He was a heel;
he was a hero.
He inflicted pain,
and he treated it.
And he didn’t know it at the time,
but over the next five decades,
he'd draw on these dueling identities
to forge a whole new way
to think about pain.
It'd change modern medicine
so much so, that decades later,
Time magazine would call him
pain relief's founding father.
But that all happened later.
In 1942, Bonica graduated
medical school and married Emma,
his sweetheart, whom he had met
at one of his matches years before.
He still wrestled in secret -- he had to.
His internship at New York's
St. Vincent's Hospital paid nothing.
With his championship belt,
he wrestled in big-ticket venues,
like Madison Square Garden,
against big-time opponents,
like Everett "The Blonde Bear" Marshall,
or three-time world champion,
Angelo Savoldi.
The matches took a toll on his body;
he tore hip joints, fractured ribs.