IGX

DEATH OF A DYNASTY

"Somewhere along the way, a cute marketing concept decayed into a macabre body count." -- Irvin Muchnick, Penthouse Magazine, in a 1988 article "Born Again Bashing" about the Von Erich family

"I was shocked that Kerry killed himself. But I wasn't shocked at all that he died." -- Terry Simms, pro wrestler and one of Kerry's closest friends.

Fantasy vs. reality. For most people in the real world, for the most part, they know the difference. In pro wrestling, among both its performers and its fans, sometimes the line gets a little blurred. Often that's dismissed as simply harmless. But sometimes when the line is blurred for long enough, or the difference is no longer perceptible, or even worse, when the fantasy becomes the reality, it creates a situation of potential danger. The danger is that the day may come when the bubble is burst and the fantasy is over and one isn't equipped to deal with the reality.

The bubble must have come close to bursting several times over the past decade for Kerry Gene Adkisson, who had lived in many ways the ultimate fantasy life up until he was in his mid-20s. The reality after that period was the harshest imaginable. Three brothers died. His other brother suffered a near death experience. One of his brothers' children died at birth. He was involved in a motorcycle accident that left him crippled. The company that was his by birthright went out of business, ending with him having little money left to his name. The superstardom that was seemingly his not only by birthright but through ability and charisma as well, slowly slipped away. Because he was broke, he hooked up with the biggest wrestling company in the world, and for a time, he was getting to relive his past fame. But in doing so, they originally planned to take away his beloved family name. While he kept his name, the legendary status of it and favored treatment the name Von Erich meant were no longer the case. Slowly the reality that he wasn't what he once was moved him from superstar to preliminary status. The recreational drug problems continued. Soon, the drugs that created his beloved physique were banned as well, causing his beloved muscles to shrink to ungodlike normality. Eventually, he lost that job as well, and the money that went with it, and was only working once or twice a week, earning the kind of money that he often blew nightly during his years of living the ultimate fantasy, on good times. He was broke, and was in trouble with the IRS to the point that he was auctioning off his wrestling memorabilia from his famous title win over Ric Flair at wrestling conventions. His parents, the cornerstone behind the so-called perfect family unit, split up. His own marriage had its ups and downs. Yet in his own way, he was able to somehow shield himself, at least to a point, from reality by drawing upon the fantasy.

The fantasy was that he was Kerry Von Erich, the Modern Day Warrior. He was one of the great athletes in the world. He had the perfect physique. He was nearly unbeatable at wrestling, and in fact, was the uncrowned World champion. He was the second-youngest man ever to hold the most famous and prestigious wrestling belt in the world and he won it from the greatest wrestler of our time in the most emotional setting and in front of one of the biggest crowds and in one of the most famous matches the wrestling world had ever seen. He was loaded with charisma. He'd have gone to the Olympics in the discus if Carter hadn't called for the boycott or if some heel wouldn't have stomped on his shoulder just before the try-outs that in reality he was never going to attend in the first place. He was rich. He had the hottest car. He could literally do no wrong, because even if he did, since he was a Von Erich, it would always be taken care of. Whatever he wanted, someone would take care of for him because he was Kerry Von Erich, son of the greatest wrestler the world had ever seen and son of one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the community. He was the object of desire for every female in the state of Texas, and plenty in other states as well. Everyone else wanted to be his friend. Anywhere he went he was mobbed by autograph seekers. Every night he stepped into the ring, the cheers were as loud for him as nearly anyone in the history of a business that was his. He was born to be a demigod. Hell, he was a demigod, at least he was every night when he stepped into the ring in the minds of most of the people in the building and to enough hangers-on out of the ring that he was able to never have to leave the fantasy. He was born into the perfect Christian family, inherited the greatest athletic genes, and through his never-ending search for athletic perfection, achieved dizzying heights of fame. He and his brothers were going to rule the wrestling world.

On Wednesday, February 17, the fantasy world of Kerry Von Erich was about to end. He was indicted that morning on cocaine possession charges stemming from a January 13 arrest. He was already serving ten years probation for forging drug prescriptions during a time about one year earlier when he was supposed to be attending rehab. While it was not a guarantee, the odds were very good that his probation would be revoked and he would be sent to prison. It appears Kerry at least believed that was going to be his future. In prison, there would be no evenings where hundreds of women would screech every time he took off his ring jacket. No women would send him roses and fantasize or realize time with him. There were no world title matches to be won. No ugly heels were going to sell big when he said "discus." There was almost no family left. The drugs that made him a modern-day Warrior, the steroids, weren't going to be available. The drugs he took, just because they were available and plentiful, and the ones he took to numb both the physical and mental pain, were going to be gone. The drugs he took to escape from the reality were also going to be history. He could no longer lie and con, traits that had been instilled in him at a young age because the marks would always believe a Von Erich because they fought the fans' fantasy enemies, nor have everyone that surrounded him believe he was something that he wasn't. Perhaps the worst thing of all was he'd have to come to grips with the fact that the fantasy that was his professional life and became much of his personal life wasn't reality. He'd have to face what the reality really was. The night of his death, a long-time family friend theorized that if Kerry hadn't have taken his life that afternoon, he would have almost certainly done so in his first week in prison.
When he learned Thursday morning of his indictment, he apparently set out to kill himself. But those who knew him well, or even casually, seem to believe this wasn't a spontaneous decision.

Many of his friends recalled in the past few days Kerry would come over, for seemingly no reason, hug them, say "I love you," and then leave. Some were confused by his actions initially. In hindsight, they realized he had been saying his good-byes. It may have seemed unusual, but unusual in Kerry's case wasn't unusual. Terry Funk, who saw Von Erich a few weeks earlier in Philadelphia, remembered him coming up to him and reminiscing about when he and his brothers feuded with Terry and his brother in Amarillo during the early days of his career, talking about it being some of the happiest moments of his life. On January 27, one week before is 33rd birthday, he and his probation office, Gary Hunter, had their routine meeting and he talked of suicide.

"He talked about it then," Hunter said in an article in the Dallas Morning-News. "He said he missed his brothers and said he just didn't feel like going on." Hunter said Kerry rejected his advice to seek counseling for his suicidal feelings and his continuing drug addictions.

"In his own way, he came to say good-bye to me on Monday," remembered Terry Simms, a Dallas wrestler who was one of his best friends. "He came into the (health) club, hugged me and said, `I miss you when you're not around.' It bothered me for a couple of days because it was really strange. His hair wasn't combed. He hadn't shaved. He looked terrible. I'm sure that everyone he came in contact with the last two weeks thought the same thing.

"He didn't want to go to prison. He had told people that if he got indicted, he'd kill himself.
"Is prison really that bad? So he may have had to spend a year in prison. It may have been the best thing that ever happened to him. He had two daughters that he loved deeply. Anyone who was ever around him could tell that in a second."

His father said Kerry had frequently mentioned taking his own life. His wife Cathy, whom he had an on-again, off-again relationship with over the years, hid all the guns from the house. He said the same strange goodbyes to the woman and her mother whom he had been living with the past few weeks, and headed to his father's ranch.

As he had done with everyone else he felt close to, when he arrived at 1:30 p.m., he hugged his dad and told him he loved him, borrowed the .44-calibre Magnum handgun he had given his father for Christmas in 1991 and borrowed his father's jeep telling him that he needed to find a quiet spot to do some thinking.

About 45 minutes later, his father, who in his own fantasy life was the legendary Fritz Von Erich, got worried. Jack Adkisson had built a company largely to package and hype his alter ego as the greatest wrestler of all-time and his children as the prodigal sons. He was the father of the ultimate fantasy family of athletes, but in reality he had already lost four of his six sons, none of whom saw their 26th birthday. He knew Kerry had to pick up his two daughters, nine-year-old Holly and six-year-old Lacy, from school. He searched on his ranch and found that the jeep was empty. Then found the body partially hidden from the thicket. Apparently Kerry had shot himself in the heart.

The death marks the end of one of the most bizarre family stories any of us will ever know. The story is far beyond the significance of simply the pro wrestling world that the family was once among the most powerful and recognizable members of. The Von Erich dynasty, what at one time seemed to have been a brilliant marketing plan by Jack Adkisson dating back to the late 60s, saw the seeds bloom on Christmas night of 1982, and for the next 16 months he owned the hottest and most innovative wrestling company in the world. The cornerstones were his three young, athletic and at the time almost interchangeable sons. The youngest of the three, Kerry, was rivalled by only Hulk Hogan in Minneapolis and Jimmy Snuka in New York as the most popular wrestler in the country. Certainly, in terms of attracting new fans and a young audience, "The Modern Day Warrior" stood as almost a sure-bet to become the biggest wrestling star in the world before too many more years were finished. While other promotions quickly caught up and surpassed Jack Adkisson's company, the marketing plan was still in tact for a successful regional business. The Von Erichs were still the kings of North Texas. The first Wrestlemania, which rocked the nation, died in Dallas. The Saturday Night Main Events of the WWF, at the time a ratings success story around the country, was destroyed head-to-head by Adkisson's local television show on KTVT. The life didn't immediately get squeezed away from the territory, but instead lives themselves started ending, one after another, a body count that engulfed the wrestling world with morbid fascination. The dynasty pretty well ended in April of 1987, with the death of Jack's fifth son, Michael, and third to die, at the age of 23, a suicide caused by overdosing on Placidyl. Michael had been involved with frequent scrapes with the law during the last year of his life, and his death had been eerily predicted just two weeks before it happened by Jack's booker, Frank "Bruiser Brody" Goodish. Goodish was the only wrestler in the glory era who rivalled the sons' popularity in Texas and in a bizarre turn of fate, he would be murdered just over one year later in a Puerto Rican dressing room.

Less than one month after Mike's death, the fourth annual David Von Erich Memorial Parade of Champions took place at Texas Stadium. Only it was changed to the David and Mike Von Erich Memorial show. Even the Dallas fans, who had a national reputation for being the most blindly loyal fans to the family of any fans in the world, suddenly woke up. Three years earlier, when David's death was memorialized at Texas Stadium and drew what was at the time the second-largest gate in pro wrestling history (32,123 fans live paying $402,000 trailing only the Bruno Sammartino vs. Larry Zbyszko 1980 match at Shea Stadium), many of Jack's former closest friends and fellow compadres in the admittedly seedy business, were repulsed at the attempt to make money capitalizing on his sons' death.

"When I was down there (late 70s), I thought Jack was as great a man as I'd ever known," said Denver sportscaster Steve Harmes, who worked for a Dallas television station at the time and eventually became a referee, play-by-play announcer and close personal friend of Jack Adkisson while his sons were first breaking in. "I was really disillusioned when they had the Memorial after David died. After that I mainly followed them in the Observer. They lost touch with reality. The marks who would go to the shows twice a week got fed up when he faked the heart attack and with all the Memorial shows. When I'd go down there on vacation and talk to the fans, that's what I kept hearing."

But the Dallas area fans themselves largely didn't notice the exploitation at the first David Von Erich Memorial Bash on May 6, 1984. Even with the family photos and David memorabilia being sold at inflated prices, including a rushed out 45 record called "Heaven Needed a Champion" being sung at the show and sold at the dozens of merchandise tables, a record cut by one of Jack's gospel singing friends and released literally days after David's death, exploitation was not on most wrestling fans' mind. After all, in their own world of fantasy, their long-awaited dream that had been teased for about two years for most, and for nearly two decades for the older fans that followed Fritz' career, a Von Erich finally winning the NWA world heavyweight title, was about to take place. Just a few miles down the road, the NBA Mavericks were in a do-or-die playoff game with the legendary Lakers of Kareem and Magic fame in a game that shocked the local sports community because it didn't sellout. Even during its heyday, the local community didn't understand the emotion and impact to so many that the world title and the Von Erichs meant, as more than twice as many fans attended the wrestling show.

Kerry, who had teased fans for more than four years with his incredible near-misses in world title matches against both Harley Race and Ric Flair, had promised his fans he'd win the title in memory of his recently deceased brother. While Flair and Kerry rushed through a 13:00 match which was nowhere near the level the two usually had, it ended up as probably the most famous match either would ever be involved in. Kerry won the belt and was mobbed by the Texas babyface wrestlers and received one of the most emotional pops in history. At the age of 24, he was the second youngest man ever to hold the world heavyweight wrestling title (Lou Thesz in 1937, at the age of 21, being the youngest). As tears filled the eyes of the fans while Kerry walked down the aisle, Jack (who wrestled his final match ever that afternoon as the legendary Fritz Von Erich) and Doris met him halfway. Wrestling has never duplicated a scene like that, and may never again. For that one moment, Jack's fantasy world had taken such a hold that it actually became not only his family's and his loyal audience's reality, but reality for much of North Texas. Little did any of the 32,123 fans, wrestlers, Kerry or Jack himself realize that single moment, at which point they were on top of the world and their future under the 100 degree Texas sun seemingly would burn bright forever as the premiere family and promotion in the world, that this was actually the beginning of the end.

As the other end of the business deal that resulted in that crowning moment of his wrestling career, Kerry dropped the title back to Flair on May 24 in Yokosuka, Japan.

Facing the reality that the moment when Kerry, Jack and Doris embraced before 32,123 cheering and teary-eyed fans was their apex came in the same spot, some three years later. Jack's World Class Championship Wrestling was overtaken by the Titan Sports and Jim Crockett Promotions. The compassion from the community at large when Mike nearly died from Toxic Shock syndrome over Labor Day weekend of 1985 turned into the general public's realization that something very serious was wrong when he was rushed into a heavily hyped public appearance several weeks later at the Cotton Bowl to wave and thank the fans during a major outdoor spectacular that drew 25,000 fans. The main event was a double hair vs. hair match in which Kevin & Kerry beat Gino Hernandez & Chris Adams. As Gino tried to escape from his haircut, the youngest brother, Chris, then 15, but only about 5-foot-3, participated in his first major angle to set the stage for his future stardom by tackling Gino at ringside. Gino was dragged back into the ring and shaved bald. Barely three months later Gino Hernandez, 28, the company's top heel, was dead of a cocaine overdose.

Kerry's crippling injuries in the motorcycle accident preceded Mike's suicide, which made the tragedies into something only the densest marks couldn't see had turned into a pattern. While the loyal live-and-die with the Von Erichs fans remained, their numbers dwindled. The thousands of Texas teenagers who flocked to Reunion Arena for the first time in 1982 and nearly rioted when Kerry was screwed out of the title, then cried their eyes out when the newspapers, unaware of the phenomenon, devoted just a few short paragraphs buried in the back of the sports section to the death of David (which only became a front-page story in the local media on the second day after his death, after the local media realized just how much of an affect a Von Erich death had on the community), largely gave up in the wake of the death of Mike. Only 5,900 fans came to Texas Stadium on May 3, 1987 to see the David and Mike Von Erich Memorial Parade of Champions. Eight days later, Kevin passed out and nearly died in a Fort Worth ring, only to be saved by CPR from wrestler Tommy Rogers. Another angle was created. His opponent when he collapsed, Brian Adias, who ironically was Kerry's real best friend from childhood but had recently turned heel, had developed a deadly Oriental tool punch that nearly killed his former best friend's older brother.

About the time Mike first took ill, and with Kevin floating in-and-out of the business due to injuries and lack of interest, a phony Von Erich was created, the model-like Lance Von Erich, real name Kevin William Vaughn. Lance was said to have been the cousin of the boys and the son of Waldo Von Erich, a one-time big-name wrestler himself who was the fictitious brother of Fritz Von Erich. Lance ironically suffered from the Von Erich curse as soon as he adopted the name, with a series of strange illnesses, traced largely to his heavy use of steroids, interfering with his own wrestling career. After a dispute with his "uncle," Lance quit to work for an opposition group in Dallas, at which time a bitter and bombastic Fritz Von Erich, against all good judgement, went on the television show and said that Lance wasn't related to the family, that his real name was William Vaughn, and that he used the family in order to get a break in wrestling. Unbeknownst to Fritz, that outburst ended the family's credibility even more except to the dwindling never-say-die fans, some of whom still remained as late as this past week. Kevin Vaughn then fell in love while on a wrestling tour of South Africa, and has lived there ever since.

