They may seem invincible in the ring, but it turns out that they're human just like us.
These pro wrestlers might be gone, but their names — and legacies — won't be forgotten.
Jimmy Snuka was one of the first men to show America that wrestling
could be more than a ground-based game. Performing his move,the Superfly Splash,
from the top rope helped him reach superstar status in the 1980s.
Still, Snuka's legacy has another, darker side. His mistress died under mysterious
circumstances in 1983, and a cloud of suspicion hung above the WWE Hall of Famer the rest of his
life. Snuka has always maintained that the woman died from a fall in their hotel room,
but the prosecutors suspected she had been beaten.
"So what happened, she fell?"
"Yeah. Yeah, banged her head, and you know?"
Although the death was initially ruled accidental, the victim's relatives successfully sued Snuka for
wrongful death. In 2013, an investigation by the Morning Call newspaper raised some
new questions about the case, and in 2015, Snuka was charged with third-degree murder
and involuntary manslaughter. The court dismissed the murder case because of Snuka's
advanced dementia and rapidly failing health. He died just one week later.
People who don't know Matthew "Rosey" Anoa'i's history might think that he was just a random
large man with a penchant for throwing people around the wrestling ring. However,
the tag-team expert was actually a member of the famous Anoa'i wrestling family. He was the
older brother of Roman Reigns and the cousin of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Despite his family's
notorious charisma, Rosey was never quite able to make it as a singles star. However,
he carved a niche for himself in the tag team division. He formed a successful team with The
Hurricane, and together, they captured the World Tag Team Championship in 2005.
Unfortunately, Rosey was a very, very massive man working a physically demanding job,
which did not help his odds of reaching old age. In 2017, at 47 years old, Rosey's
death was made public by the family. His actual cause of death has not been publicly released,
but he had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure and atrial fibrillation
in 2014. Despite the diagnosis, he continued to wrestle until his death.
Ludvig Borga was one of the many generic monster heels of the 1990s. The man behind the character,
on the other hand, was far from bland. Tony Halme never became what you'd call a WWF legend,
but that was just one stop in his strange career. Apart from wrestling,
he worked as a bodyguard before moving back to his native Finland and becoming a boxer, where
he won the national heavyweight championship and sold out arenas. He also tried to expand to MMA,
but opponents such as Randy Couture helped bring an end to that career.
Perhaps the strangest and most notorious move in Halme's career came in 2003, when he ran for the
Finnish parliament as a member of the True Finn party. He was elected and immediately started
championing strange and impossible policies, such as saving Finnish funds by sending drug
dealers to Russian prisons. His private life also became increasingly erratic. In 2004,
the esteemed Member of Parliament was arrested and given a suspended sentence for firearms and drug
violations. At this point, it was clear that Halme wasn't doing well. After several alcohol-related
arrests and a stint at a mental institution, the 47-year-old former heel died by suicide in 2010.
Reid Flair wasn't in the wrestling business for glory or championships,
or even cash. He was in the game mostly to get the respect of his father,
the legendary Ric Flair. This quest was cut tragically short in 2013 after
Ric found Reid in a hotel room in Charlotte, North Carolina, dead of an apparent overdose
of heroin and prescription medication. The younger Flair was only 25 years old.
"He came out and he said 'he didn't make it Ric. That was tough."
In 2015, what must have been the worst day of Ric Flair's life returned to haunt him in
a very unexpected way. His daughter Charlotte was the WWE Divas Champion at the time, and he
frequently fought on her side. One particular TV angle took a dark turn as wrestler Paige,
Charlotte's opponent in an upcoming match, started talking about Reid's death in an attempt
to provoke Charlotte. Ric Flair was deeply hurt by the decision to use his dead son to hype up a
match, but was afraid to say anything in case he'd accidentally sabotage Charlotte's career.
Jamin Pugh, who wrestled as Jay Briscoe, was known for performing with his brother Mark as
the Briscoe Brothers. They connected with the audiences with wrestling personas that
incorporated their real-life sibling relationship and chicken-farm backstory. Briscoe played a
redneck persona and his comments occasionally courted controversy, but behind the scenes,
he was also praised for setting an example and supporting LGBTQ+ wrestlers.
On January 17, 2023, Briscoe had a tragic traffic accident when an incoming pickup truck
unexpectedly changed lanes and crashed head-first into his car. Briscoe's two
daughters survived the crash, but both the wrestler and the driver of the pickup died.
Today, Ivan Koloff may seem like a generic villain, but in his heyday in the 1970s and 1980s,
he was a truly formidable presence. The "Russian Bear" was actually Canadian, but this didn't
stop him from wearing a hammer-and-sickle singlet and becoming a man everyone loved
to hate. He was known as a notorious, fan-favorite villain, and wrestling legends such as Ric Flair,
Hulk Hogan, and the Iron Sheik paid their respects to Koloff after he died.
The scary-looking Koloff was actually a sweet,
gentle person who became an ordained minister after his retirement in the 1990s.
"I turned my life over to the Lord in 1995 out of necessity."
In this capacity, he toured the world for over two decades,
before finally succumbing to liver cancer at the respectable age of 74.
Along with his real-life cousin and tag team partner Matt "Rosey" Anoa'i,
Edward Fatu was part of the esteemed Anoa'i family that has produced numerous top stars
of the industry. As his most famous character, "The Samoan Bulldozer" Umaga,
he won the WWE Intercontinental Championship and squared off with the company's top stars.
