Alex Karras and Dick the Bruiser's Detroit Bar Brawl

One of the most infamous chapters in Detroit sports history involved Alex Karras--defensive lineman for the Detroit Lions--and Richard Fritz Afflis--AKA wrestler Dick the Bruiser. What some people believe started out as a publicity stunt to promote a professional wrestling match between Karras and the Bruiser became a full-blown brawl at the Lindell sports bar on Michigan Avenue and Cass. 

Before signing with the Detroit Lions, Karras was a rookie professional wrestler and learned the skills and secrets of the squared circle. When the Lions picked him up, he gladly quit the wrestling game because he did not like daily life on the road.

After signing his NFL contract, Karras played football for twelve seasons with the Detroit Lions from 1958 through 1962 and again from 1964 through 1970. One week before the bar brawl in 1963, the NFL gave Karras a one year suspension for gambling on professional football games. NFL officials urged Karras to sell his interest in the Lindell Bar because of organized crime influence. Karras refused to sell.


Richard Afflis was an offensive left tackle for the Green Bay Packers from 1950 until 1954 before becoming a professional wrestler and changing his name to Dick the Bruiser. There was much more money to be made wrestling, so he quit the Packers. The Bruiser was five feet, eleven inches tall, built like a fire plug and just as tough. He wore a crew cut and had a gravelly voice that struck fear into his opponents. His finishing moves were the Atomic Drop and the Diving Knee Drop. After thirty-two years in the wrestling game, the Bruiser retired in 1986.

According to police reports, the Bruiser walked into the Lindell Bar at 1:25 am on Tuesday, April 23, 1963. Karras was a co-owner. The Bruiser pointed at Karras and bellowed in his gravelly voice, "I want that fat, four-eyed bartender to serve me." He was belligerant and started verbally abusing Karras. Tavern co-owner Johnny Butsicaris refused to serve the Bruiser, and the wrestler grabbed Butsicaris and slugged him. Five patrons seeing this jumped the Bruiser and a brawl broke out. Butsicaris shouted to his uncle--Charles Kelly--to call the police.

Dick the Bruiser on a good day had an impulse control problem. Now, the Bruiser gave free range to his rage and virtually tore the bar apart. He ripped a television set off the wall and hurled it at his adversary. A vending machine was also destroyed. Karras took a chair or a pool cue--it's not clear which--and pasted the Bruiser in the face leaving a cut beneath his left eye that needed five stitches to close.

It took eight Detroit policemen to subdue the Bruiser with wrist and ankle manacles before taking him to jail. Two policemen were seriously injured. The Bruiser easily made bail and had to appear in a Detroit courtroom the following Monday morning where he was arraigned on assault and battery charges.

Both Karras and the Bruiser told the press that the brawl was not a publicity stunt to promote their upcoming Saturday wrestling match at Detroit's Olympia arena. Prior to the brawl, Karras had signed on to wrestle the Bruiser because he needed the cash. After the brawl, the Bruiser told reporters he had heard that Karras said he was a third-rate pro-football player. The Bruiser could not let the insult go unanswered.

On April 27, 1963, a mere five days after the public brawl, the two men were scheduled for a grudge match. A disappointing crowd of only 10,000 showed up for the match which lasted only eleven minutes and twenty-one seconds. The crowd thought the two men had sold out. It was a humiliating defeat for the out-matched Karras, who took a beating.


After his career with the Detroit Lions ended, Alex Karras became a television and movie actor, and co-host of ABC's popular Monday Night Football with Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford from 1974 until 1976. Suffering from dementia in his final years, Karras died of kidney failure at the age of seventy-seven on October 10, 2012.

After retiring from the ring, the Bruiser bought the National Wrestling Association and became a promoter. Dick the Bruiser died from internal bleeding on November 19, 1991 in Largo, Florida at the age of sixty-two. He was weightlifting with his adopted son when a blood vessel ruptured in his esophagus.