On Christmas night of that year, with the territory in shambles, the booker during the company's glory days, Ken Lusk (known in wrestling as Ken Mantell), bought into the territory. The idea to turn things around was on Christmas night, several heels would attack Fritz Von Erich and beat him nearly to death. Fritz faked that he had suffered a heart attack and was rushed off to emergency. While Dallas fans celebrated their holiday season, on the wrestling broadcast they were told of yet another impending Von Erich tragedy, only in this case, not only were the causes lied about, but the entire story was a work. On television the next few days, the announcers told how Fritz is touch-and-go and may not make it through the night. Even local television stations and newspapers fell for the act at the beginning, but Jack's magic with the local media was such that the truth never came out publicly, just like the truth about David's death was still the worked version in all media reports this past week. Outside of wrestling, he was never criticized for the stunt. Later the media and the promotion amended the story to have been a blow from a cane caused temporary paralysis which was originally thought to have been a heart attack. Even Jack's closest friends in the wrestling business, none of whom were saints and all of whom specialized in stretching the truth and creating their own fantasy worlds for a buck, had long turned against this level of exploitation. It was too much to use the family's many tragedies that had moved the fans and attempting to create another near-death, as a means to get the territory off its back. Crowds did pick up as Kevin and Kerry sought to gain revenge on the perpetrators. That was the last time Fritz Von Erich set foot in World Class Wrestling rings (he worked in Kerry's corner once in 1991 on a WWF show, but that was long after the family's magical image was gone). The death of the Von Erich legacy, which occurred more than five years before its brightest star took his own life, was also the death of North Texas wrestling.

"I don't think there will ever be anything big here as far as the wrestling business is concerned," said Simms. "WWF and WCW can draw elsewhere but when they come here, they can't draw. The people here are saying `It's a screwed up world you're in and we know about it.'"

The story of the Von Erichs really started in 1949. Jack Adkisson was a back-up offensive guard at Southern Methodist University and set a school record in the discus. But he lost his scholarship by violating team rules and getting married to the future Doris Adkisson. The two took off for Canada, where he played Canadian football with several future wrestling superstars including Gene Kiniski and Wilbur Snyder. In 1954, he learned wrestling from Stu Hart in Calgary, and he, Doris and son Jackie Jr., lived in a trailer park on the Hart property. A few years later, he created the persona of Nazi heel Fritz Von Erich, and with his large hands, he became the master of the deadly "Iron Claw," when post-World War II Nazi and Japanese heels were the rage. While Nazi heels came and went, the 6-3, 275 pound powerhouse with agility, charisma and a certain demonic sneer that exuded toughness and danger, became one of the country's biggest drawing cards. While working out of Buffalo in 1959, son Jackie, then six, touched a live wire while he was outside during a storm, was given a major jolt and was knocked unconscious. He fell into a puddle and drowned to death.

Personal tragedies aside, Fritz Von Erich became a worldwide superstar in the 1960s. He held the AWA world title for a short period of time (he and Kerry remain to this day the only father-son combination to each have held a major world heavyweight title although in the NWA's lighter weight divisions the Guerrero and Dantes family also accomplished the same thing). One of the most famous faux paus ever in Japan was during a brutal main event match where Fritz was wrestling Giant Baba for the International title (which Fritz is one of the few men in history to hold), Baba went to blade himself to sell the Iron Claw, but instead of getting his forehead, he cut up Fritz' finger. Fritz' finger bled like crazy and the Japanese press created what is now a famous story of Fritz suffering from a hangnail during this now-legendary match. Due to real estate investments during a few Dallas-Fort Worth area building booms, he also became a millionaire. In the 1960s, he became a phenomenal drawing card in Texas for promoters Ed McLemore and Morris Siegel. In 1967, he pulled his big power play. Adkisson rallied all the North Texas wrestlers and pulled out the rug from under McLemore to start his own company. After winning a bitter promotional war, largely through the help of NWA President Sam Muchnick who sided with his good friend and top draw, Adkisson hired McLemore and, learning from Muchnick that it's best to make peace with your former enemies, kept McLemore's name out front as the supposed promoter. Siegel, who sided with McLemore, passed away of a heart attack shortly thereafter.

Fritz Von Erich largely stopped touring at that point, mainly confining his ring activities to his own company, in which he quickly became (surprise, surprise) the top babyface. His promotion did consistently strong business by the early 70s matching Fritz against whatever heel he could make money with, from a Johnny Valentine to a Mongolian Stomper to a Professor Boris Malenko, and eventually runing them out of town. The annual climactic world title matches against Kiniski and later Dory Funk Jr., which he'd come within a hair of winning, before either being screwed or going to the time limit, were moved outdoors to Texas Stadium because no indoor arena in the market could hold the crowd. A 1973 match with Funk, a 60 minute draw in 100 degree heat, set the state attendance and gate record with 26,339 fans paying $96,000. The attendance record stood until Kerry won the title in honor of brother David 11 years later. The gate record was first broken in Flair and Kerry's famous Christmas 1982 match. A rematch one year later drew 23,000 fans. At the same time, he was channeling his sons into sports and himself and his family into religion.

Official Von Erich mythology has it that Jack was deeply moved by a sermon in 1974, and shortly thereafter a divine voice guided him to open his Bible to Psalms 23. Not long after that, the same powerful force somehow made him pull his car over to the shoulder of a highway one day and ponder his sin, beginning the Von Erichs famous link with religion. A former friend of Jack's, and his many detractors who believed him to be less than sincere in his constant religious talk, will tell the story somewhat differently. Doris, who was deeply religious, had or was about to throw Jack out. Jack, who by this time had already began to conceptualize the company being built around his All-American family image, to save his family and his dream, became born-again.

Just as the first media story, in Penthouse Magazine, which looked underneath the largely worked mythology that the local media had never examined, was about to be released, Ken Lusk, Jack's then-partner in the office, said to the Dallas Times-Herald that "anyone who says the Von Erichs aren't a Christian family, well, that's a crock. An outright lie.

Being a Christian doesn't mean you are perfect, doesn't mean you haven't made mistakes in your life. There's another book that says, `Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.'"

Perhaps since many influential in Texas traditionally protect their own, and nobody was more Texan than the Von Erichs, the sons of the ex-Nazi heel, even with five sons now dead, the local media has never examined this strange phenonemon as anything more than a series of tragic random coincidences to a family that somehow was jinxed. The truth is that these tragedies were patterned, frequent and predictable with some obvious and other not so obvious root causes. Ironically, when the kids one-time running mate in drugs and wrestling main events, Hernandez, passed away, his life story of drugs, drugs and more drugs, was an open book in the local media worthy of an award winning newspaper story. When it came to the sons of Jack Adkisson, different rules seemed to prevail.

At about the same time his kids were the high school studs at small Lake Dallas High, Jack Adkisson was named the new NWA President, replacing Muchnick who decided to step down from power since he was in his late 60s. People remember Jack bringing Kevin, David and Kerry, whose ages ranged from 18 to 15 at the time, to the NWA conventions in Las Vegas, in which the various NWA promoters would alternately kiss-ass and back-stab their compadres, and telling the other NWA promoters, almost arrogantly, how his kids would all be future NWA world champions. At the time Kerry, then in 10th grade, was rumored to already be heavily into steroids. Whether it was simply parental obsession to create a string of super athletes, or he (and perhaps his brothers as well) fell into the steroids on their own, the three oldest were bonafide high school sports stars, facts that Jack made sure were constantly mentioned on his television shows, in his programs, in programs of other influential NWA promoters, and in wrestling magazines.

David, named for Doris Adkisson's brother that passed away as a teenager from brain cancer, was 6-6, but thin as a rail when he entered the ring first, in the summer of 1977. He had received a basketball scholarship to North Texas State University in nearby Denton, but red-shirted as a freshman and quit school after one year to work for his father. Kevin, 6-2 with a somewhat slight build, but with tremendous muscularity, followed a few months later. He was the starting fullback at North Texas State as a freshman and had legitimate potential, but a series of concussions and knee injuries caused him to quit school and join brother David in the ring. Kerry, who was already taking on the dimensions of a bodybuilder in 10th grade, was a high school football star and, like his father, threw the discus. Kerry was both state and junior national champion as a senior in high school, setting a small high school state record that stood for more than a decade. He received a football and track scholarship to the University of Houston. But, like his brothers, he only lasted one year in college before pro wrestling came calling. He red-shirted in football, but starred in track, including winning at the discus in the Texas Relays.

All three brothers had become national superstars through Adkisson's company, re-named World Class Championship Wrestling, getting national syndication in 1981 and 1982 through a state-of-the-art television production from the Dallas Sportatorium. The first slick wrestling program preceded TBS and WWF in fast-paced slickly-edited productions complete with hard rock entrance music which attracted a largely teenage audience, with a heavy percentage of girls, to see Jack's three heartthrob sons. By the time Michael made his pro debut on November 18, 1983, the promotion was the hottest in the land and his brothers were all local mega-celebrities and national wrestling superstars. The Von Erichs, along with Hogan, Flair and the Road Warriors, dominated the covers and the coverage in all the national wrestling magazines during that time period. Behind the scenes, within wrestling, the outside the ring bizarre stories of the Von Erichs, largely based around drug problems, were legion.

"I remember going with Gary Hart, Kerry, Kevin, Gino and David on road trips," recalled Harmes. "We'd go to the hotel. David, Kerry and Gino would load up on quaaludes and placidyls. They had a doctor who provided them with anything they wanted and as much as they wanted. I remember once being in Fritz' office when Gino called and needed 400 quaaludes and he got them that afternoon."

Within wrestling, it was generally believed the father was in denial about his son's drug problems. Stories are legion that his lieutenants in the company would beg the father to open his eyes but he would never believe his sons would do such things. Even during the glory years of 1983 and 1984, Kevin, David and Kerry, who were in huge demand as local celebrities for public appearances, developed bad reputations among local merchants for either showing up incoherent, or not showing up at all. The company was making big money running two spot shows per night in area high schools, usually using local non-profit organizations as sponsors, which at one point consistently drew consistently large and phenomenally enthusiastic crowds to see the Von Erichs in the flesh. The idolatry was so out of control that banners like, "On the eighth day, God created the Von Erichs," at matches, were not the exception. Unfortunately that business started falling off as the sons frequently no-showed the cards and the sponsors, feeling burned, lost interest in World Class wrestling.

"Whenever anything came up about Kevin and Kerry from the Lake Dallas Police Department, Fritz always said it was the police's fault," Harmes recalled. "Once Kevin drove his car into a lake. The next day, he had a new car and it was like nothing had happened. But they were the model children around their dad's friends. They were the most polite and friendly kids you can imagine."

In June of 1983, Kerry was arrested at DFW Airport coming back from his honeymoon with Cathy in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Customs agents found him with 18 unmarked tablets in his right front packet. He was hiding nearly 300 assorted downers like Percodan and Codeine pills in a plastic bag in the crotch of his pants, had ten grams of Marijuana and 6.5 grams of an undetermined blue and white powder. The incident made the newspapers, with Kerry going on television begging fans not to believe what you read in the newspapers. The most hardcore Von Erich marks dismissed the story, believing Kerry's insidious enemy, Freebird Michael Hayes, must have planted the drugs on him. Not so surprisingly, the evidence somehow disappeared from the police station and all charges were dropped.

Adkisson's territory was only a moderate small-time promotion in the North Texas area, built around himself and his three soon-to-be famous sons in the early 80s. When, at age 53, he decided to hold his big retirement show at Texas Stadium in the spring of 1982, just 6,000 fans attended. Four months later at Reunion Arena came the first major sign that the seeds of his family marketing concept were going to pay big dividends when more than 10,000 fans came to see Kerry's two out of three fall double disqualification with Flair, after which Fritz labeled Kerry as the uncrowned world champion. Unlike at Texas Stadium a few months earlier, which drew a traditional wrestling crowd, this crowd was filled with high schoolers and younger. The younger kids, most of whom had never attended a live wrestling show before, clicked in by relating to Kerry, at the time just 22, in his chance to win the world heavyweight title for Texas. A rematch was scheduled for a few months later, but Kerry's knee went out and he needed minor surgery at the time Flair was booked into Fort Worth. Older brother David took his place and vowed to win the title for Texas. When Flair attacked the still on-crutches Kerry and began stomping on his recently operated knee, causing a near riot among the new fans who discovered this pseudo-sport, David lost his cool and got disqualified. On Christmas night, Jack Adkisson's slot machine came up cherries to the tune of state record gross of $105,000 for the Flair vs. Kerry cage match for the NWA title.

The legendary match ended when Terry Gordy slammed the cage door on Kerry's head, a finish imitated many times over the next decade but never with the same results. The resulting Freebirds vs. Von Erichs marraige became one of the hottest feuds in pro wrestling history. It also made World Class the first American promotion that captured the quality and set the standard for the wrestling of the future.

From that point forward, the Friday night cards at the Sportatorium became weekly sellouts. Spot show business picked up even more with the young roguish Freebirds as the natural foes. The three shows at Reunion Arena the next year all sold out at near $200,000, setting a state gate record each time out of the box, with several thousands turned away at each show. On Thanksgiving night, the loser leave town match with Kerry vs. Hayes not only sold out a few days in advance despite, but thousands of those turned away stayed out in the zero degree weather outside the arena watching through the glass to watch the television monitors to see what was going on inside.

Because of the success, Adkisson's power increased within the alliance and his dream of having a son as world champion started being closer to reality. Of course, Adkisson wasn't going to be satisfied with that, as he wanted, at one point, everyone of his sons to get the belt. It appeared David, who wasn't as good an all-around athlete as Kevin or Kerry, but was the smartest, the most reliable, and the best worker, would be the first to get the chance. Apparently David, the one pushed as "being the most like Fritz," was promised the title in 1983 from Harley Race, but through maneuverings of Jim Crockett, Flair got the title for a second time that Thanksgiving night at the first Starrcade. The Flair-David match on Christmas night of 1983 was again sold out well in advance, despite a week-long ice storm. The predictable over-the-top-rope DQ save-the-title finish climaxed the company's most profitable year ever.

The same week Flair got the title back that David was destined for, Michael made his pro debut. Immediately, a match was set up between Flair and Michael for Fort Worth in January, 1984. It was a 10 minute match, and if Flair won, David would never get a return match. If Mike won, or lasted 10:00, David would get a title match and he could pick the time, place and all stipulations. David went one step farther, saying if he couldn't beat Flair this time, he'd retire from wrestling. Mike, at 19 years old and all of 180 pounds, not only lasted the 10:00, but had Flair out with a sleeper when the bell expired in what had to be one of the most forgettable and regrettable matches of the latters' career. One week later David, who had won the United National title (one of three All Japan singles belts later unified into the current Triple Crown title) and was apparently set to dump the belt to Genichiro Tenryu, thereby setting Tenryu up as a No. 1 contender when David eventually returned as world champion, left for All Japan Pro Wrestling.

David went to Ribera Steak House in Tokyo, a hangout for wrestlers, on his first night in Japan with Bill and the late Scott Irwin (who were working as The Super Destroyers at the time). He was drinking heavily. On February 10, he wasn't in the lobby for the bus taking them to the arena on the opening night of the tour. Ref Joe Higuchi along with Bruiser Brody and Jerry Morrow broke into his hotel room and found him dead on the floor. He was 25. Brody immediately flushed the drugs down the toilet. It was reported in Penthouse, that the drugs were Placidyls, the same drug his brother Michael would eventually overdose on as well.

The mythology machine went to work immediately. To this day, the official press reports, that were still used in all newspaper stories about Kerry's death, reported the death from an inflamed intestine, technically known as enteritis. The enteritis story originally was released as occurring from a hard kick in a match in Japan, which was definitely a lie since David died the night before his first match of the tour. Over the ensuing years, the Von Erichs in different press interviews have changed the story many times about David's death, including calling it a stroke, a heart attack after a strenuous match in Japan, food poisoning from sushi and an injury suffered and ignored by David just before leaving for Japan in a match he and Kevin had against the Road Warriors in San Antonio. There was nothing even close to true about any of the above stories, since he of course hadn't had his first match on the tour, Ribera's doesn't serve sushi, and he and Kevin had never wrestled the Road Warriors. David's funeral, open to the public, drew 3,500 wrestling fans, the largest funeral procession in North Texas in many years. Within days, "Heaven Needed a champion" was released and Texas Stadium was booked for one of the biggest wrestling spectaculars ever.

