Aside from being consistently awesome as a wrestler, the Iron Sheik is also one of the
sport's more tragic figures — so much so that it's almost a miracle he's still alive.
From personal tragedy, to bad decisions, to flat out pure pain, the Iron Sheik has lived
a rough life.
The Iron Sheik, birth name Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri, was born in Iran in 1942. He grew
up poor, with much of his family's meager income coming from his father's business growing
pistachios.
Like many young Iranians of his generation, the Iron Sheik's hero growing up was Olympic
wrestler Gholamreza Takhti. A four-time Olympian and three-time medalist, including a gold
medal at the 1956 summer games in Melbourne, he inspired the Sheik to take up wrestling.
Sheik recalled to Bidoun magazine that at age 15,
"I wanted to show my parents I could be big just like him."
In 1968, Takhti was found dead in a hotel room. His death was officially ruled a suicide,
but many believe that he was killed by the Iranian government for his work against the
existing regime. The death served as a wake-up call for the Sheik, who later recalled,
"I knew I had to leave. If Iran was not good for Takhti, it was not good for me."
Iron Sheik will always be largely remembered for his legendary bout with Hulk Hogan. Sheik
taking the leg drop, dropping the title, and kicking off Hulkamania is one of the most
important moments in wrestling history — perhaps even the most important moment. Since then,
Sheik has had a running public feud with Hogan.
Sheik claims he has a reason for the hatred, and it's one of wrestling's most persistent
rumors.
After a brief run in the WWF, Hogan spent the first few years of the '80s working with
the American Wrestling Association out of Minnesota under owner Verne Gagne. Hogan returned
to the WWF in 1983, with Vince McMahon planning to make Hogan the new face of his company
with the Iron Sheik bout. The longstanding rumor is that a bitter Gagne offered Sheik
$100,000 to break Hogan's leg and take the WWF World Heavyweight Championship back to
Minnesota, an offer Sheik turned down after informing McMahon.
It's a story Sheik has told for decades, and Hogan himself claimed the story of the bribe
was true on The Steve Austin Show.
"Little did I know, Vernon contacted the Sheik and said 'I'll give you 100 grand if you break
Hogan's leg. You know?"
Longtime wrestling personality Bruce Pritchard confirmed on his own podcast, Something to
Wrestle, that he had also heard the story at the time directly from the Sheik.
Playing a heel in an era when kayfabe was very much alive didn't just mean beating up
heroes, it meant making the audience believe you were a terrible person. Wrestlers and
managers from the '70s and '80s often tell stories of death threats, with many taking
pride in them — it meant they were doing their job.
Manager Jim Cornette framed many of the death threats he received, showing them off in an
episode of The Dark Side of the Ring. The Iron Sheik was no different, and the identification
of him as a sort of foreign enemy added an extra level of danger to his character for
American audiences.
It's been reported that security had to sneak him out of the arena in ambulances because
fans would try to attack him if he showed up in his own car. He was often grabbed by
fans mid-match, and reportedly stabbed on several occasions. It was a dangerous enough
situation that he forbade his family from traveling with him.
In 1987, Hacksaw Jim Duggan and the Iron Sheik were pulled over on the Jersey Turnpike while
headed to a show. The cops found a small amount of weed on Duggan and an eight ball of cocaine
in the Sheik's bag. This arrest caused two problems: one professionally, and one personally.
It was also a harbinger of things to come.
Professionally, it hurt both Sheik and Duggan because the two were feuding at the time — and
sharing a car while kayfabe was still a critical part of the business was bad all around. Why
would two mortal enemies carpool, much less party together?
The event infuriated Vince McMahon, declaring in a locker room meeting that the two would
never work for him again. In typical wrestling fashion, both were eventually rehired — but
not before taking a big hit to their careers.
Personally, it hurt because the news eventually made its way down to his home in Atlanta.
It wasn't just a small news piece, either — it was picked up by the AP and also appeared
on the front page of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Sheik's wife Caryl pulled their daughters
out of school for three days.
The event was also a preview of the drug problems that would haunt him in the decades to come.
During the lowest point of the Iron Sheik's life in the early-to-mid 2000s, he was unable
to stay out of trouble. This, in and of itself, isn't all that surprising. What made it tough
was that his celebrity and natural charisma made it hard for him to face the consequences
necessary for change.
As an example: in 2005, his family forced him into rehab, saying he was a danger to
himself and others. While in rehab, an employee — likely a fan — snuck an eight ball of
cocaine in for the wrestler.
Tanya, one of the Sheik's daughters, explained her frustrations from this era to Bleacher
Report, saying:
"People were taken by his celebrity, and they wanted him to like them. When the cops would
arrest him, they'd drive him home instead of bringing him to jail. Every time we'd try
to help him, he'd charm these fans, and they'd push back against us."
The most tragic moment of the Iron Sheik's life happened outside of the wrestling ring.
He faced the worst pain a parent can imagine: the death of his daughter. Marissa Vaziri,
a mere 27 years old, was strangled to death by her boyfriend Charles Warren Reynolds on
May 2, 2003.
The Sheik was already vulnerable, having recently come out of knee surgery, and this pushed
him over the edge. The murder sent him into a spiral, often called the lowest point in
his life. His wife Caryl told Yahoo! Sports how much the death hurt him:
"He was this big strong guy that everyone had relied on for so long. And in this situation,
there was nothing he could do to save her. It devastated him that he couldn't have been
there and tried to save her."
