“I Am Forever Thankful To Ole And Gene For Bringing Me In To Crockett Promotions As A Cousin. It Launched My Career,” he wrote. “I Will Be Grateful Forever For You Giving Me The Opportunity To Become Who I Am Today. We Didn’t Always Agree With Each Other, But The Honest To God Truth Is You & Gene Started Me. Rest In Peace My Friend!”
Anderson (Alan Robert Rogowski) entered Jim Crockett Promotions in 1968, billed as the brother of Gene Anderson. Together, they were known as the Minnesota Wrecking Crew. In 1986, he became part of the original Horsemen lineup with Flair, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, and JJ Dillon. He also was part of WCW’s booking committee in 1990 and 1993, shortly before Eric Bischoff was put in charge of the company in 1994.
The wrestling world is mourning the passing of Adam Bryniarski, who wrestled as “The Royal Stud” Adam Windsor, at just 41 years old.
SLAM Wrestling reported that he died due to a heart issue, the details of which aren’t known.
Born in England, the trainee of Neil Adams and Dory Funk Jr. was both the top star and champion in his Florida-based BANG promotion from 1999 through 2005, Windsor was also the champion for the NWA Florida promotion run by Howard Brody.
He later married Jade Adams, the daughter of Chris Adams & Jeannie Clarke. Neil was Chris’ brother. The couple had three children.
Windsor worked three WWE Florida house show matches in 2001, picking up wins over Paul London, Ricky Noble and Marcus Dillon. He also had one match in the then-NWA/TNA in addition to NWA Wildside.
From this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer wrote:
“After his original training and Funk Jr. putting him over as the local champion, by 2002, he became a coach at Funk Jr.’s school, produced their local television show and was co-booker of the promotion until the two split up in 2005. Funk Jr., got him some outside dates during that period including a match in Calgary for a Stampede Wrestling revival promotion in 2002 where Funk Jr., at the age of 61, teamed with Windsor against Teddy & Bruce Hart.”
According to Cagematch, his last match was in 2011.
“Just heard from old Winnipeg friend Bob Holliday that Jack Lanza has passed away at the age of 86,” he wrote. “Jack was our lead agent during the Attitude Era. Helluva hand.”
“Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Jack Lanza. He was a man’s man, respected and beloved by all,” Vince McMahon wrote on Twitter. “He worked for and loved WWE for many years. His loyalty and dedication will never be forgotten.”
Trained by Verne Gagne, Lanza entered professional wrestling in 1961, originally teaming with Bobby Duncum. It wasn’t until the 1970s that he and Blackjack Mulligan began to team up, and were eventually managed by Bobby “The Brain” Heenan. Together, they held multiple territorial tag team titles, including a title reign in the WWWF in 1975.
The Blackjacks eventually broke up in 1984, and the following year Lanza retired as an in-ring talent. He later returned to the WWE as a road agent/producer. He, along with Mulligan, were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2006. Mulligan died in 2016.
Dominic DeNucci, a former tag team champion in the WWF who later became a prominent pro wrestling trainer, has passed away at the age of 89.
Cauliflower Alley Club confirmed the news that DeNucci had passed away.
“We’ve received the sad news that wrestling Legend Dominic DeNucci has passed away at the age of 89.” they wrote on Twitter. “Known not only for his wrestling, but for training Mick Foley, Shane Douglas and others. We send our sincerest condolences to his family,friends and many fans the world over. R.I.P.”
DeNucci made his pro wrestling debut in 1958 in Montreal, Canada. He had runs both in Australia and Japan. He joined the World Wide Wrestling Federation (later WWF, then WWE) in 1967 and won the WWWF International Tag Team titles with Bruno Sammartino in 1971. He would later hold the WWWF World Tag Team titles with Victor Rivera, and later Pat Barrett.
He left the WWF in 1982 and continued wrestling in Canada, New York, and the independents through 2012, when he wrestled his final match against protege Shane Douglas. That same year, he was inducted into the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame.
DeNucci later was a trainer of a few wrestlers who later became names in the industry, including Douglas, Mick Foley, Brian Hildebrand, and Moondog Spot.
Joseph Hudson, known as both Jocephus and The Question Mark in the National Wrestling Alliance, has passed away.
NWA President Billy Corgan announced the death on his Instagram account, writing the following:
It’s with a heavy heart that I share that my friend and brother in wrestling, Joseph Hudson, has passed away suddenly from an as-yet undiagnosed medical issue. NWA fans would know him as Jocephus as well as The Question Mark; where thanks to the great fans at GPB Studios in Atlanta, Joseph was able to receive the kind of support in the ring he’d always dreamt of. He is survived by a young son whom he loved dearly, and if anything would pain him about leaving this Earth it would be not being able to be there for his boy. RIP Joseph, love to you and Godspeed.