"David was the one he (Jack) saw as taking over the business," Harmes remembered. "He wanted David to become the NWA champion so he could have some time making big money. David wasn't in love with being in the ring. His love was horses. He saw wrestling as a way to set himself up for a great life. Kevin and Kerry were always their own biggest marks. David was a more stable guy."

At about this time, Kevin started becoming a different wrestler. The most gifted athletically of the entire family, the bare-footed Kevin specialized in flying moves which would be considered normal fare by the top wrestlers today, but by the standards of the time were spectacular. His dropkicks rivalled Jim Brunzell's as the best in the business. Most wrestlers, however, didn't like working with him because he worked stiff, didn't like to sell much despite being around 225 pounds, and injured people. Many observers from that time believe that when Kerry was given the title shot at Texas Stadium that was originally scheduled for David, it was the first sign that the three-way parity that the brothers were always pushed as having was out the window and a public sign from either the promotion or the Alliance itself that Kerry was a bigger star than Kevin. Kevin at least appeared genuinely despondent that he wasn't the one who was going to get to win the title in his brother's name since he was the older brother. Even if it was all simply a work, he was never the same wrestler after that point. Kerry became the superstar of the family and Kevin slowly faded in-and-out of wrestling over the next few years with less and less notice each time. The tragedies, and the public nature of them seemingly got to him more and more as the years went by. He used to tell people that when you're a regular person, you have skeletons in your closet. When you're a Von Erich, you have them dangling in your front yard.

While Jack may have deluded himself that his sons could do no wrong, apparently the sons in many cases believed they couldn't do enough right. Growing up and having to then live with the Von Erich name, they apparently believed they had to live up to a standard of athletic and moral perfection that few could attain. Those within the Texas wrestling scene have always pointed at Fritz as the villain in the family story. The usually jovial Boyd Pierce, who worked for years in Dallas as a television and ring announcer and is well-known in wrestling for not having anything bad to say about almost anyone, used to joke that Will Rogers never met Fritz Von Erich (in reference to Will Rogers' saying that he never met a man he didn't like). Certainly the combination of the permissiveness in the upbringing, protection from having to deal with their mistakes, combined with the destiny of their future drummed into them from childhood that they couldn't live up to made them ill equipped for coping with the real world. They were taught that David and Jackie were in a better place, and it was no work that the brothers were all close with one another and, one by one, maybe it became time to join them. No matter what the real background reasons were, this was one screwed up family. Even before the deaths, that was the general consensus within wrestling. But even his fiercest critics and enemies have to admit that for whatever deceptions and abuses he propagated throughout the years, and there were many, that he has paid for them in personal grief many times over.

Still, the talk of Fritz Von Erich, the villain of the Von Erich story, largely came after the death of Michael. Unlike his brothers, Mike was not a good athlete. That only meant the Von Erich mythology would have to be more creative. Mike was billed as having been the best amateur wrestler and best all-around athlete of the brothers. He was said to have broken Kevin's record for the most points in the high school district track meet, which Kevin probably didn't set in the first place. None of this was true, as Mike never competed in track beyond the junior varsity level and played special teams on his small high school football team. He was said to have the potential to surpass all the others. Mike, who was 6-1, but resembled David greatly, was thrust into the spotlight faster than ever because there needed to be three Von Erichs on top, and David was gone. When the announcers would fawn all the praise on Mike about being a better athlete than his brothers, he would stand there embarrassed about the praise and nervous on his interviews. From all accounts, Mike never wanted to be a wrestler. Soon he was pushed as a main eventer, a world title contender, held the group's American title, beat all the top heels and virtually never did any jobs, all at around 190 pounds and as one of the poorest main event performers of the era. Even at that, on July 4, 1984 in Fort Worth, Mike participated in the match of the year, a six-man tag, against The Freebirds.

The Penthouse article stated the pressure led Mike not only to dangerous doses of steroids to increase his size, but to uppers and downers as well. He was forever separating a chronic bad shoulder, suffered in a high school sports injury when he tumbled over hurdles. The trouble started piling up. In May 1985, he was charged with two counts of misdemeanor assault against an emergency room physician. A Denton County jury acquitted him. In September he contracted the toxic shock syndrome that nearly killed him. The greatest crime came in July, when he was, amidst incredible hype, put back into the ring. The return of Mike to Reunion Arena drew 10,000 fans. In November, he totalled his Lincoln Continental when he ran off an embankment but escaped with only a minor head injury. Kevin went on television the next week discussing the incident and blamed himself, saying he kept Mike up too late that night studying wrestling videotapes. He was later arrested and spent five hours in jail on drunk and disorderly charges. A few months later, criminal mischief charges were dismissed against him when he agreed to pay a Fort Worth man $900 for kicking in the door of his car. On April 11, 1987, Mike left a bar in Denton and was swerving severely while driving home. An officer pulled him over and found a small bottle of marijuana, two bottles incorrectly labeled that actually contained 78 pills of five varieties, mainly painkillers. Mike tried to bribe the cop, but when that failed agreed to a blood test. While it showed his alcohol level at a legal .05, it also showed several drugs, presumably placidyls, barbiturates and Valium or its equivalents in his system. He was arrested for drunk driving and controlled substance charges. When he was released, it was the last time he was seen alive. While a suicide note was found before his body, the promotion announced at a spot show in Lubbock after Mike had disappeared but before his body was found, that he was missing and foul play was suspected. The attempt, which didn't succeed this time, was to work the story once again. The cause of death was an overdose of Placidyl, self administered.

Chris Adkisson had been around wrestling dressing rooms for as long as anyone could remember. While growing up, it was considered a given that one day he'd be a superstar wrestler. But unlike even Mike, who at least played some sports in high school, Chris' asthma kept him away from athletics. He always palled around with older brother Mike and wore his hair and dressed like Kerry. Chris was even smaller than Mike, at about 5-5, 165. On a religious television show about the Von Erichs in early 1986, Fritz was on bragging about Chris was the best amateur wrestler of the group and had only lost once as an amateur, to a boy seven years older than him. The host, who had heard Fritz going on and on about the sports accomplishments of Kevin, Kerry and Mike, by this time was even incredulous and when Fritz started his spiel about little Chris, sarcastically said, "and he never lost an amateur wrestling match." By the time Chris got out of high school, Kevin and Kerry had nearly put the company out of business and Jerry Jarrett took over as a partner and was in control of the office and didn't want to use Chris, who had done some independent work. It ended in a messy split when Jarrett tried to push his son Jeff and phase down Kevin and Kerry, and eventually both the Von Erichs and Jarrett wound up out of the market with Global in control. Just before the Von Erich/Jarrett split up, Jarrett finally relented and booked Chris in a few gimmick matches, mainly against Percy Pringle.

Simms trained Chris, who, surprisingly, had virtually never been in the ring until a few weeks before his debut and his matches with Pringle (now the WWF's Paul Bearer).

"He had a suicidal mind," Simms remembered about Chris. Chris was hampered by his asthma, and his medication caused him to lose muscle tone. The police believed the combination of an arm injury suffered a few weeks before his death and the medication caused him to become despondent of him losing his physique, and he was having a difficult time coming to grips with the fact he wasn't going to be able to make it as a wrestler.

On September 12, 1991, Chris called up Kevin and was very despondent. At 9 p.m., Kevin and Doris found Chris about 150 yards from the family ranch. He had shot himself in the head with a 9 mm pistol. He was rushed to East Texas Medical Center in Tyler, where he passed away at 10:27 p.m. Investigators found a one-page hand-written suicide note, where Chris wrote that his family was not to blame for his suicide and that he was sorry. In the note, he wrote about his three older brothers who had died, but there was no indication that played a part in his decision to take his own life. He was 21.

"I remember right after Chris shot himself that Kerry and I went to eat with his two daughters," recalled Simms. "We started talking about Chris and he said Chris had a lot of balls. I asked, `Why do you say that?' He said, `It took a lot of balls to put a gun to your head.'"

Bruce Hart, at least in some ways, grew up in a similar environment as the Von Erichs. His father was a legendary wrestler and became a promoter. His brothers all wrestled at one time or another. Like Kerry, one of his brothers eventually became world champion. He even had a tragic death, brother Dean at age 36, although it was not drug related or self-inflicted, and some other brothers who had their own problems, some of which went public.

"I can relate to the pressure," said Hart. "Maybe the difference is we were able to see it was a work. I remember talking with Kevin and Kerry and we talked about our similarities and it's pretty weird. My biggest perception of the difference was the drugs, but it's a cause and effect thing. Most of us were pretty clean which enabled us to deal with our problems less traumatically. Our father also never allowed us to deify ourselves. Fritz was relentless in pushing them. They weren't bad kids. I saw them as being pretty sensitive. Kerry always seemed to be reaching out for a life line."

As a performer, Kerry was somewhat green, but carryable, but loaded with a certain dumb-jock charisma that appealed to teenage girls that no promotion has been able to duplicate since. At the same time, he wasn't pretty enough to alienate the guys when he started clicking as a draw in 1982. He worked with the best and learned from the best over the next two years until the time that he became one of the best himself. By early 1985, he and Ric Flair toured several territories-Hawaii, Missouri, Mid South and of course his home World Class area and put on the state-of-the-art matches for that time period. The World Class television and the Von Erich name was so strong that Flair and Kerry were able to sell out Honolulu for their 60:00 draw, sell out St. Louis for a 65:00 draw, and draw a $175,000 house at the Superdome in New Orleans, all out of Kerry's home territory, in the first few months of 1985. Most were classics, but not all. One night Flair and Kerry had to work a 60:00 draw in Fort Worth and nobody could find Kerry. Eventually they found him passed out in his car. They managed to revive him and get him into the ring, but he was zombie-like and Flair had to carry him through perhaps the worst 60:00 draw of his career. Kerry was brought into Chicago for an AWA card at Comiskey Park that drew more than 20,000, and got a bigger pop than any of the regulars. Every promoter in wrestling wanted to be a part of the Kerry Von Erich gravy train. Still, in early 1986, unexplainably, his performance started wavering.

In June 1986, Kerry was involved in a serious motorcycle accident. He was traveling at an unsafe speed riding his bike wearing nothing but gym shorts and no shoes. He made an ill-advised pass and crashed into the back of a patrol car. After 13 hours of a new process called microsurgery, they transplanted muscle and skin tissue from Kerry's back to restore circulation and try to save his foot. He also suffered a dislocated hip, a crushed right ankle and many internal injuries. Nearly every specialist put to rest any hopes of him ever coming back to the ring.

The promotion, at this time on a noticeable downslide and feeling the pressure from the expansion of the WWF, Mid South and Crockett all coming into North Texas, put the big lie back into effect. The Von Erich mythology, as given by Kevin on television, was that Kerry was in a motorcycle accident as everyone had already heard, but it wasn't serious and he'd be back in the ring in about a month. When that month was up, Kevin would say Kerry would be back in about another month or two. The fear was that if fans were told it would be a year, or maybe never, before Kerry could return, they'd tune out of World Class and either forget wrestling, or turn to the opposition groups which had their own stable of superstars. By Thanksgiving, Kerry showed up on television on crutches and took about two baby steps on his own. It seemed well past insanity one month later when it was announced Kerry would return to the ring on a major show in Fort Worth against his former best friend Brian Adias. On crutches, Kerry came into the building, then, according to Penthouse, a doctor filled a syringe with enough novocaine to numb Secretariat, and Kerry walked to the ring, and basically immobile, worked a 5:00 match, winning of course. But the news was mainly bad. The Von Erich magic was gone to the masses in Dallas. Kerry's return drew only 2,326 fans. And in the process, his ankle was rebroken. Four months later, his foot was supposedly permanently fused into a walking position. Miraculously enough, Kerry returned to action on Thanksgiving of 1987 and toured Japan with Kevin a few weeks later. All things considered, the very fact he could still work, let alone work at an acceptable level, although he was never able to come anywhere close to his 1985 peak, may have been, in reality as opposed to fantasy, the thing he should be most admired for. In the fantasy world of his own promotion, Kerry became a world champion once again. Kerry had beaten Al Perez on March 6, 1988 in Dallas to win the World Class title, since the promotion by this time had split with Crockett, who controlled the NWA title. Kerry traded it once with Jerry Lawler and Tatsumi Fujinami during the year, before the title was done away with after Lawler won a PPV unification match in Chicago.

Somewhere along with way, Kerry's bad foot was amputated. It's not clear whether the microsurgery, which was at best a 50/50 proposition in those days, failed to be successful, or if he did so much damage making his ill-advised comeback match with Adias and the operation that it was released as having to fuse to foot was actually the amputation. Most likely it was the latter, since many in wrestling have said that Kerry being put into the ring with Adias well before he was ready played a part in his losing his foot. It was largely unknown in wrestling circles, although a few people working for the Dallas office had suspicions since Kerry never removed his boot, even while showering. One time some of the wrestlers told the story of going into a pool with Kerry, who went in with his boot on, and when he got out of the water, there was an incredible amount of water coming out of his boot. The world, or at least the inside wrestling world, first heard the story in the summer of 1988 when he was on an AWA show in Las Vegas against Col. DeBeers. DeBeers grabbed Von Erich by the boot of his right foot, and suddenly, the boot came off, revealing a sock without a foot in it. DeBeers, and the fans at ringside who saw this, were taken aback, a hush drew over the stunned crowd. Von Erich grabbed his boot, put his leg under the ring to hide it, and put the boot back on. When the word leaked about the incident, which initially was only reported in this and one other publication, denials came everywhere. Rob Russen, who was doing publicity for the AWA denied the story, despite the fact he was sitting right in front when it happened. Jerry Lawler, who was feuding with Von Erich at the time, claimed he had seen the foot, that it was all scarred up and that's why Von Erich never took the boot off. Because of the denials, this turned into one of the most controversial issues of late 1988. The WWF even got involved, as before the Lawler-Von Erich PPV match, they went to the Illinois commission and tried to get Von Erich banned from wrestling because of an ancient statute in the books about boxers and wrestlers with amputated limbs being unable to perform. The commission avoided the issue by scheduling a hearing for Von Erich after the match date, by which time everything was forgotten since there was no political advantage in blocking Von Erich from wrestling other than screwing with the show. The two had an excellent match, with Von Erich losing when the ref stopped the match because he was bleeding. Before the match even started, Kerry was fooling around with the blade backstage and somehow sliced up his arm, which was bleeding as he came to the ring forthe match. A few weeks before the match, Von Erich told Bill Apter that he could photograph him with his boot off after the match to end the controversy. All night Von Erich continued to stall until finally he told Apter just to tell everyone that he saw him with his boot off and to tell people he had seen his right foot.

In early 1990, WCW called up Kerry to bring him in, thinking they could bring back the Flair-Kerry feud and hope that it still had its box office magic. However, Kerry no-showed his first scheduled TV appearance and WCW chalked him up as a lost cause. A few months later, WWF came calling and Kerry grabbed the chance to resurrect himself as a national star. Vince McMahon, who no doubt wanted Kerry as much as almost anyone when he started his national expansion in 1984 (McMahon's own magazine occasionally reported on the Von Erichs while ignoring the existence of every other promotion) talked Kerry into leaving Texas. As irony would have it, at almost the same time, Brutus Beefcake suffered a para-sailing accident and Kerry, now renamed The Texas Tornado, took his place against Mr. Perfect to capture the Intercontinental title at Summer Slam of 1990. The reign was short-lived, and Kerry slowly moved his way down the cards. In February of 1992, his father called the WWF and said his son was having drug problems and needed rehab. At the same time, Kerry was arrested for forging prescriptions. The much-publicized drug raid of the WWF dressing room in St. Louis was largely caused on a tip that was believed to have been related to Kerry, who no-showed the card since it was during the period Titan had given him off for rehab. Kerry finally went through the rehab, and apparently it made a difference over the short run. But by the summer, WWF let Kerry go. Kerry was a time bomb ready to explode and the WWF was in no position to be able to not be seriously damaged by the explosion.