As tragic as the death of Marissa was, a depressed and furious Iron Sheik almost made it worse.
He had a plan: he was going to kill Charles Warren Reynolds during his court hearing.
This wasn't just the grim fantasies of a grieving father — Sheik hid a razor blade in his
cheek and sat in the gallery. The plan was to wait for an opportune moment, barrel past
the guards, spit out the razor, and cut Reynolds's throat.
His wife Caryl got wind of the plan, and his family colluded to make sure the wrestler
couldn't pull it off. They boxed him in near a wall and all sat around him, forcing the
immobile Sheik to have less of a chance to spring. During this time, his daughter Tanya
reportedly whispered, quote, "You can't kill him 'cause they'll put you in prison. I lost
my sister and I don't want to lose my father."
This was enough to keep Sheik calm during the hearing, and he pledged to quit drugs
as a tribute to his deceased daughter.
The Iron Sheik grew up avoiding drugs and alcohol, consistent with the Shiite Islam
beliefs he grew up with, but that changed after entering the wrestling industry. He
claimed to Bleacher Report that he first started using drugs after fellow wrestler Jimmy "Superfly"
Snuka offered him a joint. The industry's loose attitude towards partying saw Sheik
abuse just about every substance imaginable.
It's easy to get caught up in all the legendary stories of what he did during the height of
his addictions. It's fun to think about him belly-to-belly suplexing fellow wrestlers
through hotel beds, or stashing his cocaine in someone else's clothing while trying to
get across the Canadian border. But all of this overlooks the fact that he was a very
sick man who kept getting fired from his job and putting himself and others in danger.
His drug addiction only got worse after he stopped wrestling. There were regular reports
of him acting aggressive and violent towards others, even at conventions. His home life
was a mess, with his family both worrying for his life and living in fear. He managed
to quit several times, but often came back. His hardest relapse came after his daughter's
death, when he started calling his drugs "medicine."
In 2007, Caryl couldn't handle her husband's addictions and erratic behavior anymore, and
when the Sheik was out of town, she moved out. She later recalled to Bleacher Report,
"I could no longer beg him to quit. We had lost our daughter. We were all sad and depressed.
But enough was enough."
The separation lasted for two years, and ended only after Sheik agreed to sever ties with
the man who'd accompany him to drug purchases. According to Sheik's daughter Tanya, this
man had become her father's best friend.
Severing this friendship was tough, but it was also possibly the best thing that could
have happened to him. He was forced to take sobriety seriously and moved back in with
his wife.
While Sheik has said he still drinks beer, he claims to have been cocaine free since
2009. He told Bleacher Report in 2013,
"It was pretty hard. But I don't miss it anymore."
The Sheik had beef with Toronto Mayor Rob Ford after the mayor's crack scandal. In November
2013, Sheiky Baby showed up at Toronto City Hall and challenged Ford to an arm wrestling
match.
"Do you want to beat the mayor in an arm wrestle?"
"Absolutely, that's why I'm here!"
When asked for his feelings toward Ford, the Sheik told the Ottawa Sun,
"The man eats a cheeseburger and smokes crack. What kind of role model is that for the city?
I just want to know if he is a real man or not."
In April 2014, with the Toronto mayoral race gearing up, the Iron Sheik was in the city
promoting his documentary. He arranged a meeting at a local eatery with Olivia Chow, a politician
with the left-wing New Democratic Party and — at that time — the leading candidate
to win the race.
At the meeting, Sheik proclaimed, "God bless her, and I want all the people in Toronto
to vote for Olivia Chow to become the mayor of Toronto!"
Not long after the meeting, the right-wing apparatus in Canada came gunning for Chow.
The National Post ran a column criticizing the meeting and endorsement, using the Iron
Sheik's long history of inflammatory statements, in-character or otherwise, as a bludgeon against
her reputation. Chow apologized for taking the meeting.
The producers of The Sheik documentary released a statement about the incident, saying,
"We are not amused by an agenda-driven newspaper's transparent attempt to use [the movie]...
as a political football to embarrass a Mayoral Candidate the paper does not editorially support."
Chow ended up finishing third, though it's a stretch to say the Sheik had anything to
do with that.
There's a reason you should never call wrestling "fake" around actual wrestlers, especially
old timers: the damage to their body was real. Many deal with back pain, heart issues, and
all sorts of assorted health issues. The Iron Sheik is no different — he's spent years
suffering from knee and ankle injuries that bother him even in peaceful moments.
The Sheik had surgery on both his knees in the mid-2000s, a surgery that both he and
his wife say didn't work. His wife says that his bones are out of alignment and walking
is painful. Some of the proceeds from his 2014 The Sheik documentary were used to pay
for his double knee and ankle surgery.
It's hard to find a picture of the Iron Sheik from the past decade or so where he isn't
walking with a cane or getting carted in a wheelchair. When Yahoo! Sports went to interview
him, he initially told them to come back later because he was in too much pain to answer
questions. When asked during a Reddit AMA if he'd ever come back for a guest appearance
in WWE, the answer was flatly no, due to the damage that his body had already endured.
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, please call the Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Administration's 24/7 National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP. That's 1-800-662-4357.