However, Fatu's time in the ring ended on a sour note. His repeated
violations of the WWE Wellness Program prematurely ended his
contract in June 2009. In December 2009, he died at just 36 years old.
Fatu's autopsy report revealed that he had died accidentally after ingesting muscle relaxants,
painkillers, and the anti-anxiety drug Diazepam. What's more, Fatu had a hypertensive
cardiovascular disease, as well as problems with his liver, both of which contributed to his death.
Japanese professional wrestler Hana Kimura was a second-generation talent who seemed
to have a stellar career ahead of her before she died by suicide in May 2020.
When Kimura joined the cast of the Japanese reality show "Terrace House," the show portrayed
her in a negative, aggressive light, which resulted in severe cyberbullying. Kimura and
her mother have both made known that the show deliberately portrayed her as an aggressive
villain archetype, which in turn drew the show's notoriously vocal fandom's online ire at her.
The connection between the fans' barrage of abusive comments and Kimura's death led to
Kimura's mother suing the production company and setting up a non-profit organization in
Kimura's memory. As of May 2021, three of Kimura's bullies have been identified and
sentenced to pay damages or fines — and after looking into its cyberbullying legislation,
Japan made online abuse an imprisonable offense in 2022.
Professional wrestling has its heroes and villains, but the people behind the
larger-than-life roles are generally just that — people. However, WWE wrestler-turned-actor Shad
Gaspard proved in his final moments that he was very much a hero in real life. On May 17,
2020, Gaspard was swimming with his son in Venice Beach, California, when a riptide swept
them away from the shore. When a lifeguard arrived to help, Gaspard put his son first.
"Some witnesses say that when the lifeguard went in to rescue Gaspard and his 10 year
old son they heard Gaspard yelling, 'Save my son first, save my son.'"
Immediately after giving the child to the lifeguard, Gaspard went with the waves.
His son made it, but the wrestler himself didn't, and he was found dead on May 20,
2020. Many wrestlers and wrestling personalities reacted to the news of Gaspard's death with shock
and sadness, and praised his determination to protect his son in his final moments. Dwayne
Johnson shared one of the most heartfelt tributes to his fallen colleague on Instagram, writing:
"Shad drowned in the ocean, but not before instructing lifeguards to save
his 10 year old son first. That's the love of a father. This is a tough one to process.
Love and light to Shad's family. And your warrior spirit lives on through your son."
Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri, the Iron Sheik, had a highly successful wrestling career and
an equally turbulent personal life. In his later years, the Sheik re-found fame
on social media. After his propensity for wild and colorful tirades caught the eye
of two Iranian-Canadian brothers, they teamed up with the ex-wrestler to set up
an X account in his name. The Sheik neither wrote nor posted the profane tweets himself,
but they proved popular nevertheless. Vaziri was 81 years old when he died on June 7, 2023.
The Iron Sheik was such a colorful villain figure that it's easy to forget he was a
legitimate amateur wrestler in Iran before moving to the United States. In his youth,
the Sheik almost made it to the Olympics, and at one point actually worked as a bodyguard
for the Shah. In the U.S. he became a fixture of the 1980s pro wrestling
scene and generally kept busy in a way that landed him a spot in the WWE Hall of Fame.
Known as "The Genius" and "Leaping Lanny," high-flying wrestler and
memorable wrestling manager Lanny Poffo died on February 2, 2023 at 68 years old.
Poffo was a great wrestling talent whose immediate family sometimes overshadowed
him — since his brother just so happened to be the iconic "Macho Man" Randy Savage.
As a wrestler, Poffo managed to connect with the audience using frisbees and poetry,
of all things. Poffo continued his popular streak with his "The Genius" gimmick,
which cast him in the heel role of the world's most intelligent man.
Randy Savage gave standing orders that he wasn't to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame unless
his father, who was also a wrestler, and his brother got the same treatment. After Savage's
death, Poffo overruled his brother's command and the wrestling legend entered the Hall of Fame.
Jerome "New Jack" Young died of a heart attack on May 14, 2021,
aged 58. New Jack's arguably most infamous hour put him in a tag-team match against D-Von Dudley
and a new wrestler called Mass Transit, who in reality was a 17-year-old kid named Erich
Kulas with zero wrestling experience. After Kulas requested New Jack to help him bleed, Jack cut
the boy so deeply that he started bleeding out, leading to a lawsuit and copious media attention.
New Jack had a difficult childhood, and spent two years in prison for
robbery before focusing on football and, not long afterward, turning to
pro wrestling. Considering his highly violent wrestling style and extracurricular activities,
it's easy to guess that New Jack was quite a polarizing figure. But nevertheless,
he was so respected that when he died, even the WWE, where he never wrestled, paid its respects.
WWE Hall of Famer "Sensational" Sherri Martel worked in multiple
wrestling promotions as both a wrestler and a manager. In the latter capacity,
she had storylines with many of the biggest male stars of the industry. On June 15,
2007, the 49-year-old Martel retired to her bed after feeling unwell, and was found dead shortly
afterward. An autopsy revealed several drugs in her system, but the death was deemed accidental.
The reason people might not have heard of Martel's death is that it happened shortly before one
of the most terrifying events in pro wrestling history — the horrific crimes of Chris Benoit,
who killed his family and died by suicide between June 22nd and June 24th, 2007. Strangely,
timing wasn't the only connection between these two tragedies. A friend of Martel,
Kevin Sullivan, was once married to Benoit's wife and victim, Nancy Benoit.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please dial or text 988 to speak with
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also seek help by visiting 988lifeline.org.