"We did everything we could for him," said WWF spokesperson Steve Planamenta in August when the company released him.

Four hours after Kerry's death, Jack Adkisson had to come up with the final chapter of the Von Erich mythology. Jack admitted that his son had his right foot amputated, who said everyone at the hospital and the physical therapists had all been sworn to secrecy about.

"No one knew. It was extremely painful at first," he said in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "Kerry's had a drug problem since that accident, and no one was ever about to tell why." He said Kerry didn't want anyone to tell because "Fellas might think he was weaker." The story that nobody knew was another example of not accepting what was going on in the real world and accepting only self-created fantasy. Kerry's predicament was a major story in late 1988, and was even reported in one Dallas newspapers shortly after the incident with DeBeers in Las Vegas. Still, the Dallas television media acted stunned at the revelation. The story of his drug problem beginning with the accident is also not accurate.

Grey Pierson, promoter of the Friday night shows at the Sportatorium, immediately went public hyping a Kerry Von Erich Memorial show for the next evening. Kerry had been scheduled in the main event on the card against Dave Sheldon, who ironically uses the ring name Angel of Death. That afternoon, Kevin Adkisson, 35, the lone living son of Jack, who flew home the day before from a wrestling tour of the Virgin Islands, went to the Dallas media and decried the event. Kevin said that he, his father and his mother disapproved of the event, wouldn't be at the event, and accused Pierson of trying to capitalize on his brother's death. "I want the people to know that the Von Erichs don't have anything to do with that at all. In fact, I think it's terrible to try and exploit something like that." The irony of that statement was lost on very few. Many of the 3,038 fans, still heavily papered but it is expected it was the most paid at a Sportatorium wrestling event in a long time, particularly women, sobbed at ringside during the 45 minute ceremony. Simms, Sheldon, Jack's long-time lieutenant in the glory days, David Manning, Chris Adams, Japanese photographer Jimmy Suzuki and Dallas City Councilman Al Lipscomb all delivered eulogies in a ring decorated with flowers and plants with a huge photo of Kerry, with one of his wrestling robes and a pair of his boots on display. A shocking number of fans, the ones who, like Kerry, were unable to let go of the fantasy despite one news story after another over the past decade, still wouldn't allow themselves to face the truth. Many believed somebody shot him, and that the drug stories involving him were all concocted.

The reality was that Kerry Adkisson was a likeable guy according to those who knew him best, if you could get past the fact he was sheltered in almost a Peter Pan like existence where he didn't have to grow up. But you had to accept that about him. He wasn't particularly intelligent, but that was part of his charm to the fans and his friends, and he had a lot of both, and part of the funny stories that he'll leave behind. He was hardly a saint. Certainly he wasn't particularly honest, but some of that can be traced to his upbringing where he was taught to con the marks at all times and yet con himself into clinging to the fantasy. Not clinging to the fantasy of wrestling, but to the fantasy of the Von Erichs, to the same bitter end that, sad to say, was his destiny, almost no different than Andre the Giant. He was a great athlete, and maybe under different circumstances would have been the biggest stars in this profession, a spot he was seemingly destined for a decade ago. But if he ever had reached that spot, the travel and the pressures of the spotlight probably would have self-destructed him in one form or another. The one thing, ironically, that as an athlete and as a competitor he deserves the most credit for, being able to come back to the ring with one foot and still perform better than many, no matter how ill-advised it probably was, had to be hidden because it, too, would have meant facing reality. Some of the bizarre things, like the night after his wife served him with divorce papers when he grabbed the house mic at the Sportatorium and told the fans that his wife was divorcing him so he'd be collecting phone numbers in the back, were probably less based on ego and arrogance as much as naivete and stupidity. Others, like when he would go to a spot show and say he would let fans take Polaroids with him for $5 and that all the money would go to charity, but somehow the money never went to charity, may have been as much based on his upbringing in regard to fans simply being marks to be conned. But it was those same fans that gave him his world. It was the only real world he knew. It was the world where he was Kerry Von Erich, the Modern Day Warrior. It was the only world he could survive in. And that world was coming to an end.

Kerry Adkisson was buried alongside his brothers on February 22 at Grove Hill Memorial Park in East Dallas. Of the many major deaths in wrestling in recent years, none received the amount of media coverage as this one. Ironically, neither World Championship Wrestling, which ran a pay-per-view event on Sunday, nor the World Wrestling Federation, which ran its live Monday Night Raw show the following evening, acknowledged the death of the man who not all that many years ago was one of the three or four biggest stars in its world. Even under the most real of circumstances, they still had to ignore it on the grounds it might interfere with their fantasy. Maybe in that way, Kerry Von Erich did the only thing he had learned, protecting his fantasy world to the bitter end.

Eddie Gilbert, 33, dead from heart attack

Probably from the moment Eddie Gilbert was old enough to understand just what it was that his father did for a living, he was determined to follow in his footsteps. From the age he understood just what the position of a booker was, knowing that was the guy who kept his father from being in the top position in the promotion, he set his goal of being, like his hero Jerry Lawler, a booker before the age of 30.

As a teenager, he would book mock cards, finishes and long-term programs. He was so set on his goals that wrestling became his entire life to the point he no-showed his high school graduation so he could wrestle on an independent show. He knew exactly where he was going. One day he'd occupy the spot Lawler held and that Jackie Fargo held before him, being the "King" of Ch. 5 wrestling, the top draw in the territory, the booker and the perennial champion knocking off the big names from other territories weekly in Memphis, Louisville and the rest of the circuit.

Eddie Gilbert achieved his first two goals. It was doubtful he'd ever achieve the third one. But whether it was an inability to deal with pain, probably mental more than physical but certainly a good degree of both, he embarked on a course of self-destruction that led him to Puerto Rico and a demise not too many miles from where another of his childhood heroes, Bruiser Brody, was killed. He lived, ate, drank and slept wrestling, and when things didn't go his way, he took it out on those closest to him, alienated many of his best friends, and tragically became a statistic in the bizarre saga of second-generation wrestlers of his era that died far too soon.

Gilbert, who was booking the Puerto Rican based World Wrestling Council for the past five weeks, was found in his apartment in Isla Verde, Puerto Rico on Saturday night, 2/18, at approximately 6:30 p.m. by veteran wrestler Ken Wayne (Ken Peale). The two were scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. that morning to go over finishes for the show that night and booking ideas for the future, but when Wayne came to his room, he failed to answer the door. This continued throughout the day. Finally, when it was time for them to leave for a show that evening in nearby Trujillo Alto, Wayne, who had arrived in Puerto Rico only eight days earlier when Gilbert asked him to come and help him with booking on virtually no notice, broke in through a window. He found a limp Gilbert criss-crossed across the bed, with his feet badly swollen as the blood had settled due to gravity. When Karl Moffat, the original Jason the Terrible from Calgary, who was living downstairs in the same complex came in to check for a pulse, he found out what Wayne knew almost immediately when he saw the limp shadow of a body as he came through the window. The person who had phoned him at home ten days earlier, who he had known for more than 20 years, well before either had gotten started in the business, and who both he had worked his first pro wrestling angle with when Gilbert was barely out of high school, was dead at the age of 33. The doctor who examined the body said the death was due to a heart attack which probably occurred at some point while he was asleep the previous night. An autopsy was being performed this week which may give more of a clue as to what caused the heart attack.

"He was the happiest I'd ever seen him," said Wayne. "He was having a great time going to the beach and the hot tub every day."

Gilbert had started as booker for Carlos Colon after walking out of Smoky Mountain Wrestling after doing just one television taping, which had become a constant pattern of burning his bridges both due to his actions and his reputation with just about every promotion in the United States. Gilbert's reputation was so well established for walking out of promotions that it was only the dearth of experienced talent that could viably work as headliners in the smaller promotions and a reputation as a creative booker that had kept his career alive the past few years. He had walked out in Memphis, his home territory, so many times nobody could even keep track. Lawler, who he had groomed much of his style from and in some ways was obsessed with becoming a clone of as the area's top star, would always take him back because he was a good, often great worker with excellent ring psychology and did entertaining interviews. The two could work any kind of match together and if they were so motivated, make it a great one and thus work strong programs. It was a hard combination for the USWA to find because of its own reputation when it came to payoffs and the talent dearth in the profession. But in recent months he'd even walked out of Memphis one time too often and they weren't even wanting him back even though he was back home in Lexington, TN and not working anywhere else. Ironically, his last stint in a territory was for the WWC in Puerto Rico a few months earlier. Its ups were being a key part of turning around the promotion, peaking by being in the main event of a $140,000 house at Bayamon Stadium for a barbed wire match with Hurricane Castillo at the annual Anniversary show this past August. But shortly after that, he went to booker Dutch Mantel and out of nowhere gave his two weeks notice. He was gone within two days, leaving in the middle of the night without telling anyone. Aside from an appearance at the NWA tournament in Cherry Hill, NJ in November where by all accounts he put on a great performance, he had disappeared from the wrestling scene until he convinced Jim Cornette to bring him in for a key tag team program against the Rock & Roll Express.

Gilbert and Wayne worked on 2/17 in Humacao, with Gilbert, the promotion's top heel, wrestling a live wrestling bear. It was a throwback to an almost long-forgotten gimmick wrestling of Gilbert's childhood when Terrible Teds and Victor the Wrestling Bears would be brought into a territory for a week. Top heels would be "tricked" into getting in the ring with bears and do a panic-laden interview, which often drew a good house.

They had gotten back home at 2 a.m. when Wayne left him at his apartment. When he broke into his apartment the next evening, he saw a gallon of bottled spring water by his feet near the bed.
"It looked like he took a drink and laid down and died in his sleep," Wayne said.

During his 17-year career, Gilbert had wrestled at one time or another for most major offices around the world and gained a reputation for being a very good worker, but for being undersized for the role as top heel that he was constantly trying to become or maintain and that he had the in-ring ability and ring psychology to handle but perhaps not the drawing power. He had been told so many times that he was good enough to headline, but not big enough that he was constantly worried about his weight. That in turn led him to steroids. In recent years he became well-known for his creative and sometimes erratic booking, starting in 1987 with Bill Watts' UWF, being an assistant for Dusty Rhodes for Jim Crockett's NWA, briefly turning around a dying Alabama territory which won him the 1988 Booker of the year award, resurfacing as part of the booking committee for WCW, and later booking in Memphis, Puerto Rico, Global in Texas and for ECW. He generally left on bad terms in every stop, from doing shoot interviews on live television, leaving territories with the title belts, and even double-crossing promoters in the ring on the way out.

"I feel very sorry for the family," said ECW promoter Tod Gordon, who employed him as booker for much of 1993. "They were all very close. He came from a nice family. He had more going for him than he ever realized."

But Gordon felt the wrestling environment he was raised in led to his downfall.

"He was raised in an environment (the pro wrestling world) where he learned never to believe anyone. So he lived his life paranoid of everyone and everything. He used to read the Observer and look for hidden meaning in every sentence and point it out to me. I would say to him, `you don't really believe that,' but he did."

"I can't say it surprised me," said Paul Heyman (Paul E. Dangerously), Gilbert's one-time best friend in wrestling and who got one of his first big breaks in wrestling by helping Gilbert book the Alabama territory in 1988 and being its lead heel manager. "It's a phone call I always knew I'd get. I feel so bad for his mom. His mother is one of the nicest people I've ever met in my life. I learned a lot and spent a lot of time with him and it's time I don't regret. But he was a tragic figure in this business, just like Kerry Von Erich. He had tremendous demons he couldn't exorcise."

"It surprises me but it doesn't surprise me," said Brian Hildebrand, the SMW referee who had been friends with him since meeting him at a WFIA (Wrestling Fans) convention in 1978.

"When they were just kids, they'd (Eddie and younger brother Doug, who wrestles with USWA) come to the matches with Tommy (Eddie's father)," remembered long-time Memphis announcer Lance Russell. "The first recollection I have is when Eddie was about 13 or 14 and Doug would have been about six. Tommy got hurt that night and I took him and the kids to the emergency room. The kids were so concerned about their dad. I had known them even before that because Tommy would bring them to the matches."

Soon Eddie, who was actually a third-generation wrestler because not only was his father a long-time star in Tennessee, best known as being tag team partner of Eddie Marlin in the 60s and 70s, but his grandfather used to wrestle in the carnivals. He had gotten into writing and taking pictures at wrestling, often alongside another teenager from Louisville named Jim Cornette, for the program and for the wrestling magazines, usually writing about his idols, his father Tommy, Lawler and the touring world champions that would come to town a few times a year like the Funk Brothers.

"His father idolized Dory," remembered Missy Hiatt, who was married to Gilbert for three years and who remained friends with him after their marriage broke up. "So he idolized the Funks. He did impressions of Dory and Terry. The happiest he was in wrestling was whenever he got to work with Lawler or Terry and when he did the angle where they (WCW) brought Steamboat back (in January 1989). The happiest I ever saw him was when they told him he was going to be in the Four Horsemen, but as usual, they were just lying to him."

"He was the cleanest, nicest kid that you'd ever want to meet," remembered Cornette about their days shooting photos, sometimes side-by-side, before either got into the business or became major names.

"I always thought Eddie was going to be a journalist, not a wrestler," Russell remembered. "He was a very good writer, not only about wrestling but he also wrote stories for the Jackson (the major city near Lexington, TN where he grew up) newspaper."

Gilbert, whose mother Peggy was heavy into local republican party politics (and during one of his many retirements from wrestling, Gilbert ran for public office in his hometown but didn't come close to winning), wrote for the school newspaper, got stories in the local paper, and shot photos and did stories in wrestling magazines before breaking into wrestling while a senior in high school working Saturday nights for promoter Henry Rogers in Alden, MO in 1978. He broke into his home Memphis territory before his 18th birthday, in fact they wouldn't let him wrestle in Kentucky until he turned 18 because of commission rules. His first angle was as part of a father & son tag team feuding with Ken Wayne and father Buddy Wayne. He then went to work for Bob Geigel in Kansas City as a protege of Bulldog Bob Brown and got work in opening matches for Sam Muchnick in St. Louis when St. Louis was considered the top wrestling city in the country.

He and his father then ventured into Leroy McGuirk's Oklahoma version of the old Championship Wrestling territory after Bill Watts had taken over the Louisiana end of McGuirk's former five-state territory in 1980. He returned to Tennessee toward the end of the year and by early 1981 started tag teaming with the son of another local wrestling personality, Ricky Morton, including being a part of one of the most memorable matches of the 1980s and a videotape collectors all-time classic, the 1981 Tupelo, MS concession stand brawl against Atsushi Onita & Masa Fuchi. Morton & Gilbert went back to McGuirk's territory in its dying days, at which point he and his father ventured to Puerto Rico as a tag team.

He had met Vince McMahon Sr. at an NWA convention and Sr. invited him to come to the Northeast in 1982 where he came in a glorified jobber role, frequently teaming with Curt Hennig as the guys who would give the top heels like Ray Stevens, Buddy Rose and Don Muraco a run for their money before eventually losing in the end. Since Gilbert was much smaller than most wrestlers in the big-man territory, he was the prime opponent later when the original Tiger Mask (Satoru Sayama) was brought into the WWF for a few tours. Perhaps the turning point of his career came in 1983 while driving back from a television taping, he got into a major auto accident which resulted in him suffering a broken neck. While the original word was that his career would be over, he returned to wrestling in Tennessee just a few months later and eventually returned to the WWF as the protege of then-champion Bob Backlund. The injury and protege were tailor-made for him being the foil when The Masked Superstar (Bill Eadie) came into the WWF, and used a reverse neckbreaker to "re-injure" Gilbert according to the white-coated Dr. George Zahorian in an angle setting up a series of Backlund-Superstar matches. Gilbert and Zahorian's connection in the angle was more than ironic as the pain from the broken neck led to him becoming a frequent user of both painkillers, in particular Percosets, and later steroids.

