Garcias fought in streets and ring, then helped kids
When Carlos Garcias was brought to Milwaukee by his adoptive mother in the 1950s, he already had two strikes against him.
“He was dark skinned, and he was Puerto Rican,” his brother, Sam Colón, said of the teen who grew into manhood on Milwaukee’s near south side, when discrimination was an accepted practice and where “rumbles” were considered a right of passage.
Garcias fought his way through the streets and into the ring, earning a humble but honest living as a part-time professional wrestler, factory worker, truck driver and long-time recreation aide who kept generations of south side kids on the straight and narrow.
“We knew our safety was in good hands,” said Carmen Rivas, who met Garcias at the South Division High School rec center when she was a kid in the 1980s. “The young guys did not clown with him.”
Funeral services will be held Thursday for Garcias, known in the wrestling ring as “Indian Pete,” who died May 10 after a stroke at age 79.
“He’d remind them about life’s consequences, and they respected him,” Rivas said.
He was born Carlos Garcias in Dominguito, a district in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, and was a toddler when Blanca Rosa Gonzales found him on a road shortly before she married Isidoro Colón.
“His father was killed over a card game, and his biological mother was destitute and overwhelmed with her other kids,” Sam Colón said.
“My mother told his mother that she’d take him in and raise him as her own, and she agreed.”
Isidoro Colón gave his last name to Carlos, who years later would locate his biological mother in Puerto Rico and reclaim his birth name.
In Milwaukee, Carlos attended Boys Trade and Technical High School and fell in with the National Avenue Rebels.
A Milwaukee Journal story from 1961 reported how Garcias and another youth were arrested during a fight on Vieau playground over leadership of the Rebels.
A couple of years later, The Journal pictured Garcias as a participant of a church-run work program connected to the Milwaukee Christian Center. He eventually straightened up, working on a fishing trawler and a material handler at Square D Co. and volunteering at The Spot, a teen center launched by the Christian Center that evolved into today’s United Community Center.
It was at the UCC where Garcias — who stood 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed 230 pounds — met Cesar Pabon, longtime UCC fitness director, bodybuilder and professional wrestler.
“He was strong and he was tough,” said Pabon, who taught Garcias the wrestling trade and recruited him into the American Wrestling Association in the early 1970s.
Throughout the 1970s, Garcias appeared on the AWA’s “All-Star Wrestling” TV show, worked the Midwest circuit and performed in local matches and “battle royals” against opponents like Randy Savage, Jim “The Animal” Fox and “King Kong Patterson.”
“But behind his rough exterior, he had a heart of gold,” his brother said.
Along with his wife and brother, Garcias is survived by his daughter, Jennifer Garcias; and a sister, Elba Colón.A visitation will be Thursday at 3 p.m. until a funeral service at 5 p.m. at Peace of Mind Funeral & Cremation Services, 5325 W. Greenfield Ave.