My money’s on Lincoln.
When challenged to a duel in 1842, he chose broadswords in a pit. That’s not a duel for the feint-of-heart. I’m pretty certain he (at 6’5) could go toe-to-toe with anyone you put him up to – even 6’3 Washington.
“Mr. Lincoln’s remarkable strength resulted not so much from muscular power as from the toughness of his sinews. He could not only lift from the ground enormous weight, but could throw a cannonball or a maul farther than anyone in New Salem.”
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the U.S., was such an accomplished wrestler that once, after disposing of an opponent with a single toss, he stepped to the center of the mob that had gathered and shouted, “Any of you want to try it, come on and whet your horns!”
No one stepped forward.
“We can only find one recorded defeat of Lincoln in 12 years,” says Bob Dellinger, director emeritus of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Okla., where Lincoln is enshrined in the Hall of Outstanding Americans.
Granted, Washington did a bit of wrestling in school, but that was the pansy “let’s get into position, and… go!” wrestling. Not barroom brawling.