"All he'd known since he was four-years-old was he was going to be a wrestler," remembered Hiatt. "He was 175 pounds naturally but he would freak out whenever his weight dropped below 200. On roids he got up to about 205. He took steroids all the time."

Hiatt remembered Gilbert hiding and denying his steroid use to her when they were together but she could see the tell-tale marks on his body left by the needles. After the two had broken up and Gilbert was talked about in the Zahorian trial in 1991, Gilbert admitted getting steroids and downers from Zahorian and said he got off them because off the insistence of Hiatt.

In 1984, he left WWF and returned to Tennessee teaming with Tommy Rich as The New Fabulous Ones. Stan Lane & Steve Keirn had become one of the hottest acts in the history of the territory as The Fabulous Ones, billed as proteges of local legend "Fabulous" Jackie Fargo. When the two left to work for the AWA, the left a big hole and caused attendance to drop. In a move that nearly everyone in hindsight admitted was stupid, the promotion had Fargo on television say how Stan & Steve had gotten too big and didn't want to wrestle in Memphis anymore and instead wanted to go to New York and Chicago but he was bringing in a tag team the local fans could be proud of. When it became obvious fans didn't accept them because they were thought of as copies of one of the most popular acts ever to appear in the area, Gilbert agreed to turn heel on Rich and in doing so established himself for the first time as a headliner and a major singles star in his home territory, including his first classic big house headliner against Lawler in the match where if Gilbert lost, Jimmy Hart had to leave Memphis (Hart had agreed a few weeks earlier to join the WWF).

In 1985 he left Tennessee for Bill Watts' Mid South Wrestling, a group that turned itself around doing big business using ex-Memphis undercard guys like Ricky Morton, Robert Gibson, Terry Taylor, Jim Cornette, Bobby Eaton and Dennis Condrey in strong positions. As was the case with most ex-wrestlers who were promoters in that era, they built the territory around men much like themselves. Tennessee was an extension of Jerry Jarrett, small guys often with no physiques whatsoever, wild matches, wild angles, lots of juice, young bleached-blond babyface who would juice frequently to gain sympathy from the young women fans. Gilbert was a tailor-made mid-card wrestler in that system. AWA was an extension of Verne Gagne, lots of former amateur wrestlers, many of them very old, or old ex-football players. Leroy McGuirk, a former junior heavyweight champion and top collegian, used smaller guys with good wrestling backgrounds. Watts, a 300-pounder who played football and wrestled in college although neither as successfully as his later legend would attest to, liked big, strong ex-jocks on the face side--Steve Williams or Jim Duggan being the prototype--and even bigger foreign or Anti-American heels. When Bill Dundee came in and the company started drawing money with smaller babyfaces, Watts tempered his position on the face side but the idea of a guys 5-8 1/2 and 200 pounds as a top heel was something he wasn't ready for, even though he took a liking to Gilbert. Gilbert started as a jobber, and was shifted over to a managerial role. Finally he was used as almost a coach for larger men like The Blade Runners (later Sting & Ultimate Warrior) and Rob Rechsteiner (later Rick Steiner) that Watts saw potential in. Gilbert came up with enough unique angles and was a strong enough worker that slowly he worked his way up the shows, and eventually, when Watts was already making noises of getting out of wrestling, he gave Gilbert his life-long goal. He made him booker. Gilbert shot an angle with himself to turn Sting babyface, telling everyone who would listen one year before anyone else figured it out that Sting would be the next major superstar in wrestling, even though when the buy-out by Crockett came, Sting was doing jobs for Black Bart and being kept in the second match largely until his breakthrough match in 1988 at the first Clash of the Champions. He also started out Shane Douglas, who he saw while working an independent show in Ohio, giving him his name and his first push, claiming he also would be a future superstar.

Watts' company was on its last legs and there was probably nothing anyone could have done to save it, but when he sold the company to Crockett, it put Gilbert on TBS for the first time. That relationship quickly disintegrated when he felt the UWF wrestlers were getting buried to put over the NWA wrestlers to give the established group ego gratification rather than do what would be the best thing for business, which, in hindsight, seems to be an accurate viewpoint. He left for Alabama where he made his booking reputation. But after the blow up with owner David Woods over Gilbert, while being out of action with a neck injury, working a shot in Kansas City and then claiming he didn't, it almost immediately turned into a quit/fired scenario. After the ensuing blow up, he went back to Crockett which became today's WCW.

"He had a great booking mind," said Hiatt. "He was a great booker because he'd even lie to his wife. That's how much he cared about the business."

"I always thought Eddie took more time to talk with fans than any wrestler I knew," said Russell. "He reminded me of Antonino Rocca in that they were very cognizant of the p.r. aspect and also very appreciative of what people did for him."

Hiatt traces Gilbert's personal downfall to being removed from the WCW booking committee by Ric Flair and Kevin Sullivan in 1989.

"After that he was a totally different person," said Hiatt, whose marriage with Gilbert fell apart at about that point. Those close to him believe Gilbert never was able to let go of his relationship with Hiatt, constantly blaming outside forces on them splitting up and wanting to get back together. He later had a very brief marriage to current WWF womens champ Alundra Blayze (Debra Micelli).

Gilbert's career after that point seemed to almost go in a pattern. He'd come into a territory, often as booker, and immediately make things more interesting and often pick up crowds. He'd re-do Jerry Lawler angles from the 70s that he grew up watching, often with him in the Lawler position. Eventually things wouldn't go smoothly, especially when "mark" promoters would question his tactics, and he'd walk out, sometimes with reasons that were at least explainable, other times under the most bizarre of circumstances. One time he and his brother were doing masked monster gimmicks for W*ING in Japan, they removed their masks and said how bad the promotion was for trying to have fans believe in monster gimmicks and said how they pledged their allegiance to Giant Baba and All Japan Pro Wrestling. One time he walked out on Memphis because Dream Machine was put in the main event instead of him. Another time he walked out because he was booked in the second match on a Monday night card and said he was a main eventer, not a second match wrestler, doing a shoot interview basically quitting the promotion on the live television show. He loved working Memphis and feuding with Lawler, but was plagued by the fact he was never going to become another Lawler. He was bothered badly by shoulder and neck problems stemming from the 1983 accident but still tried to work a physically taxing Terry Funk style and at his peak he was one of the top brawlers in the business. But as time went on, both his credibility and the nature of the business got to where people didn't believe him when he said he was injured. At one point, he tried to convince people that he was retiring because of injuries to go into politics, then as soon as he was released from his WCW contract, within two weeks he was working a main event program in Memphis. When he left Puerto Rico in late 1994, nobody would touch him until finally he was able to convince Cornette that he needed to prove a point. While Cornette had been burned by a supposedly reformed Jake Roberts a few months earlier, but had been thrilled by the performance and turnaround of Buddy Landel, whose career had gone through similar turmoil, and went against his initial reluctance and built a program around him.

"I can only think that if he had stayed here, maybe this wouldn't have happened," said Hildebrand.
The death of Gilbert is the latest in what is turning into a harrowing streak of sons who followed their fathers into pro wrestling who met tragic ends young in life over the past ten years--a list that includes Steve Romero (Jay Youngblood), David, Kerry, Chris and Mike Adkisson (Von Erich), Charles Wolfe (Gino Hernandez) and Art Barr (Love Machine), none of whom reached their 34th birthday.

There are many tragedies of this and other stories far too similar to that of Eddie Gilbert. Many of the symptoms, the constant working and inability to deal when the negative aspects of reality interfere, are involved in many of the names listed above. Drugs, both steroids and recreational, played a part in many, probably most of the above mentioned cases. And the biggest tragedy of all?
As these events happen, because they seem to come with more frequency, many in the profession have become that much more non-caring and callous than ever toward them rather than pay attention to the tragedies that wrestling has often created. The names become quickly forgotten. The assembly line chews them up and spits them out without a care in the world of where they land. Despite Gilbert being something of a national star, neither WWF nor WCW acknowledged his death on live telecasts over the weekend. It's a profession that on a national basis has become so callous to deaths that probably neither group probably even considered making mention of it. While numerous lower level promoters were truly upset thinking if they'd only returned Gilbert's phone calls or given him the jobs he was asking for of late, maybe this wouldn't have happened. Others look at the situation with Cornette and feel if they had, it wouldn't have lasted.

The only promotions expected to make any mention are ECW and USWA. ECW on the television show that aired 2/21 will run a short piece despite Gilbert leaving the group in 1993 on bad terms. USWA did at its house shows on Saturday night in Nashville and Monday in Memphis and probably will again on television this coming weekend. It's a profession where someone can be given his first major chance by someone and when they die, years before their time, some of those same people won't even give it a second thought. And others will.

Gilbert's body remained in Puerto Rico during the early part of the week until completion of the autopsy. His brother Doug was immediately flown to Puerto Rico to identify the body and bring it back home. Funeral service information won't be available until the body is returned to Tennessee but Gilbert is expected to be buried in his wrestling boots and put in the casket with him will be the Pro Wrestling Illustrated when he was named Rookie of the year and the Matwatch where he was named Wrestler of the year.

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Promotions throughout North America paid tributes to the memory of Eddie Gilbert at matches or on television shows this past week. From places as distant as Puerto Rico to Northwestern Canada, the smaller promotions demonstrated, quite frankly, what the larger promotions were unable to do or perhaps felt too self-important to do. That whatever demons plagued the career and perhaps led to the early death of Gilbert, that there is no point in bearing any grudges against him today. Eddie Gilbert was a very good pro wrestling, a very big pro wrestling fan and unfortunately many of the negatives that can be said about him are a byproduct of the world which he lived in from a very young age and many he ultimately must take and has taken the ultimate responsibility for.

Despite his leaving all three promotions on less that positive terms, the USWA, his hometown promotion so to speak, ECW, which no doubt would have been his favorite promotion as a fan and as a wrestler to work if his own personal involvement hadn't have gotten into the way and SMW, the last promotion in the United States he worked for, ever so briefly, all held ceremonies in the ring at matches this past week. Both USWA and ECW also did television video tributes (SMW, because of taping so far in advance, would have been unable to get a tribute on the air for a few weeks so it's extremely doubtful they will do one although it may and should be mentioned briefly in commentary) and I would assume WWC in Puerto Rico, where he served as booker and top heel the last few weeks of his life, did so as well. USWA actually opened its live show this past Saturday with the announcers talking about Gilbert's death and airing a music video showing clips from the start to the finish of his career before running the musical opening to start the wrestling show. Those who saw it praised it highly. Several independent shows, including some in as far away places as the weekly Calgary Friday night Canadian Rocky Mountain wrestling show, ran in-ring tributes as well. After the tribute on 2/25 in Philadelphia at the ECW show which the promotion dedicated to his memory and many would say was the best show in the history of the company, fans chanted his name for more than one minute.

The Jackson Sun, the hometown daily paper where Gilbert grew up ran a front-page story on 2/20 and a page one of the local section follow-up the next day. The follow-up story quoted Eddie's father, former wrestler Tommy Gilbert as saying Eddie's heart was injured in a 1983 auto accident and that he was taking medication for high blood pressure basically saying that while they were shocked about the death, they weren't that the heart was involved. Eddie's younger brother Doug, of the USWA's top heels, is said to be taking the death extremely hard and has not yet returned to work. Eddie was both his big brother and something of his role model in wrestling. Eddie broke Doug in and gave him work in many territories throughout the United States, starting in Mid South Wrestling in 1987 when Doug was still a teenager.

Gilbert's body was returned to Tennessee from Puerto Rico on 2/22, with a funeral in Lexington, TN before an estimated 400 onlookers on 2/24 (see related feature on funeral on Readers Pages by Steve Beverly).

There is a lot that can be said about Eddie Gilbert. He, while not unique among wrestlers, was something of an exception is that he cared probably unusually much about his own personal performance. He seemingly would have rather worked smaller shows on top and have his character and ring performance not held back than worked for the big companies and held back because of being in a prelim or mid-card role and thus not allowed to detract from the headliners even if he could make more money doing so. He was a more creative booker than many, if not most. He had some short-term success in that role, but never proved himself in that capacity over the long-term for numerous reasons.

There is also a lot that can be learned from him. My feeling is that most people who knew him personally will think of three things besides his early death when his name comes to mind. That he was a very good, sometimes great performer who had an unusual love for and intelligence regarding pro wrestling. That he could be a very charming person who started out as a wrestling fan even though he grew up as part of the business because of his father and remained a fan and close to many fans while in the business. And that he had a serious drug problem.

If we are to learn something from the death of Eddie Gilbert, we can't ignore the message it brought. And to do that, we have to examine the latter point.

Reality. Drugs are a major part of this story and a major issue in this business. Some, in fact far too many think that making this statement that everyone knows is true is somehow a crime against the business. And that's the biggest crime of all. Trying to bury problems that everyone knows exists, even to the point of not wanting to deal with issues that have resulted in real deaths, under the guise of protecting the business, protects nothing but a house of cards outdoors waiting for the next wind storm just as the major offices wanting to pretend a wrestling star didn't really die because he wasn't working for them at that moment because their own merchandising house of cards may be vulnerable to bad publicity.

We can't say that Gilbert died specifically from drugs unless that coroner came to that conclusion and there is no information available saying anything but a massive heart attack. But they didn't help. Taking steroids while having high blood pressure and then getting such a massive heart attack that an athletic 33-year-old would die in his sleep almost immediately and without suffering from it may not all be tied together but one would be foolish not to at least be suspicious. And steroids were not the extent of use and probably not the most dangerous drugs of use.

Pain killers. Let's face it. The more physically demanding fans want the profession to be, the more pain killers are going to be used. Inevitable. Wrestling isn't the only world that exists in. Every physically punishing profession is the same. The easier physically the wrestling is, the less the need for pain killers. It's a vicious circle between giving fans a product that isn't dull and that they can enjoy, but not turning the performers into drug addicts because of the pain they need to block out to please those same fans.

Uppers. Try going on the road for three weeks and criss-crossing the country during that period. Forget about the physical nature of putting on a show in the ring, just try the travel. You can do it. But to do it and remain alert and with enthusiasm high isn't easy.

Steroids. If everyone doesn't understand why steroids are used by now, they never will, and to ignore the issue by claiming its one of personal choice is ignorant as long as those making the choice gain employment in the profession from them. And as with all these drugs, drug testing can help, but it's not the solution to any problems. Just like knee injuries are inevitable as long as we have football, and concussions are inevitable as long as we have boxing, drug use of some sort is inevitable as long as we have pro wrestling as we know it. Not a crime, well, actually in some cases it is, but a reality. The key is accept there is a problem and try to minimize it because to say it's possible to eliminate it is also being ignorant and unreasonable. Steps have been taken over the past seven years, probably more out of economic and public relations considerations than any considerations for the talent itself, that have quelled the problems to a degree. Society changes as well. Cocaine was huge in wrestling when it was popular in society. When use in society dropped, so did use in wrestling. Steroids and other physique enhancing drugs were more plentiful in sports a few years ago because of greater availability, thus the same held true for wrestling although the wrestling/steroid link was much stronger than that in most sports with the exception of hardcore bodybuilding or powerlifting because so much of the profession was being judged first and foremost by appearance at the time as opposed to performance. That has lessened both because the public's tastes have changed, the government throwing a scare into the largest promotion and steroids are harder to get as well as whatever testing is being done, but anyone who says drugs to enhance physiques aren't a significant part of this business today is either lying or misleading themselves.

