He was born in Karalar village of Sumnu, Deliorman region in 1857. He started wrestling when he was a little child.
He became the champion of oil wrestling in 1884 after beating the 26 year champion Kel Aliço.

He went to Paris for wrestling in 1894 and turned back to Turkey without being defeated as a first Greco-Roman wrestler of the country.

He went to USA in 1898 and won all of his matchs in NewYork, Washington, Chicago and Clevaland. American newspapers praised him a lot for 6 months before his death.

Yusuf lost in Atlantic after an accident on the 4th of July,1898 when he was on his way back to Turkey.

According to a speculation, his collapsed body reached to Azores Islands after the accident and he had been buried to the garden of one of the churches in the islands by a priest.