The Crusher, that craggy-faced, cigar-chomping senior citizen known as "the wrestler who made Milwaukee famous," will make his long-awaited local comeback tonight at the Rosemont Horizon.

"Chicago was always one of my favorite towns," rasped the Crusher, running his cement-mixer voice on low during a phone interview last week. "You got some of the best saloons in the world in that town, and I can't wait to get back to see all my favorite barmaids and bartenders."

The Crusher, who held the American Wrestling Association's world heavyweight championship three times during the 1960s, hasn't worked in the Chicago area since September, 1985. Now affiliated with the World Wrestling Federation, the Crusher will be in town to join Davey Boy Smith for a tag team match vs. the Hart Foundation.

As one of the British Bulldogs, Smith holds the WWF tag-team championship with his partner, the Dynamite Kid. The Bulldogs had agreed to defend their title against the Hart Foundation before the Dynamite Kid was sidelined with a serious back injury. Last week, when it was determined that the Kid would not be sufficiently recovered to work tonight, the WWF appointed the Crusher as Smith's partner in what has become a non-title bout.

"I'm gonna help Davey Boy take care of them sissies," growled the Crusher, referring to Hart Foundation partners Bret "Hit Man" Hart and Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart. "And if Jimmy Hart, that 'Mouth of the South' manager of theirs, comes anyhere near the ring, I'm gonna stick that megaphone of his right down his throat."

The other main event on tonight's card features a no-disqualification grudge rematch with Hulk Hogan defending his WWF world heavyweight championship against Kamala, the Ugandan Headhunter.

"That could be the toughest fight of Hogan's life," the Crusher said. "I wouldn't want that jelly-belly Kamala guy to land on me."

The Crusher said he is planning a wild victory party to celebrate his comeback.

"I'm gonna take Davey Boy to all my favorite joints in Chicago," he said. "I'll take him up and down Clark Street and Halsted Street and over to Greektown. He likes his beer, just like I do. But I'll tell ya somethin.' We may be goin' out of one joint and into another all night long, but we ain't gonna drink and drive. That's somethin' even I ain't crazy enough to do."

Local wrestling fans certainly will lift a beer or two tonight to toast the Crusher, one of the most popular characters ever to enter a ring in Chicago.

As a regular main event performer here from the early '60s through 1985, the Crusher joined partner Dick the Bruiser for some of the goriest and best-attended tag matches in local history. Bruiser and Crusher held the AWA tag-team titles on five occasions, and for short periods Crusher also held the tag title with Billy Robinson and Baron Von Raschke. Crusher and Baron lost the AWA tag belts to the Road Warriors in 1984.

The awesome Road Warriors are not the toughest men he has fought, the Crusher said. That honor goes to Maurice "Mad Dog" Vachon and his brother, Paul "The Butcher" Vachon, two former AWA stars who moved to the WWF. "Them Vachons were always chewin' on me," he said.

Like many other former AWA stars, including Hogan, [Blackjack] Mulligan and [Brad] Rheingans on tonight's card, the Crusher also left the Minnesota-based AWA to join the Connecticut-based WWF. Last year, he suposedly came out of retirement to work under a mask in the WWF as Crusher Machine.

"I had no hard feelings about the AWA," the Crusher said. "The best wrestlers in the world are in the WWF right now. And the money's better. I just figured this would be the best place for me to finish my career."

Larry Lisowski, Crusher's son, still does promotional work for the AWA. "That doesn't bother him or me," the Crusher said. "He does his thing and I do mine."

Milwaukee's best-known brawler said his WWF schedule allows him to take things easier than he did during his glory years with the AWA.

"I wrestle once or twice a week," he said. "I pick my spots. I stay in shape. I still weigh about 250. I work on the weights about three times a week. I live near the [Lake Michigan] lakefront, and I run and ride my bike down there."

During the '60s and '70s, the Crusher would describe his basc workouts as "running along the Milwaukee lakefront with a barrel of beer on each shoulder, then dancing the polka with fat Polish women." The barrel-chested heavyweight said he has altered his regimen in the '80s.

"I still carry the beer barrels, but now they're empty," he said. "And I never say a woman is fat. I call 'em the big dollies. Any woman who weighs under 200 pounds is small to me."

For a tough guy who still attacks opponents with his "bolo punch" and "stomach claw," the Crusher seems sensitive about his age. Although informed sources in the wrestling business say he's 60 or older, the Crusher insisted that he's still in his 50s.

"Yeah, and some people claim I was retired, too," he said. "I never retired. I just looked into a few business things that didn't work out.

"And I ain't ready to retire yet. I'd still like to win another championship before I'm through. Then I could quit on top.

"I always wanted to own my own saloon. That's what I want to do when I finally retire. I'm gonna buy me a saloon in Chicago, and open it up right across the street from Ditka's."