In the case of Eddie Gilbert, we had a talented and dedicated performer. A real student of the game since childhood. Someone who badly wanted to be a great performer to the point he overcome a lack of size and a broken neck to become one. He's considered too small for superstardom and he knows it better than anyone even though people tell him he's got the ability for it. Size is one of his biggest drawbacks from achieving his life's goal. And you can't understand why he started using steroids. It would be a shock if he didn't. But in his case, they weren't enough. Then he broke his neck. His bump taking ability was one of his strongest points. Bumps hurt. Crazy bumps hurt worse. This isn't magic and the guys don't have wires on when they fall from great heights or at nasty looking angles. Sure, they know how to fall, but a body can only take so much punishment, particularly one that starts off with a broken neck and it spreads to a damaged shoulder and nerve problems going down the arm. He developed unique bumps where he rarely landed on his neck hard but no doubt those bumps jarred his spine worse in other ways. And one wonders why he got into pain killers. Ultimately there comes a time when one has to come to grips and reel oneself back in. Perhaps that was Gilbert's own character flaw. Every profession is going to have its tragedies. You take any group of people in this age group and, outside of wrestling, even outside of sports or entertainment in general, and you'll have a few drug problems and untimely deaths. It just seems to occur with too much frequency in wrestling. It's a serious wrestling issue. Maybe the most serious because it's both real and deadly. It's not primarily a serious public relations problem. It's a real problem and treating it as a public relations problem is a problem in and of itself. As heartless as many in this profession are, I truly believe very few, if any, want to see another Eddie Gilbert or Art Barr situation. The coroner in Eugene, OR earlier this month finally came out with a cause of death on Barr. A bad reaction to a mixture of alcohol and prescription drugs. Not an overdose, but the worst possible result of having poor judgement. On a given night, how many wrestlers will mix alcohol and prescription drugs? It's a scary thought when you get right down to it. But by trying to pretend it didn't happen, they are increasing the odds that it will again.

Phil Mushnick wrote another piece on 2/22 in the New York Post largely regarding the death of Gilbert and mentioning several other big-name wrestlers over the past 11 years that died at a young age. Considering we are talking about an 11 year period, the number doesn't seem extraordinary until we realize just how few full-time wrestlers there are in this country.

Bruno Sammartino was heavily quoted in Mushnick's piece, decrying the current profession to the point of saying, "It's time to clean up this business or abolish it, because it's nothing like it used to be. Right now, it's filled with human junk." He was also critical of athletic commissions.

Athletic commissions are a complex issue in and of themselves. For the most part, and there are exceptions, they are both useless and worthless when it pertains to pro wrestling. While drug use appears to have declined, although probably not as much as those in power of organizations would like you to believe, nearly everyone who is being honest will admit that there was a period where use was rampant only a few years back. Commissions collected their five percent and looked the other way while obviously stoned out of their mind performers would go into the ring like zombies and not be able to perform or be so drugged out they could be dangerous to their opponents out of sheer sloppiness. Commissions looked the other way while steroided out larger-than-life performers would huff and puff within 30 seconds and collapse in the dressing room because they were out of oxygen from a minimum of physical exertion. The way today's society is, no solutions to any problem regarding pro wrestling is going to come from an athletic commission except in very rare exceptions.

Drug tests are a positive if they are administered fairly and are not a joke. But they aren't an answer and when organizations use them as an answer for criticism on the subject, it only shows more concern over the public relations issue than the real problem. It's an economic impossibility for smaller organizations to drug test. They have some say so in who they hire. They have some in who they fire. But it's a cut-throat rumor-filled business and it would be horrible for someone to lose their job based on rumor or suspicion without real substance. Small promotions barely have the money to run shows. Less extensive traveling, which has taken place more due to economic considerations as cost-cutting rather than any concern for the wrestlers themselves, have helped from the days of guys wrestling seven to ten shots per week with double-shots every Saturday and Sunday and 28 straight days on the road as was the case of the WWF and to a lesser extent Jim Crockett in the late 80s. Things are better now in that regard. But every no-talent steroided-out wrestler given a job over another one more talented and every time a major organization won't even publicly say something nice or even not so nice about a former star on television because acknowledging a young man in the profession dying is bad public relations, only guarantees that it won't be long before another young man who has made the unfortunate career goal of wanting to be the best they can in their given profession ends up in an early grave because they wanted something so bad, the lengths they were willing to go led them down a path that sometimes one doesn't return from.

Fat Cat wrote:About the whole family or just Kerry?

Koko, Beware wrote:Kerry was my first favorite too. He was the dude this fat ten year old kid wanted to look like. A whole hell of a lot of good childhood memories of WCCW on Saturday mornings.
I'd never read that--thanks for posting.

George Hackenschmidt died at the age of 90

Koko, Beware wrote:1989 Flair might be my favorite year for a wrestler. NWA was balls out in 89. Great year for that promotion

Kensuke Sasaki’s leading on-paper accomplishment in Japanese pro wrestling is that he is one of only two people, Yoshihiro Takayama being the other, to have held the three major world championships of Japanese wrestling-- the IWGP heavyweight (New Japan), The Triple Crown (All Japan) and the GHC heavyweight (Pro Wrestling NOAH).

But in Japan, Sasaki and wife Hisako Uno, better known as Akira Hokuto, are far better known as afternoon television celebrities as the married wrestling couple.

A number of wrestlers who have distinctive personalities who were stars when wrestling was big in the 90s make regular appearances on Japanese television, as part of the country’s celebrity culture that puts famous people on game shows, talk shows, quiz shows, travel shows, cooking shows and other places of that type.

Because of that, the wrestling stars of that era are far better known to the general public than the pro wrestlers of this era, and have more mainstream recognition than the pro wrestlers of North America. It’s one of the reasons wrestlers from that era are recruited and have been elected to national political offices, and maintained their recognition long after they have left wrestling.

Antonio Inoki, Atsushi Onita, Akira Maeda, Nobuhiko Takada, Naoya Ogawa, Keiji Muto, Masahiro Chono and Yoshiaki Fujiwara are frequently on shows of this type and known far beyond the wrestling, or even the sports audience.

But the celebrity wrestling couple, Sasaki and Hokuto, are the most popular ones today. They are on major network television shows several times a week. The dynamic is Hokuto talks, and is known for having a great sense of humor. Sasaki sits next to her, as the likeable thickly muscled guy who is always smiling and laughing at her jokes.

Sasaki, who was elected to the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame in November, announced his retirement on 2/13, two days after putting over protege Katsuhiko Nakajima, who he and his wife have raised almost like a son since he was a teenager, clean in the middle at his Diamond Ring promotion show at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo.

While not talked about, when Sasaki, 47, returned last year after major neck surgery due to a herniated disc, he was told that the wrong kind of bump could result in paralysis. It was clear physically that he was not the same, and was doing a lot less in the ring. He kept his retirement a secret, even Minoru Suzuki, one of his best friends and his late night phone buddy, didn’t know about it. And everyone in the industry was surprised to see him put over Nakajima, and then hint about retirement. He just talked about how he had wrestled for 28 years, and has no regrets about anything in his career, and then left the arena.

At his press conference, with his wife by his side, he said that was his final match and there would be no retirement match because he feels there is nothing left for him to accomplish, and that he’s still suffering from neck problems. He noted that his goal now is to raise his two boys, and he can’t risk anything more severe.

Sasaki was one of the biggest stars in Japan of the past 25 years, a career that included holding the IWGP heavyweight title five times, trailing only the six reigns of Tatsumi Fujinami and Hiroshi Tanahashi. For the early part of his career, he was known as the personal protege of Riki Choshu, a member of the 1972 South Korean Olympic wrestling team who became one of the biggest stars in Japanese wrestling. By the time Sasaki started making his mark as a star, Choshu was New Japan’s booker. The three big stars Choshu built around were Shinya Hashimoto, Keiji Muto and Masahiro Chono, during a period when New Japan was the world’s most successful pro wrestling company until the Monday Night Wars propelled the U.S. scene. Sasaki was positioned as just below them, and when they started fading from the scene, he took over. After injuries had crippled Muto, Chono and Hashimoto (who died in 2005 from a brain aneurysm at the age of 40), Sasaki was the last of that generation of the New Japan Tokyo Dome sellout headliners still active in a major way.

Perhaps the match that really established him as the singles superstar of the promotion was one he lost, on October 9, 2000, at the Tokyo Dome. During the 90s, the two big companies in Japan were All Japan Pro Wrestling, run by Shohei “Giant” Baba, and New Japan Pro Wrestling, run by Kanji “Antonio” Inoki. Baba & Inoki were the most famous tag team in Japanese pro wrestling during a golden era in the late 60s, as the two stars with Japanese Pro Wrestling. In those days, Japan had six major television networks, four of which had a weekly pro wrestling show in prime time.

Nippon TV had been established as the home of pro wrestling since the Rikidozan era in the 50s, with the weekly wrestling hour being Friday at 8 p.m. In 1969, NET (now TV-Asahi) started airing a Monday night show from the same Japan Pro Wrestling group, or the Japanese Wrestling Alliance as it was also known. However, when the promotion brokered the deal, NTV insisted on exclusivity of Baba, the biggest star, Seiji Sakaguchi (a national judo champion seen as the next big superstar) as well as the big tournaments. So NET wound up built around Inoki as the top star, which set the stage for the future. There was also a smaller promotion that had national TV on Sundays and matches from the United States would air on Tuesdays.

A series of things happened in 1971, with the end result that Inoki left the promotion and formed his own group, New Japan Pro Wrestling, while Baba left and formed All Japan Pro Wrestling. All Japan aired in those days on NTV on Saturday nights at 7 p.m. starting in 1972, while New Japan had no TV for its first year, but started on NTV on Friday nights at 8 p.m. in 1973.

The two sides were in a bitter business war for most of the next 28 years, with a brief business reconciliation in 1990. But even during that period, the top native Japanese stars from the two groups never wrestled each other in singles matches.

After Baba passed away in 1999, Mitsuharu Misawa, his top star, left the promotion and took all but one major star with him to form Pro Wrestling NOAH. Motoko Baba, the widow of Shohei Baba, then opened up relations with New Japan, which led to a series of major shows with All Japan vs. New Japan matches. Sasaki was the IWGP heavyweight champion, and called on to represent the promotion against Toshiaki Kawada, who was All Japan’s lone remaining top star.

Because he was the champion, walking down the aisle in one of the biggest matches in Japanese history, in front of a sellout of 54,000 fans and one of the biggest gates to date, it established Sasaki at the top level, and he was viewed at that level from that point forward. He was in his second reign as IWGP champion, and had already headlined the Tokyo Dome three times, either challenging for, or defending the title.

The way the story was built, Kawada took the first match. It was a non-title match. but Sasaki, feeling he let the company down, vacated the IWGP title, which was put up in a tournament on the January 4, 2001, show. In one of the best Dome shows ever, Sasaki defeated Satoshi Kojima, Masahiro Chono and Kawada before 52,000 fans to win the championship.

But it was really another match, where he was again on the losing side, in the same building, that established him as a legend. On July 18, 2005, in what would end up being his final Tokyo Dome appearance, he faced Kenta Kobashi, who was something of the Michael Jordan of Japanese pro wrestling at the time. Technically, they weren’t even the main event, as NOAH booked a double dream match lineup that included the first Misawa vs. Kawada match in several years. But it was clear on that night that Kobashi vs. Sasaki was the real main event, and their chop fest became a heavily copied sequence in matches ever since that point, and was the second time his bout was voted by Tokyo Sports as the match of the year.

In 1995, 28-year-old Kensuke Sasaki had risen the ranks in New Japan to become one of its top stars. First known as the junior member of a tag team with former Olympic wrestler Hiroshi Hase, known best for hot main events against teams like The Road Warriors, The Steiners and Muto & Chono, he had gotten even more popular as half of a tag team called The Hell Raisers.

The Road Warriors had become huge hits in Japan in 1985. In 1992, while wrestling in the WWF, Hawk, who had failed a steroid test earlier in the year, got fed up and went AWOL in England for SummerSlam. Animal suffered a back injury and retired, collecting on a Lloyd’s of London disability policy.

With Animal on the shelf, Hawk wanted to create a Japanese version of the Road Warriors. Sasaki, who was really only about 5-foot 7 ½, but weighed 253 pounds and could bench press 450, was taken under his wing in what turned out to be a major career break. He was given face paint, a Road Warriors haircut and the spiked shoulder pads outfit. Christened Power Warrior, the team rarely lost. It was as if a Japanese star had suddenly become part of the most famous pro wrestling tag team of all-time, described as the equivalent in a nation that is extremely nationalistic to be like if there was an authentic Japanese member of a famous rock band and how big a celebrity that person would be. Eventually, Sasaki headlined his first Tokyo Dome show, on January 4, 1995, losing to his big rival both in and out of the ring of that era, Shinya Hashimoto, in an IWGP title match before 52,500 fans.

The two had a unique rivalry. Even though Muto and Hase were legitimately the best shooters in the dojo, Hashimoto, because he was thick, kicked hard and got in more physical matches as opposed to the technical style of Chono or the graceful athletic style of Muto, was viewed by the public as the company’s tough guy. Sasaki, who was the physically strongest of the Japanese wrestlers in the promotion, and built like a powerhouse, not fat like Hashimoto, thought he was more credible in that role. Plus, they were only a year apart age wise.

But it made them strong rivals when Sasaki had moved up and had the credibility to be in the championship picture and sell out the Tokyo Dome. One person noted that if Hashimoto had a barbecue at his house, Sasaki wanted one the next week at his house and it was important to have at least as many people there. Once, when Hashimoto bought an expensive Mercedes Benz, Sasaki then bought an even more expensive car. It was noted that of their generation, Muto, Chono and Hase were all college educated. Muto competed at a high level in judo, and Hase at an even higher level in wrestling. Hashimoto and Sasaki both came from judo, but neither had ever reached the national championship level when they were in high school. Because of that, it was said that both always felt they had to prove themselves more, and in Sasaki’s case, he practically lived in the gym.

As Sasaki was being built for his first IWGP title win, besides his Hell Raisers period, the key booking moves were placing second in the 1994 G-1 Climax tournament to Chono, and winning the Japan & U.S. All-Star tournament from September 19 to September 23, 1996.

That was a major joint event with WCW. New Japan’s best were put in a 16-man tournament with eight stars of WCW, Ric Flair, Lex Luger, Arn Anderson, Scott Norton, Sting, Hugh Morrus, Steve (now William) Regal and Buff Bagwell, in a single elimination tournament. Sasaki scored clean wins over Flair, Luger, Norton and Shiro Koshinaka in the finals. This also led to a period where Sasaki & Koshinaka formed a regular championship tag team.

He followed that by beating Sting for the U.S. title on November 13, 1995, in Tokyo, at Sumo Hall, in the main event of a show that was a box office flop. With a poor advance, they went to heavy papering to get 7,500 fans, New Japan’s smallest crowd in the building in more than 15 years. With Hokuto and Sonny Onno (since the tape was scheduled to air in the U.S.), at ringside, Sasaki won his biggest career match to date using the Northern lights bomb, Hokuto’s finisher. He came to the U.S. working television tapings at Disney as champion.

The plan was to lose the title on a joint New Japan/WCW Starrcade show, on December 27, 1995, in Nashville, back to Sting. But plans changed. Starrcade was built around a World Cup tournament, where each side had won three matches, leading to each side’s big hitter, Sting for WCW and Sasaki for New Japan, in the final match. The storyline was that Sasaki had refused to defend the title against Sting in the United States, so the match had to be non-title. Sting kicked out of the Northern lights bomb (the announcers had no idea it was Sasaki’s big move that beat Sting for the title) and Sting also escaped the Power Strangle (ditto), then used his reverse ipponzei judo hip toss, which Tony Schiavone called an arm drag. Sting also escaped the scorpion deathlock of Sasaki, and came back to win with a scorpion deathlock of his own.

WCW had changed directions. At the time, Rey Misterio Jr., Psicosis and Juventud Guerrera were tearing it up in ECW. Nancy Sullivan, later to become Nancy Benoit, was the wife of Kevin as a manager in ECW. She had also worked as a valet on some AAA shows in both California and Mexico, and told her husband about the guys being some of the best talent in the world.

Konnan was both the co-booker at AAA, and its top star. Sullivan’s feel that in doing business, the key was to put over the big star, so he earmarked Konnan for a U.S. title run, but felt beating Sasaki wasn’t the way to do it. Plus, with Sasaki being such a key player in Japan, beating him wasn’t going to be easy. New Japan would okay a home-and-home win series with Sting, who had appeared in Japan for years as a featured star. Konnan had not worked at that level in Japan. Sullivan didn’t want to put the U.S. title on Sting, because Konnan was supposed to come in as a babyface.

