Ivan Maximovich Poddubny was a Zaporozhian Cossack-born Russian and a Soviet professional wrestler. He began his sports career around 1900; his career lasted for about forty years and he lost only two times.

Poddubny was born in 1871 into a Zaporozhian Cossack family in the village of Krasenivka, in the Zolotonosha Uyezd of the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Chornobai Raion of Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine). As a young man, Poddubny worked as a fitter in the ports of Sevastopol and Feodosiya for seven years, and in 1898 he started traveling with circus tours.

Repeatedly Ivan won Greco-Roman wrestling "World Cups" among professionals, including the most authoritative of them — in Paris (1905—1908). In 1925—1927 years performed in Germany and USA.

In November 1939, he was given the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR, and in 1945 that of Honored Master of Sports.

During the Nazi German occupation, he refused to leave the Soviet Union to train German wrestlers.

Poddubny maintained a lifelong professional rivalry with wrestler Stanislaus Zbyszko. He died undefeated on 8 August 1949, in the town of Yeysk, in the Kuban region in Southern Russia.

Championships, Accomplishments and Awards

• Six-time consecutive champion in Greco-Roman wrestling in 1905–1909, the first one to do so.
• Legion of Honour (1911)
• Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1939)
• Honoured Artist of the RSFSR (1939)
• Honoured Master of Sports of the USSR (1945)