The Great Gama

The Great Gama
Birth nameGhulam Mohammed Baksh Butt[1]
Born(1878-05-22)22 May 1878
Jabbowal, Punjab, British India
(now in Punjab, India)[2][3][4]
Died23 May 1960(1960-05-23) (aged 82)[5]
Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
FamilyImam Baksh Pahalwan (brother)
Kalsoom Nawaz Sharif (granddaughter)
Maryam Nawaz (great-granddaughter)
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)Gama Pahalwan
Billed height5 ft 8 in (173 cm)[6]
Billed weight250 lb (110 kg)[6]

Ghulam Mohammad Baksh Butt (22 May 1878 – 23 May 1960), commonly known by the title Rustam-e-Hind[a] and by the ring name The Great Gama,[b][7] was a pehlwani wrestler and strongman in British India and later, Pakistan. In the early 20th century, he was an undefeated wrestling champion of British India.[8][9]

He was born in the Kashmiri Butt caste in Jabbowal village (Amritsar District) in the Punjab Province of British India in 1878,[2] and was awarded a version of the World Heavyweight Championship on 15 October 1910. Undefeated in a career spanning more than 52 years, he is considered one of the greatest wrestlers of all time.[10] After the partition of India, Gama migrated to Pakistan, where he died in the city of Lahore on 23 May 1960.[3][11][12]

The prominent members of Great Gama Family includes, The Great Jahara Pehlwan, Nasir Bholu, Sohail Pehalwan, Abid Pehalwan, Kalsoom Nawaz, Bilal Yasin (Ex-Federal Minister), Ibraz Butt (Youth Parliamentarian, Secretary of Information) [13] & Moazzam Zubair (Son of Jahara The Great)

  1. ^ "The Great Gama Pahelwan". thenews.com.pk.
  2. ^ a b Harris M. Lentz III (2003). Biographical Dictionary of Professional Wrestling, 2d ed. McFarland. p. 118. ISBN 978-0786417544. Gama the Great (Ghulum Mohammed; b. 1888, d. 1953; Amritsar, Punjab, India; 5'7", 250 lbs.) was from a prominent wrestling family in India.
  3. ^ a b "Here's The Story Of Gama 'The Undefeated' Pehalwan And How He Saved Hindus During 1947 Riots". India Times. 16 May 2017. Gama Pehalwan was born as Ghulam Mohammed in 1878 in Amritsar.
  4. ^ "The Great Gama and Lahore". Pakistan Today. 5 January 2018. Ghulam Muhammad later known as the Gama Pehalwan was born in Amritsar on May 22, 1878.
  5. ^ Nidaay-e-Millat, Urdu Weekly Magazine 21–27 July 2016. Lahore
  6. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference bio1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Garg, Chitra (2010). Indian Champions: Profiles of Famous Indian Sportspersons. Rajpal & Sons. p. 352. ISBN 978-81-7028-852-7. He managed to get the Indian wrestling style introduced in the international games. He is solely responsible for earning international fame for this form of wrestling and was given the title of 'Rustam-e-Hind.'
  8. ^ Green, Thomas A. (2001). Martial Arts of the World: A-Q. ABC-CLIO. p. 721. ISBN 978-1-57607-150-2. An early-twentieth century studio photo of the famous Indian wrestler The Great Gama (Ghulam Mohammed, 1878-1960).
  9. ^ Tadié, Alexis; Mangan, J. A.; Chaudhuri, Supriya (2016). Sport, Literature, Society: Cultural Historical Studies. Routledge. p. 41. ISBN 978-1-134-92024-2. In recent years, the history of modern Indian wrestling - or kushti - has begun to receive scholarly attention. Most accounts agree that the last decades of the nineteenth century saw the coming of the modern form of this ancient Indian sport, with Indian wrestlers emerging from the confines of their akhadas and fighting with their Western counterparts. Between 1910 and 1913, a wave of Indian wrestlers visited England and took the wrestling world by storm. The most iconic of them was the great Gama - the 'lion of Punjab' - arguably the greatest wrestler India has ever produced.
  10. ^ "The culture and crisis of kushti". The Hindu. 31 October 2013. Retrieved 2 July 2016.
  11. ^ Banerjee, Sarnath (10 March 2012). "Gamanamah: The story of a strongman". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 14 October 2013. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  12. ^ Hornbaker, Tim (2017). Legends of Pro Wrestling: 150 Years of Headlocks, Body Slams, and Piledrivers. Skyhorse Publishing. ISBN 9781613218754. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  13. ^ "YP135-NA-135 Lahore-XIII Ibraz Ajmal Butt". Youth Parliament. Retrieved 15 December 2023.


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