So after Starrcade’s PPV ended, with Flair winning a three-way over Sting and Luger, out came Sasaki and the One Man Gang. Given he had already worked as a heel against Sting, and his storyline was that he wouldn’t defend the title in the United States, it made perfect sense that he came out to defend the title as a babyface. The two had what was reported as the worst match on the show. Gang hit his 747 splash, and Sasaki kicked out. The referee counted to three. Gang grabbed the belt and held it overhead. The ref took the belt from Gang, re-started the match, and Sasaki then pinned Gang. This was the version of events that happened and what was reported in Japan.

For U.S. TV, they only showed Gang getting the three count and holding the belt in the air, so for the sellout crowd in Nashville at Starrcade, they had seen Sasaki score a pin, get announced as the winner, and then saw Gang on TV in the same match having won the title. The Japanese had an issue with Sasaki losing to Gang when the deal was set up for it to be Sting. But more so, the problem was the idea he would lose twice on the same show, including once to someone they didn’t consider as a top star. It was very different then. The major sports newspapers, read by millions, covered this card in Japan, and for the top stars, wins and losses were protected very closely, especially for a rising star.

Sasaki’s first IWGP title win came over Hashimoto on August 31, 1997, before an overflow turn away crowd of 18,000 fans at the Yokohama Arena. The win was symbolic, because it was billed as Riki Choshu night, to honor the booker who was scheduled to retire a few months later (and here he is more than 16 years later still wrestling). In addition, Hashimoto was all over the news because a week earlier, his mother-in-law had died jumping in front of a moving car protecting her two-year-old grandchild (Hashimoto’s daughter) who was about to be run over.

The match was reported as good, with Sasaki winning in 16:54 with a Northern lights bomb.

Sasaki was given the monster push at the time, beating Tenzan to win the G-1 Climax tournament on August 3, and then teaming with Koshinaka to win the tag team titles on August 10 at the Nagoya Dome from Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi.

Hisako Uno was born July 13, 1967, making her a year younger then Sasaki. She was a crazy pro wrestling fan growing up, first idolizing the Crush Gals, who were mainstream stars in the mid-80s. Then she became a heel fan, and even headed the Bull Nakano Fan Club. She dropped out of high school at 17, and at 18, she was named Japanese women’s Rookie of the Year. At 19, she and veteran Yukari Omori lost to Chigusa Nagayo of the Crush Gals, and Yumiko Hotta, in the finals of that year’s tag team tournament, in what was voted that year’s Japanese womens’ Match of the Year.

She was clearly a rising star. At the age of 20, Hotta & Uno won the WWWA tag titles, but in a title defense against a team called The Red Typhoons, Kazue Nagahori & Yumi Ogura, she took a tombstone piledriver off the top rope and legitimately suffered a broken neck. She then wrestled the entire third fall while holding her head in place with her hands, did the job, and at the time it was believed her career was over.

She returned in 1989, as Akira Hokuto, with bleached blond hair, naming herself after Akira Maeda, a popular pro wrestler of that era. Despite constantly battling major injuries, over the next few years, Hokuto established herself within wrestling as being viewed as the greatest woman wrestler who ever lived.

That point is debatable, as many see Manami Toyota with her incredible athletic ability, as the best woman of the real golden age of women’s in-ring wrestling. But from knowing many of the wrestlers of the era, there was never a question in anyone within the promotion’s eyes as to who the greatest worker was, as Toyota was viewed as weak from the drama standpoint and couldn’t match Hokuto’s physical toughness.

When All Japan women and their big rivals, the JWP promotion, started working together, the big singles program were Hokuto as the All Japan women’s rep, against former Japanese judo champion and early MMA pioneer Shinobu Kandori, who played the shooter role of the era. Their April 2, 1993, bloodbath was among the greatest matches, men or women of any era. She was always working hurt, nicknamed the mummy because she’d be in the ring with so many different body parts taped up. The injuries shortened her prime and she never captured what was the biggest title belt in women’s wrestling at the time, the WWWA title.

Due to injuries, she stopped working full-time for All Japan women in 1992, and announced she would retire at the end of 1993, a year that featured her two memorable matches with Kandori. She moved to Mexico, got married to a wrestler, and held the CMLL women’s title for two years. Even though she was not a full-timer, when All Japan women ran its only Tokyo Dome event, on November 20, 1994, it was clear the crowd of 32,500 saw her as the biggest star on the show. The event was highlighted by what was called the Five-Star tournament. The best women from several different promotions would compete in an eight-woman tournament, which ended with Hokuto beating Aja Kong.

Even though they were both major pro wrestling stars, Hokuto and Sasaki had at that point never met.

Inoki put together a deal with the government of North Korea to put on two pro wrestling shows. The controversial events, which drew the two largest pro wrestling crowds in history, saw citizens of Pyongyang essentially ordered to attend and the spectators performed in unison at the shows. Virtually nobody knew what pro wrestling was, past the point that Rikidozan, who was actually from North Korea (a closely guarded secret during his lifetime, and still unknown to most in Japan until decades after his death), was known as a North Korean who became the biggest wrestling star ever in Japan. Inoki himself was well known in North Korea as Rikidozan’s protege.

Inoki’s New Japan worked with WCW and All Japan women in producing the shows. On April 28, 1995, before 150,000 fans at Mayday Stadium in Pyongyang, Sasaki and Hokuto worked the same show, meeting for the first time while on the tour. Hokuto teamed with Nakano, the woman whose fan club she once ran, to beat Toyota & Mariko Yoshida in the match that went on second but stole the show. Sasaki beat former Olympian Masa Saito in the semifinal, underneath a Hashimoto vs. Scott Norton main event.

All the wrestling contingent, which stayed at the same hotel, knew by morning that the two had hooked up. In fact, it was the big story the next morning, because the screams from Sasaki’s room could be heard loudly through the walls by everyone on their floor, the floor above and the floor below. By the time they were the talk of the wrestlers at breakfast, the two were already engaged.

That night, they performed in front of 170,000 fans, the largest pro wrestling crowd in history, underneath the main event, the first and only meeting between Inoki and Ric Flair. This time she was second from the top, retaining her CMLL title against Nakano. He teamed with Hase third from the top, reprising the 1991 match of the year, losing to Rick & Scott Steiner.

She was always known for being very smart, and having the ability to get what she wanted. Some of the women wrestlers who had worked with her viewed the engagement after one night as her manipulating him to make herself into a bigger mainstream star, with the gimmick of the husband-and-wife superstars in wrestling, something Japanese wrestling had never had before. But now, nearly 19 years later, the two are married, have two sons, and it’s been more than a decade since anyone has even questioned the situation. They have their own wrestling company where she handles the business and he handles the training, and long after she retired from the ring, she’s remained a major star.

To show how famous they have become, every year, NTV, one of Japan’s major networks, does a 24-hour charity program, running events all over the country to raise money. There are concerts, talk shows, celebrity volleyball tournaments, etc. to raise money for a variety of charities. Only top tier celebrities, movie stars, baseball superstars, etc. are chosen each year to be the main stars. The biggest event is a 24-hour marathon, which airs for three hours as the key prime time show.

On August 25 and August 26, 2012, the celebrities chosen were Sasaki and Hokuto. It was a deal put together months earlier, because they weren’t going to be figureheads, but they were actually going to be runners. The story was that the two of them, along with their two children, Kennosuke, then 13 (he’s now 15), and Shinnosuke, then nine (he’s now ten), would run as a family relay the 120 kilometer (74.56 mile course). The family trained for months building their stamina to each be able to go nearly 20 miles apiece. Making things more difficult, she had told the press that while she hadn’t done anything athletic in years, he, with his pro wrestling body, was in great shape, and was going to do the run without dropping from his wrestling weight of 253 pounds.

The show was going to be huge whether they were on it or not, doing a 20.5 rating over the three hours. But the rating spiked for clips of the four family members, with Kensuke going first, followed by Kennosuke, Shinnosuke and finally Hokuto. When she crossed the finish line, the rating had spiked to a 46.5, meaning roughly 50 million of Japan’s population of 127 million were watching her.

Kensuke Sasaki was born August 4, 1966, in Fukuoka, Japan. In high school, he participated in judo, which was where he got his grip strength, balance, strong base and some of his early moves. During the height of his New Japan singles career, his finishing sequence would be a judo throw followed by his Power Strangle submission.

At 19, he started as the protege of Choshu. Few remember this, but he actually started with All Japan Pro Wrestling, well, actually the offshoot outsider group called Japan Pro Wrestling that housed the Choshu army. Sasaki worked his first year in prelims there. When Choshu left All Japan in 1987 to return to New Japan, he came to New Japan and worked in prelims.

In 1988, he left Japan to get international experience. He went to Puerto Rico, where he held the Caribbean tag team titles with Mr. Pogo as his partner. He also went to Stampede Wrestling in the final days of that promotion, using the name Benkei Sasaki, and held the International tag team titles with Sumo Hara (Tatsumi Kitahara). He also wrestled in Austria and Germany as Kendo Sasaki.

When he returned to Japan in 1990, things had changed, and for him, it was for the better. Inoki had been elected to the Japanese Parliament, meaning all the creative decision making was in the hands of Choshu. Choshu immediately started the push for Muto, Chono and Hashimoto to replace himself, Inoki and Tatsumi Fujinami as the big stars of the promotion. He put Sasaki in a tag team with assistant booker Hase, who was probably the best wrestler in the company at the time, but the decision was made his role would largely be the guy with credibility who would put over the new stars on the way up. At the same time, to keep him strong, he and Sasaki would be a regular tag team. On November 1, 1990, they defeated Muto & Chono in a spectacular match to win the IWGP tag team championships.

Their second title reign ended in an NWA vs. IWGP tag team title match against The Steiner Brothers on March 21, 1991, a show billed as “Starrcade at the Tokyo Dome,” which aired on PPV in the United States. The fast pasced exchanges of amateur wrestling spots and suplexes was a style really not familiar in the U.S., and it was voted 1991 match of the year in the Observer poll.

Outside the ring, Choshu put Hase and Sasaki in charge of training the young talent. In Japan, Sasaki is well known for his success rate when it comes to training wrestlers, including Satoshi Kojima, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Yuji Nagata, Manabu Nakanishi, Kendo Ka Shin, Shinjiro Otani, Koji Kanemoto, Osamu Nishimura, Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Kazuyuki Fujita, Tadao Yasuda, Togi Makabe, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Katsuhiko Nakajima and Katsuyori Shibata, all of whom became name talent.

However, there were also the tragedies. In 1994, Hase personally recruited Hiromitsu Gompei, who had just won the collegiate national championship, with the idea he’d be a future superstar. On January 26, 1995, Gompei, 22, suffered a serious head injury while training, and died four days later.

Hase had attempted to get answers as to what happened, and frustrated with what happened, left the New Japan promotion, although by that time he had been elected to national office and was only wrestling sparingly. He and Sasaki did make up later. The book “Ring of Hell,” pointed the finger at Sasaki for roughing him up. Sasaki was there and running the classes. Others said that Sasaki does have to take some of the blame because it was under his watch, but have different stories of the circumstances, noting it wasn’t even Sasaki in the ring with Gompei when he was injured. No charges were ever brought against anyone, nor were any lawsuits filed by the family.

Years later, Sasaki was running the dojo for the short-lived World Japan (WJ) promotion, MMA fighter Takayuki Okada, best known as Giant Ochiai who fought for Pride. Okada was the nephew and took the name of one of Japan’s biggest baseball stars ever, Hiromitsu Ochiai (1982, 1985, 1986 Triple Crown winner, 510 career home runs, Hall of Famer and later as a manager led his team into the Japanese Baseball World Series four times between 2004 and 2011), was in training to become a pro wrestler. On July 28, 2003, Okada suffered a head injury while training with Kenzo Suzuki (Kenso in All Japan today), with Sasaki monitoring the training. Okada underwent brain surgery and died on August 8, 2003, at the age of 30. Suzuki was so bothered by what happened that he quit wrestling for a time, and was working in construction.

Choshu’s booking during the 90s was stellar, as shown by all the huge crowds at the Tokyo Dome and other arenas. With the exception of WWE, and one year of WCW, it’s doubtful that any promotion was as financially successful as New Japan in the 90s. But things started declining, and in 2002, Choshu was replaced as booker and left the promotion. Sasaki left shortly after.

They started World Japan Pro Wrestling in 2003. The group only lasted one year. Sasaki had put somewhere between $200,000 and $250,000 of his own money into the promotion, and the Sasakis and Choshu had a falling out and never had anything to do with each other for years.

During this period Sasaki also trained for MMA. In a match that was actually never reported on until years after it happened, but in fact, did happen, Sasaki, on August 19, 2001, defeated Dan Chase at a show called Rumble in the Rockies, in Denver, in 36 seconds with an armbar submission. Chase may have been a professional jobber. He was listed at 0-6 going into that fights, with every loss coming in the first round. He had already lost to a New Japan wrestler, Kazuyuki Fujita (who used the name “Saito” to hide from the Japanese press in case he didn’t do well) a year earlier in Killeen, TX, and finished his career with a listed 0-9 record (record keeping at low level MMA events was spotty at best in that era) , all first round stoppages, only once lasting two minutes.

His only other fight was against San Jose’s Christian Wellisch, on his own show, called X-1, on September 6, 2003, in Yokohama. Sasaki, at the time the top star with World Japan and being 37 years old while holding their world heavyweight title, beat Wellisch, a former junior college national place winner in wrestling, in 2:35 with a guillotine. Wellisch later ended up in UFC, where he went 3-3 as a heavyweight between 2006 and 2009, beating current UFC fighter Anthony Perosh, but being knocked out by Shane Carwin and Cheick Kongo. He then retired and is now a lawyer.

Sasaki worked with former New Japan wrestler and UFC fighter Brian Johnston to put on an MMA show. It was supposed to be the debut of a new organization, but it flopped, drawing only 1,000 fans to the Yokohama Bunka Gym.

Sasaki’s show featured an interesting list of names that would go on to different levels of fame. Among them were Daniel Puder (who a year later would win WWE’s Tough Enough after having no experience with pro wrestling past nearly making the cast of Tough Enough’s third season and once watching the first WWE produced Ric Flair DVD, and was later briefly pushed as an undercard star in Strikeforce), Jon Fitch, Nakajima (then 15 years old, before he had his first pro wrestling match, winning via knockout over Jason Leigh in :25 with a head kick), Bobby Southworth (who two years later would gain some fame in the first season of The Ultimate Fighter and his televised altercation with Chris Leben and problems with Dana White, and would also later be a star with Strikeforce), Brian Pardoe (who was the opponent of Frank Shamrock when he won the WEC light heavyweight title) and 330 pound Daniel Bobish (a former UFC and Pride fighter who was being pushed at the time as the top foreign star of the World Japan Pro Wrestling group).

The story behind this was the main financial backers of World Japan were really into the idea of pro wrestling as real. Choshu, who had already hated the direction of mixing shooting and working, changed his tune to go along with the owners wishes, saying that you have to keep pace with the new generation and what they want. Exactly what was and wasn’t real can be debated given a Japanese group that was attempting to be major league putting its world champion, its top foreign star and a 15-year-old kid in a shooting situation, and Sasaki was inexperienced and older, and Nakajima was a kids star in karate but had never done MMA. The belief at the time was that everything on the show was real, but nobody really knew what was up with Sasaki and Nakajima, although Nakajima really did knock the hell out of Leigh.

After quitting WJ, which quickly folded, Sasaki came back to New Japan as a heel, pushed now as having a shooter rep, battling the new stars of the promotion, many of whom he trained, in 2004 and 2005. He had a transitional role as IWGP champion, beating Tenzan on March 12, 2004, only to drop the title to Bob Sapp on March 28, 2004, when New Japan was going down the road that almost killed them. Sapp was a genuine national celebrity, all over television commercials, and anything he did got huge coverage. The idea of him being IWGP champion is it would get the company mainstream publicity. And it may not have been a bad idea, but there were so many guys brought in from MMA and kickboxing in that era, that the uniqueness that allowed them to have matches legendary as supposed shoots that were works in the 70s and 80s when they were rare, just turned into bad pro wrestling because the gimmick was overdone.

