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Yet Another Professional Wrestling Death
I was planning on writing about my renewed interest in baseball today until I found out yesterday that Lance McNaught, known as Lance Cade in the WWE, died from heart failure at the age of 29 on Thursday night. I’d rather talk about baseball since it gave me a chance to hang out with friends after work and watch the Mariners win two games in a row, but this is a more important topic to be addressed.
I have to preface this with the fact that I wasn’t really a fan of Lance’s work, but he was the first wrestler to pass away at a younger age than I am at the moment (30) and that is affecting me rather profoundly. I’ve been watching since late 1997 and the list of wrestlers that have died from a number of causes between that time and now is unbelievably voluminous.
I’ve cleaned a few things up, but this is the list of wrestlers which have worked predominantly in the US that have died since I started watching. To make it easier, I’ll use their professional wrestling name. I’ll highlight the ones that have passed away under the age of 50 (courtesy of p.W.w.):
Bobo Brazil (74) – January 20, 1998 – Died from complications from a stroke.
Louie Spicolli (27) – February 15, 1998 – Died from arteriosclerotic heart disease caused by hypertrophic cardiomyopathy syndrome.
Junkyard Dog (45) – June 2, 1998 – Died in a car accident after falling asleep at the wheel.
Sky Low Low [midget wrestler] (70) – November 9, 1998 – Died from heart failure.
Shohei “Giant” Baba (61) – January 31, 1999 – Died from colon cancer.
Renegade (33) – February 23, 1999 – Committed suicide.
“Ravishing” Rick Rude (40) – April 20, 1999 – Died from a heart attack.
Owen Hart (34) – May 23, 1999 – Died from a 78 foot fall from the ceiling to the ring.
Mark Curtis [referee] (37) – September 8, 1999 – Died after a two year battle with stomach cancer.
Gorilla Monsoon (62) – October 5, 1999 – Died from a heart attack.
Bobby Duncum, Jr. (34) – January 24, 2000 – Died from a drug overdose.
Gordon Solie [commentator] (71) – July 27, 2000 – Died from throat cancer.
Toru Tanaka (70) – August 22, 2000 – Died from a heart attack.
Yokozuna (34) – October 22, 2000 – Died from a heart attack.
Johnny Valentine (72) – April 24, 2001 – Died of natural causes.
Tex McKenzie (73) – May 31, 2001 – Died of an aortic aneurysm.
Terry “Bam Bam” Gordy (40) – July 16, 2001 – Died from a blood clot in the heart.
Rhonda Singh (40) – August 2, 2001 – Died from a drug overdose which caused a heart attack.
“Gentleman” Chris Adams (46) – October 7, 2001 – Died from being shot to death.
Russ Haas (27) – December 15, 2001 – Died from a heart attack.
Wahoo McDaniels (63) – April 18, 2002 – Died from complications from renal failure and diabetes.
Lou Thesz (86) – April 28, 2002 – Died from natural causes after heart surgery earlier in the year.
Randy “Pee–Wee” Anderson [referee] (42) – May 5, 2002 – Died from testicular cancer.
Big Dick Dudley (36) – May 16, 2002 – Died from kidney failure.
“The British Bulldog” Davey Boy Smith (39) – May 18, 2002 – Died from a heart attack.
Rocco Rock (49) – September 21, 2002 – Died from a heart attack.
“Mr. Perfect” Curt Hennig (44) – February 10, 2003 – Died from acute cocaine intoxication.
Miss Elizabeth (42) – May 1, 2003 – Died from a combination of alcohol and painkillers.
“Classy” Freddie Blassie (85) – June 2, 2003 – Died from natural causes.
Stu Hart (88) – October 16, 2003 – Died from natural causes.
Hawk (46) – October 19, 2003 – Died from a heart attack.
Crash Holly (32) – November 6, 2003 – Died from a drug overdose.
Moondog Spot (51) – November 29, 2003 – Died after collapsing in the ring.
The Wall (37) – December 6, 2003 – Died from an acute heart attack.
Jack Tunney (69) – January 24, 2004 – Died from a heart attack.
Hercules Hernandez (46) – March 6, 2004 – Died in his sleep.
James Dudley (93) – June 1, 2004 – Died of natural causes.
Ray “Big Bossman” Traylor (41) – September 22, 2004 – Died from heart failure.
Chris Candido (33) – April 28, 2005 – Died from a blood clot and complications due to surgery.
Lord Alfred Hayes (76) – July 21, 2005 – Died from complications from a series of strokes.
Moondog King (56) – August 26, 2005 – Died from complications from a car accident.
Eddie Guerrero (37) – November 13, 2005 – Died from an enlarged heart due to years of drug use.
Johnny Grunge (39) – February 16, 2006 – Died from complications from sleep apnea.
Earthquake (42) – June 7, 2006 – Died from bladder cancer.
