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Al Tomko (22 November 1931 – 5 August 2009) Obituary at 411mania.com was a Canadians professional wrestler and wrestling promoter.
Tomko acted as the AWA's Winnipeg promoter from 1966 through to the mid-1970s, and he was credited with launching the career of Roddy Piper. He also competed sometimes in Stampede Wrestling under a mask as Cosmo #1, and later wrestled without the mask in Stampede and in Vancouver's NWA All Star Wrestling as "Crazy Legs" Leroy Hirsch. In 1972, he started up another independent promotion called Central Canadian Championship Wrestling, which he ran in Manitoba cities and towns outside Winnipeg. He made use of mostly local talent, although he occasionally also brought in big-name stars for special appearances.
Tomko later left Winnipeg and headed to Vancouver, where he bought Sandor Kovacs' ownership stake in NWA All Star in 1977. While promoting the Vancouver territory, he began pushing himself as All Star's top star under the ring name Master Sergeant Tomko in the early-1980s (despite his age, being physically past his prime, and lacking wrestling skills) and gave himself almost all of All Star's championships (including the Vancouver version of the NWA Canadian Heavyweight title) at various points. Under Tomko's leadership, All Star went into decline (with co-owner Gene Kiniski selling his share of the company in 1985) and went out of business by 1989.
On 5 August 2009, Tomko died, aged 77, after a two-month bout with pancreatic cancer.
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