He won the belt for a fifth and final time, beating Fujita on October 9, 2004, in a match heavily criticized because the finish was done to be a complete fluke, like the idea Fujita, by that point better known as a star with Pride and who had left New Japan, was so much stronger they couldn’t do a real finish and have it be believable (or perhaps Pride insisted on it and at the time was so much stronger than New Japan it was dealing from power), so they had to come up with a cheap way to get the belt off him. That title win was so poorly received he had to drop it quickly, which he did on December 12, 2004, in Nagoya, to Tenzan. At that time he was freelancing, and was also working the big All Japan shows, including going to the finals of the Champion Carnival tournament, losing to Muto.

He mainly worked All Japan in 2005, even doing a nostalgia match where he teamed with Road Warrior Animal back as Power Warrior. His highlights included winning that year’s Champion Carnival tournament, beating Kawada in the semifinals and Jamal (who later became Umaga) in the finals.

Sasaki became one of the few people to win both the IWGP and Triple Crown titles on August 26, 2007, when he defeated Minoru Suzuki. He had a solid run as champion. The idea here is that the company was trying to build Suwama, a powerful former college wrestling star, as its in house strongest heavyweight, so beating Sasaki, by this point a legend, for his first title win was considered the crowning of his rise. That took place on August 24, 2008, in Nagoya. While Suwama never became the star hoped for, with the lack of television and not quite having the charisma needed to break out that era, the win over Sasaki did help his credibility as a headliner and aura as a top star, and he remains a headliner today.

His final rung of capturing the three big titles took place two weeks later, on September 6, 2008, when he defeated Takeshi Morishima for the GHC heavyweight title, before 9,000 fans at Budokan Hall. His run ended on March 1, 2009, when he lost to Jun Akiyama, before 14,200 fans, although that crowd was more for Kenta Kobashi doing a comeback on the undercard.

Takayama later won all three titles, but as a champion, it wasn’t as significant since his run only included one time with each, and far less longevity as a top guy, winning the GHC title in 2002, the IWGP title in 2003, and the Triple Crown in 2009.

Sasaki, as the head of the Kensuke Office (now called Diamond Ring), wrestled mostly for NOAH until his neck injury that really ended his career, usually in tag team matches with Nakajima. He was mostly in the role of the legend who would be on the card, and thus, virtually never lost himself.

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KENSUKE SASAKI CAREER TITLE HISTORY

IWGP HEAVYWEIGHT: def. Shinya Hashimoto August 31, 1997 Yokohama; lost to Tatsumi Fujinami April 4, 1998 Tokyo; def. Genichiro Tenryu January 4, 2000 Osaka; Title vacated after losing to Toshiaki Kawada October 9, 2000 Tokyo in a non-title match; def. Toshiaki Kawada in tournament final for vacated title January 4, 2001 Tokyo; def. Hiroyoshi Tenzan Mach 12, 2004 Tokyo; lost to Bob Sapp March 28, 2004 Tokyo; def. Kazuyuki Fujita October 9, 2004 Tokyo; lost to Hiroyoshi Tenzan December 12, 2004 Nagoya ALL JAPAN TRIPLE CROWN: def. Minoru Suzuki August 26, 2007 Tokyo; lost to Suwama April 24, 2008 Nagoya

PRO WRESTLING NOAH GHC HEAVYWEIGHT: def. Takeshi Morishima September 6, 2008 Tokyo; lost to Jun Akiyama March 1, 2009 Tokyo

WCW UNITED STATES HEAVYWEIGHT: def. Sting November 13, 1995 Tokyo; lost to One Man Gang December 27, 1995 Nashville.

IWGP TAG TEAM: w/Hiroshi Hase def. Keiji Muto & Masahiro Chono November 1, 1990 Tokyo; lost to Hiro Saito & Super Strong Machine (Junji Hirata) December 26, 1990 Hamamatsu; w/Hiroshi Hase def. Hiro Saito & Super Strong Machine March 6, 1991 Nagasaki; lost to Rick & Scott Steiner March 21, 1991 Tokyo; as Power Warrior w/Road Warrior Hawk def. Scott Norton & Tony Halme December 14, 1992 Tokyo; lost to Scott Norton & Hercules Hernandez August 5, 1993 Tokyo; as Power Warrior w/Road Warrior Hawk def. Scott Norton & Hercules Hernandez January 4, 1994 Tokyo; lost to Hiroshi Hase & Keiji Muto November 25, 1994 Iwate; w/Riki Choshu def. Tatsumi Fujinami & Kengo Kimura April 12, 1997 Tokyo; lost to Manabu Nakanishi & Satoshi Kojima May 3, 1997 Osaka; w/Kazuo Yamazaki def. Manabu Nakanishi & Satoshi Kojima August 10, 1997 Nagoya; lost to Keiji Muto & Masahiro Chono October 19, 1997 Kobe; w/Shiro Koshinaka def. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima March 22, 1999 Amagasaki; lost to Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto June 27, 1999 Shizuoka

PRO WRESTLING NOAH GHC TAG TEAM: w/Takeshi Morishima def. Bison Smith & Akitoshi Saito September 21, 2009 Nagoya; lost to Takeshi Rikio & Mohammed Yone December 6, 2009 Tokyo

ALL JAPAN ALL-ASIA TAG: w/Katsuhiko Nakajima def. Shuji Kondo & Yasshi July 26, 2005 Tokyo; Vacated titles October 2006 due to Sasaki being injured

WORLD WRESTLING COUNCIL TAG TEAM: w/Mr. Pogo def. Huracan Castillo & Miguel Perez Jr. December 15, 1988 Bayamon; lost to Mark & Chris Youngblood March 4, 1989 San Juan; w/Mr. Pogo def. Huracan Castillo & Miguel Perez Jr. April 1, 1989 San Juan; lost to Brad & Bart Batten April 2, 1989 Dorado

KO-D TRIOS CHAMPION: w/Danshoku Dino & Makoto Oishi def. Antonio Honda & Hoshtango & Yuji Hino July 21, 2013 Tokyo; lost to Akebono & Toru Owashi & Sanshiro Takagi August 18, 2013 Tokyo

WORLD JAPAN THE GREATEST TITLE: def. Kenzo Suzuki in tournament final July 20, 2003 Tokyo; Vacated title December 2003 when leaving promotion

MICHINOKU PRO TOHOKU TAG TEAM: w/Katsuhiko Nakajima def. Jinsei Shinzaki & Ultimo Dragon September 1, 2004 Tokyo; lost to Jinsei Shinzaki & Gaiana March 5, 2005 Tokushima

STAMPEDE WRESTLING INTERNATIONAL TAG TEAM: as Benkei Sasaki w/Sumo Hara (Tatsumi Kitahara) def. Bulldog Bob Brown & Kerry Brown August 18, 1989 Calgary; lost to The Black Hearts (Tom Nash & David “Gangrel” Heath) September 21, 1989 Calgary

UWA TAG TEAM: as Power Warrior w/Road Warrior Animal def. El Terrible & Damian 666 in tournament final for vacant title May 11, 2008 Mexico City; Titles never defended

HAWAIIAN HEAVYWEIGHT: def. Lopaka Kapaniu December 20, 2003 Kaneohi, Hawaii; Title vacated 2005

HAWAIIAN HERITAGE TAG TEAM: w/Kenjiro Katahira def. Ahuna & Kaniela January 17, 2004 Kaneohi, Hawaii; Titles vacated; w/Kenjiro Katahira def. Taiyo Kea & Eddie Fatu July 21, 2004 Kaneohi, Hawaii; Vacated titles 2005


TOURNAMENT HISTORY

1990 Japan/China Friendship tournament: lost to Masahiro Chono in finals

1992 NWA title and G-1 Climax tournament: lost in semifinals to Rick Rude

1992 Super Grade tag team tournament: w/Hiroshi Hase lost to Riki Choshu & Shinya Hashimoto in finals

1993 Super Grade tag team tournament: as Power Warrior w/Road Warrior Hawk 5th place

1994 G-1 Climax tournament: as Power Warrior won B block, lost to Masahiro Chono in finals

1994 Super Grade tag team tournament: as Power Warrior w/Road Warrior Hawk tied 1st place; lost to Masahiro Chono & Super Strong Machine in playoffs

1995 G-1 Climax tournament : 3rd place B Block

1995 Super Grade tag team tournament: w/Masa Saito 6th place

1996 G-1 Climax tournament: 2nd place A block

1996 Japan/U.S. All-Star tournament: def. Shiro Koshinaka in finals (had defeated Lex Luger, Ric Flair and Scott Norton to reach finals)

1996 Super Grade tag team tournament: w/Riki Choshu 3rd place

1997 G-1 Climax tournament: def. Hiroyoshi Tenzan in finals

1997 Super Grade tag team tournament: w/Kazuo Yamazaki 2nd place, lost in playoffs to Shinya Hashimoto & Manabu Nakanishi

1998 G-1 Climax tournament: lost to Kazuo Yamazaki in quarterfinals

1998 Super Grade tag team tournament: w/Kazuo Yamazaki tied for 1st place; lost to Shinya Hashimoto & Tatsumi Fujinami in playoffs

1998 IWGP tag team title tournament: w/Kazuo Yamazaki lost in semifinals to Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan

1999 G-1 Climax tournament: 3rd place A block

1999 G-1 Climax tag team tournament: w/Kazuyuki Fujita 9th place

2000 G-1 Climax tournament: def. Manabu Nakanishi in finals

2000 G-1 Climax tag team tournament: w/Shiro Koshinaka 5th place

2001 IWGP heavyweight title tournament: def. Toshiaki Kawada in finals (def. Satoshi Kojima and Masahiro Chono earlier in tournament)

2001 G-1 Climax tag team tournament: w/Dan Devine 2nd place; lost in semifinals to Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi

2002 IWGP heavyweight title tournament: lost to Rick Steiner in quarterfinals

2002 G-1 Climax tournament: 3rd place A block

2002 IWGP tag team tournament: w/Shiro Koshinaka lost in quarterfinals to Masahiro Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan

2003 World Japan championship tournament: def. Kenzo Suzuki in finals (defeated Riki Choshu and Steve Williams in first two rounds)

2004 IWGP heavyweight title tournament: lost to Hiroyoshi Tenzan in quarterfinals

2004 G-1 Climax tournament: lost to Genichiro Tenryu in quarterfinals

2004 Champion Carnival 1st place A block (lost to Keiji Muto in finals)

2004 Real World Tag League w/Katsuhiko Nakajima 3rd B block

2005 Champion Carnival 2nd A block, beat Jamal (Umaga) in finals

2005 Real World Tag League w/Katsuhiko Nakajima 2nd B block

2006 Champion Carnival 3rd A block

2007 Champion Carnival 2nd A block

2007 Real World Tag League w/Toshiaki Kawada 2nd place, lost playoff match to Satoshi Kojima & Suwama

2008 Champion Carnival 2nd B block

2008 Global Tag League w/Katsuhiko Nakajima, 5th place

2009 Global Tag League w/Takeshi Morishima, 2nd place

2010 Global League, 2nd, A block

2010 Global Tag League w/Takeshi Morishima, 2nd place A block2011 Global League, 2nd, B block

2011 Global League, 2nd place B block

2011 Global Tag League w/Kento Miyahara, 7th place

2012 Global Tag League w/Kento Miyahara, 4th place

2013 Global Tag League w/Katsuhiko Nakajima, 1st place B block, lost to KENTA & Yoshihiro Takayama in championship final


TOKYO SPORTS AWARDS

MATCH OF THE YEAR 2000 vs. Toshiaki Kawada October 9, 2000 Tokyo Dome

WRESTLER OF THE YEAR 2004

MATCH OF THE YEAR 2005 vs. Kenta Kobashi July 18, 2005 Tokyo Dome


WRESTLING OBSERVER AWARDS

MATCH OF THE YEAR 2001 w/Hiroshi Hase vs. Rick & Scott Steiner March 21, 2001 Tokyo Dome


TOKYO DOME HISTORY

March 21, 1991 w/Hiroshi Hase (IWGP tag team champions) lost to Rick & Scott Steiner (NWA tag champions) in title vs. title match

January 4, 1993 as Power Warrior w/Road Warrior Hawk double count out Rick & Scott Steiner to retain IWGP tag team titles

January 4, 1994 as Power Warrior w/Road Warrior Hawk def. Scott Norton & Hercules Hernandez to win IWGP tag team championships

January 4, 1995 lost to IWGP champion Shinya Hashimoto, main event (52,500 sellout)

October 9, 1995 lost to Masahito Kakihara

January 4, 1996 def. Hiroshi Hase

April 29, 1996 as Power Warrior w/Road Warriors def. Rick & Scott Steiner & Scott Norton

January 4, 1997 as Power Warrior def. Great Muta

April 12, 1997 w/Riki Choshu def. Tatsumi Fujinami & Kengo Kimura to win IWGP tag team championship

January 4, 1998 def. Keiji Muto to retain IWGP heavyweight title, main event (55,000 sellout)

April 4, 1998 lost IWGP heavyweight title to Tatsumi Fujinami

January 4, 1999 def. Atsushi Onita via DQ

April 10, 1999 w/Shiro Koshinaka def. Tatsumi Fujinami & Genichiro Tenryu to retain IWGP tag team titles

October 11, 1999 lost to Genichiro Tenryu

January 4, 2000 def. Genichiro Tenryu to win IWGP heavyweight title, main event (53,500 sellout)

April 7, 2000 def. Jushin Liger

October 9, 2000 As IWGP champion lost non-title match to Toshiaki Kawada, main event (54,000 sellout)

January 4, 2001 def. Satoshi Kojima, Masahiro Chono and Toshiaki Kawada, main event finals in one-night tournament for IWGP heavyweight title (52,000 sellout)

January 28, 2001 w/Toshiaki Kawada vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Hiroshi Hase, main event (30,000)

October 8, 2001 lost to Kazuyuki Fujita Vale Tudo rules (worked match)

January 4, 2002 no contest with Naoya Ogawa

May 2, 2002 w/Hiroshi Tanahashi lost to Rick & Scott Steiner

January 4, 2004 lost to Yuji Nagata

May 3, 2004 w/Manabu Nakanishi lost to Yuji Nagata & Kendo Ka Shin

July 18, 2005 lost to Kenta Kobashi, co-main event (52,000 sellout)


OTHER DOME/STADIUM RESULTS

May 3, 1993 Fukuoka Dome as Power Warrior w/Road Warrior Hawk def. Masahiro Chono & Shinya Hashimoto to retain IWGP tag team title

May 4, 1994 Fukuoka Dome as Power Warrior w/Road Warrior Hawk def. Rick & Scott Steiner to retain IWGP tag team title

April 28, 1995 Mayday Stadium Pyongyang, North Korea def. Masa Saito

April 29, 1995 Mayday Stadium Pyongyang, North Korea w/Hiroshi Hase lost to Rick & Scott Steiner

May 3, 1995 Fukuoka Dome def. Hiroyoshi Tenzan

May 3, 1997 Osaka Dome w/Riki Choshu lost IWGP tag titles to Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi

August 10, 1997 Nagoya Dome w/Shiro Koshinaka def. Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi to win IWGP tag titles

November 2, 1997 Fukuoka Dome def. Riki Choshu

May 5, 2000 Fukuoka Dome as Power Warrior def. Great Muta to retain IWGP title, main event (25,000)

April 9, 2001 Osaka Dome lost no rules match to Shinya Hashimoto

November 13, 2004 Osaka Dome def. Minoru Suzuki to retain IWGP title

T200 wrote:

Koko, Beware wrote:1989 Flair might be my favorite year for a wrestler. NWA was balls out in 89. Great year for that promotion

That was the peak of my interest in watching TV wrestling. Flair-Steamboat and Flair-Funk, plus everything else they had going on.

Fat Cat wrote:Cool, let me know if you see it out.