Bam Bam Bigelow (45) – January 19, 2007 – Died from a drug overdose.
Mike Awesome (42) – February 17, 2007 – Committed suicide.
Bad News Brown (63) – March 6, 2007 – Died from a heart attack.
“Big Cat” Ernie Ladd (68) – March 10, 2007 – Died from cancer.
“Sensational” Sherri Martel (49) – June 15, 2007 – Died from an accidental overdose.
Nancy “Woman” (Sullivan) Benoit [valet] (43) – June 25, 2007 – Died from strangulation.
Chris Benoit (40) – June 25, 2007 – Committed suicide after murdering his wife and son.
Brian “Crush” Adams (43) – August 13, 2007 – Died from an overdose of prescription medications.
The Missing Link (68) – August 16, 2007 – Died from cancer.
Fabulous Moolah (84) – November 3, 2007 – Died from complications due to surgery.
Gary Hart (66) – March 16, 2008 – Died from a heart attack.
Killer Kowalski (81) – August 30, 2008 – Died from complications from a heart attack.
S.D. Jones (63) – October 26, 2008 – Died from a stroke.
Test (33) – March 13, 2009 – Died from an accidental overdose of oxycodone.
“Playboy” Buddy Rose (56) – April 28, 2009 – Died from natural causes.
Capt. Lou Albano (76) – October 14, 2009 – Died from natural causes.
Umaga (36) – December 4, 2009 – Died from a heart attack.
“Dr. Death” Steve Williams (49) – December 29, 2009 – Died from throat cancer.
Ludvig Borga (47) – January 10, 2010 – Committed suicide.
Chris “Kanyon” Klucsaritis (40) – April 3, 2010 – Committed suicide.
Lance Cade (29) – August 13, 2010 – Died from heart failure.
As you can see, at least sixty-five wrestlers have passed since the beginning of 1998, which is roughly an average of five a year. Also, over half of these athletes were still in their physical prime when they passed.
I can’t say that I’m familiar with the work that all of these folks have done over the years, but I’m definitely familiar with the ones I’ve highlighted (as well as a good majority of the others) and to see all these wrestlers that I’ve watched over the years leave their families behind due to mistakes made through the wear and tear of the professional wrestling lifestyle is tragic.
When I was in my senior year of high school (1997-1998), I was a big wrestling fan and the people in high school that knew me knew that fact about me. I remember that more than one of them wrote in my yearbook that they knew they’d see me on TV wrestling. I was still entertaining the idea up until the Owen Hart tragedy (which I wrote about and had up on this site in days gone by), which soured me on it somewhat.
By the time I finished up college (which I wanted to do before pursing anything), close to 30 wrestlers had passed away since I started watching and I decided to stick with less physical ways of expressing my creativity. Another factor was that WWE was using a rather high-impact style at the time and a lot of the top guys were being put on the sidelines with broken necks.
It’s really astounding to see all the tragedy that has befallen folks that get into professional wrestling. The three that really affected me the most were Owen Hart, Eddie Guerrero, and Chris Benoit. The latter two caused me to stop watching for a while, especially since the both of them were among my favorite wrestlers. Eddie had lived a really hard life of abusing drugs, but was clean and sober for the last four years of his life. As you can see, the years of abuse caught up to him and I can’t believe that it’s been almost five years since he passed.
As far as the Chris Benoit case goes, that was all over the media in the middle of 2007, due to the fact that he murdered his wife (a former wrestling valet) and son and then killed himself. The speculation ran rampant about why he did this, though the most commonly accepted theory of steroid abuse is rather off-base. A test was done on his brain postmortem and it showed that due to all of the concussions he received from the unprotected chairshots and diving headbutts, he had the brain of an 85-year old Alzheimer’s patient.
Couple that with the loss of his best friend Eddie Guerrero (which he was never the same after), a demotion (going from being their world champ to working on their C-show in a matter of three years), possible turmoil at home (his son was thought to have Fragile X syndrome), and you have the perfect storm set up for what happened.
It’s interesting, because the Chris Benoit case had come up again on a forum the day before Lance Cade passed away due to some comments that Chris Jericho had made in his new book, and I was watching all the wrestler tributes (that were done before they had the full story) and some of the news footage – it was a bizarre time to be a wrestling fan in mid-2007.
There have been a lot of reforms in the wrestling industry since then and the WWE has a wellness policy in place that sends the performers found abusing prescription medications to rehab (if they choose to go) and Lance Cade had been to rehab for that issue at least once. It’s sad to see yet another one go and I hope the changes that the WWE has been making over the past few years with the wellness policy and having the wrestlers work a safer style will curb these deaths, but only time will tell.
RIP Lance McNaught and my condolences to your friends and family, especially the two young daughters that you’re leaving behind.
Discuss this post at the For the Love of Creativity Forum!
Posted on August 14th, 2010.
External Links
• p.W.w. – pWw--Everything Wrestling
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