Having a big family Poddubny senior had a difficult time to provide for them, therefore Ivan was forced to leave his father's house before turning 20.

[1] As a young man, Poddubny worked as a fitter in the ports of Sevastopol and Feodosiya for seven years earning a nickname of Ivan the Great.

[1] Sometime in 1903, Poddubny joined the Saint Petersburg Athletic Club with which he participated in World Championships in Moscow and Paris.

[1] In 1905 he became the World Champion in wrestling in Paris and later toured Italy, Algeria, Belgium, Berlin, winning a championship in Nice.

[1] In 1907 Georg Hackenschmidt spots four strong wrestlers: Constant Le Marin, Stanislaus Zbyszko, Ivan Poddubny and Joe Rogers.

[1] Ivan repeatedly won Greco-Roman wrestling "World Cups" among professionals, including the most authoritative of them – in Paris (1905–08).

[3] According to the Krasenivka museum, he did not waste his money earned during fights and upon his return home bought 200 ha (490 acres) of land, two houses in a neighboring Bohodukhivka village, a small store, a churn shop, two mills one of which was located in Orzhytsia (today a town in Poltava Oblast).

[1] In 1920s he was touring the United States staying undefeated while visiting New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco.

[1] According to the director of the Krasenivka museum, Ivan had three sisters (Motrona, Maryna, and Yevdokiya) and three brothers (Omelyan, Mykyta, and Mytrofan).

[1] It is also known that both Motrona and Maryna had three children each, yet the most close relations Ivan kept with his youngest sister Yevdokiya and was as godfather of her daughter Mariya.