killing of animals, especially those of lower intelligence, like chickens and fish "who can feel pain but don't have any self-awareness or capacity for thinking about the future."

Peter's most adamant complaint is the character's belief that she can "think [her] way into the existence of any being" using the same imaginative powers that she uses to create fictional characters. Naomi more or less ridicules that idea, claiming that it is relatively easy to imagine a fictional character, and that doing so has no real application to understanding animals. "If that's the best argument Coetzee can put up for his radical egalitarianism, you won't have any trouble showing how weak it is," Naomi concludes. She goes on to suggest that Peter use the same fictional narrative device to respond to the Costello lecture. "Me? When have I ever written fiction?" Peter asks, concluding the reflection.

Marjorie Garber, Wendy Doniger
Marjorie Garber reflects on how Coetzee's novella relates to her study of academic disciplines. Wendy Doniger takes as her starting point O'Hearne's contention that compassion for animals is a Western invention originating in the nineteenth century. She talks about the Hindu prohibition on harming animals and argues that compassion for animals can be found in many non-Western cultures throughout history.

Barbara Smuts
Anthropologist and University of Michigan professor Barbara Smuts takes as her starting point the near absence of any loving relationships between people and animals in Coetzee's novella. Smuts starts her reflection noting that, as a lonely old woman, Costello is likely to live with cats. But Costello never mentions any personal relationship with animals. As a scientist, Smuts, at one point in her work, followed a group of baboons with whom she effectively lived as an equal. What she found was that she learned a great deal from the specialized knowledge of the animals. Specifically, they taught her how to find her way through the jungle without running amok of "poisonous snakes, irascible buffalo, aggressive bees, and leg-breaking pig-holes."

She found that, in general, apes lead rich social and even emotional lives. As an example, she tells the story of visiting gorilla scientist Dian Fossey, and being hugged by a teenage gorilla. When she returned to civilization, Smuts adopted a rescue dog whom she named Safi. As an experiment, Smuts refrained from any traditional training of her animals, preferring to talk to her dog and make accommodations. She allows her dog the free use of its own toys, and her dog guards her when she takes a nap in the woods. In this way, Smuts tactfully builds on Costello's assertion that animals might be capable of more than we have traditionally assumed: "treating members of other species as persons, as beings with potential far beyond our normal expectations, will bring out the best in them, and ... each animal's best includes unforeseeable gifts." Smuts' gentle contention is that people can learn more about animals from entering into real, personal relationships with them than from poeticizing or philosophizing about them.

Genre
The Lives of Animals straddles the boundary between essay and fiction. Bernard Morris, writing in the Harvard Review, called it "part fiction, part philosophical discourse, wholly human and absorbing." Though the novella centers on the character Elizabeth Costello, much of the narrative is taken up with her lectures about cruelty to animals. Also making the book difficult to classify is its mixture of fiction, science and essay writing. While the contributions of Coetzee and Singer could be called short stories, Garber's contribution would more properly be called a scholarly article and Smuts' article, while grounded in her scientific studies, is mostly autobiographical and anecdotal.

See also
 List of vegan media

References

Further reading
James Meek, “All About John", The Guardian, 5 September 2009.

1999 novels
Books about animal rights
Campus novels
Novels by J. M. Coetzee