Professional wrestling is a dangerous job, and it's not uncommon for wrestlers to pass
away before their time.
For some of them, the end comes before they even leave the ring.
Here are professional wrestlers who died in the ring, sometimes with an audience and sometimes
without.
Mitsuharu Misawa is one of the biggest names of all time in Japanese wrestling.
He rose to fame in the 1980s as "Tiger Mask," a character who, naturally enough, wore a
tiger-themed mask.
He was so popular that when he unmasked in 1990, his fame only increased.
In 2009, he was a 46-year-old veteran who had been named professional wrestler of the
year three times and was still competing.
The tragic match that cut Misawa's stellar career short occurred on June 13, 2009.
One of his opponents gave him a back suplex, a fairly common move.
However, what happened next shows that nothing in wrestling is truly routine, and even the
most basic moves can turn into tragedies.
Misawa didn't move after the impact.
The match was immediately stopped.
All the wrestlers surrounded the ring, and the crowd softly chanted Misawa's name as
doctors and nurses tried to administer CPR.
He was declared dead at a hospital, though he was likely already lifeless before he was
moved away from the ring.
The official cause was heart failure.
Malcolm "King Kong" Kirk was a well-known British monster heel, and a frequent tag team
partner of the even more massive Giant Haystacks.
This former rugby player didn't use a gimmick, as his 350-pound frame was more than enough
to intimidate his opponents.
On August 23, 1987, Kirk faced off against Shirley "Big Daddy" Crabtree, who said Kirk
had the strength of three people.
The match proceeded exactly as planned right up until the end, when Big Daddy gave Kirk
his finishing move: a big splash that saw him jumping on his prone opponent.
Kirk never kicked out from that finisher.
The 50-year-old powerhouse was left lying in the ring, but it wasn't the finishing move
that killed him.
An inquest of the incident discovered that Kirk died of a pre-existing heart condition.
Big Daddy was cleared of all responsibility, and even Kirk's widow said she held no ill
will against her deceased husband's final opponent.
"As long as I live, I'll never forget seeing him laid down there, on the canvas, instead
of on his feet raging and, you know, and flying about."
Wayne Van Dyke, aka Richard Delicious, was an independent wrestler working Florida's
small promotions.
He was just 29 years old when he suffered a series of heart attacks that started during
a tag team match at an event arranged by the Ronin Pro Wrestling promotion.
He complained to his tag partner that he wasn't feeling well and suffered the first heart
attack right after tagging himself out.
After that, things went from bad to worse.
The attempts to give him CPR on the scene left Van Dyke with at least one broken rib
and a punctured lung.
He then suffered a second heart attack on his way to the hospital.
When he finally reached the facility, he had a third one.
At that point, hospital staff had to put him in a medically induced coma.
Unfortunately, the damage was too much for his system, and Van Dyke's family soon confirmed
the wrestler's passing on Facebook.
Japanese wrestler Plum Mariko died in the ring after her opponent power bombed her in
1997.
It wasn't until after the match that the other wrestlers realized that she still hadn't moved
and was now snoring, which was a sign that her brain was bleeding.
She was rushed to the hospital, but surgery couldn't save her.
The 29-year-old died of brain damage.
Mariko had accumulated a collection of nasty injuries over the years, including multiple
concussions and an undiagnosed brain abscess.
Doctors believe she died because of the combined effects of these injuries, rather than a single
one from the power bomb.
They also said that if she had been examined earlier she likely would've lived because
no doctor would've let her wrestle in her condition.
Mariko's passing was the first in-ring wrestling death in Japan.
What makes her fate even more tragic is that the signs of brain damage were there.
Owen Hart was a member of the legendary Hart wrestling family.
At the time of his death in 1999, his gimmick was a masked superhero character known as
"The Blue Blazer."
For the May 1999 "Over the Edge" show, the WWF decided to give him an entrance befitting
a superhero in which he would fly in.
An elaborate system of wires was set up to lower him to the ring from the rafters above.
But the system malfunctioned while he was 78 feet above the ring, sending him plunging
down as he hit the top rope and then bounced into the ring.
Though the incident never made it to television, the 16,000 people at Kansas City's Kemper
Arena witnessed the futile attempts by the medical staff to revive Hart, who died of
internal bleeding.
At first, some of the audience members thought the whole thing was a stunt and that the falling
figure had been a doll.
However, this impression wouldn't last long.
The ring announcer soon informed the audience that what had just happened was completely
unscripted.
Before the event was over, WWF commentator Jim Ross announced to the world that Hart
was dead.
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