Early career Al Costello made his professional wrestling debut in 1938, but the man that would be known as "The Man of a Thousand Holds" 20 years later, found little success early in his career. The general belief in Australian professional wrestling at the time was that a wrestler had to go to North America and learn how to be a pro before the bookers would even consider
pushing them up the
card. Later that year, Costello and Heffernan started working for
Dory Funk's
NWA Western States promotion based in
Amarillo, Texas. Here, The Kangaroos won their first title as a team when they defeated Pepper Gomez and El Medico to win the Texas version of the
NWA World Tag Team Championship on 17 November 1958. Their first title reign was short lived, however, as Gomez and
Rito Romero defeated them to regain the titles two weeks later. Between 1957 and 1965, The Kangaroos wrestled in the United States, Canada, Asia and select tours of Australia and New Zealand. They worked for such companies as
Capitol Wrestling Corporation (the future World Wrestling Entertainment),
Championship Wrestling from Florida,
NWA Ohio, the
Japan Wrestling Association and the World Wrestling Association in
Los Angeles, California. The Internationals worked mainly in
Tennessee and
Texas for NWA Western States. In Texas, Costello and Von Brauner won the Texas version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, a title Costello and Heffernan had held in 1958. The team was also billed as the first
NWA American Tag Team Champions, titles that were also recognized by
World Class Championship Wrestling in addition to the Western States promotion. The Internationals lost the American Tag Team title to
Fritz and
Waldo Von Erich on 21 February 1967. After recovering from his hip surgery, Costello returned to active competition at age 56. The fact that he was able to recover from such a major injury is credited to his almost-fanatical style of healthy living. As a devout
vegan, Costello credited his meat-free diet with his recovery, as well as the remarkable shape he was in for a man of his age. On 14 May 1994, Kass and Snow defeated Canadian Lighting again to win the
Border City Wrestling (BCW) Can-Am Tag Team Championship, unifying the two tag team championships. A week later, The New Fabulous Kangaroos lost both sets of titles to
Scott D'Amore and "Irish" Bobby Clancy. After losing the unified MCW/BCW Tag Team championships, The New Kangaroos split up; Snow focused on his
World Wrestling Federation career while Costello retired for good, never making another wrestling related appearance.
Death On 22 January 2000, Costello died from a combination of
pneumonia and
heart problems, in Clearwater, Florida. In 2003, Al Costello and Roy Heffernan became the first tag team to ever be inducted into the
Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame. Since that time, the Hall of Fame has honored other tag teams, but The Fabulous Kangaroos were given the honor of being the first. In the tradition of the Kangaroos, they were "billed as champions on arrival" one last time. ==Championships and accomplishments==