“Sad news tonight folks,” Dutch Mantell wrote on Twitter. “My friend, Joseph Hudson, who went by the wrestling name Jocephus and portrayed a young Bruiser Brody in the [Dark Side of the Ring] episode 1 passed away tonight. It is believed that he either suffered a stroke or an aneurysm.”
Jocephus is best known for his his run in the NWA following Corgan’s acquisition of the brand in 2017. He feuded with then NWA World Heavyweight Champion Tim Storm, leading to two title matches in 2017 and 2018, both unsuccessful. Prior to the NWA shutting down production due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he had aligned himself with Aron Stevens under the masked persona The Question Mark.
Dustin Diamond, best known for his role as Screech on the 90’s television show Saved by the Bell but also made sporadic appearances in pro wrestling, has passed away at the age of 44.
TMZ reported that Diamond passed away Monday morning after being diagnosed with stage 4 small cell carcinoma, or lung cancer. He was diagnosed last month and had been undergoing chemotherapy. The cancer had started elsewhere in Diamond’s body and it later metastasized in his lungs. His condition had declined in the last week.
After his run on Saved by the Bell ended in 2000, Diamond made appearances in professional wrestling, including an angle with Jerry Lawler and then-wife Stacey Carter in 2000 for Memphis Championship Wrestling. He later appeared in TNA, competing in what was billed as a boxing match on the September 18, 2002 Total Nonstop Action pay-per-view event. He defeated Tiny the Bellkeeper in under a minute.
“We are saddened to learn of the passing of Dustin Diamond, who once appeared in TNA during the Asylum Years,” Impact Wrestling wrote in a tweet. “We offer our condolences to his friends and family.”
Diamond also took part in Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Championship Wrestling reality television show in 2008. He was the seventh eliminated out of ten contestants, with Dennis Rodman ultimately winning the competition.
The All Elite Wrestling family is heartbroken. In an industry filled with good people, Jon Huber was exceptionally respected and beloved in every way – a fierce and captivating talent, a thoughtful mentor and simple a very kind soul that starkly contradicted his persona as Mr. Brodie Lee.
Jon’s love for his wife Amanda, and children Brodie and Nolan, was evident to all of us who were fortunate to spend time with him, and we send out love and support to his beautiful family, today and always. Jon’s popularity among his peers and influence on the wrestling world was worldwide, and transcended AEW, so this loss will be felt by many for a long time.
We were privileged at AEW to call Jon Huber a brother, a friend and one of our own.
At the most recent AEW Dynamite tapings held two weeks ago, there was a segment at the end of the tapings where Kenny Omega “lost” the AEW World title to Huber’s son, Brodie. Brodie was announced as the new champion by AEW announcer Justin Roberts.
Starting his career in 2003, Huber joined WWE in 2012. He regularly teamed with Bray Wyatt and Erik Rowan as The Wyatt Family. After requesting his release from WWE earlier in 2019, it was granted on December 8.
Under the name Mr. Brodie Lee, he made his debut for AEW on the March 18 edition of Dynamite, revealing himself as The Exalted One, the leader of the Dark Order stable that members had been hyping. He started a feud with Cody, defeating him for the TNT title on the August 22 edition of Dynamite, putting him out of action for several weeks.
Cody returned and faced Lee in what would be Huber’s final match, a Dog Collar match for the TNT title on the October 7 edition of Dynamite. Cody won the match and regained the title.
Huber and his wife, Amanda, have two sons, Brodie and Nolan. Huber was well regarded for being a family man.
Rocky “Soulman” Johnson, the father of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and one of the most agile heavyweight wrestlers of the 70s, passed away today.
Brian Blair, the head of the Cauliflower Alley Club, and a friend of Johnson’s, said that he had been ill over the last two weeks.
Johnson was 75.
Johnson was born Wayde Douglas Bowles in Amherst, Nova Scotia. While a pro wrestler, he worked as a sparring partner for Muhammad Ali, George Foreman and Henry Clark, and boxing combinations and the Ali shuffle were a big part of his pro wrestling comebacks.
He was the king of the dropkicks in the 70s. Even though he was built like a thick bodybuilder, 6 feet and 255 pounds, he was generally considered the most agile heavyweight in the industry at the time. He had the highest dropkicks, very similar to Kazuchika Okada today or Jim Brunzell in the 80s, but even more impressive in that he usually did a series of three dropkicks, all high, leading to his usual Boston crab finish. He also would land on his feet after high backdrops.
Johnson, while being based in California, began dating and married Ata Maivia, the daughter of Peter Maivia, who was a frequent tag team partner. On May 2, 1972, the couple, living in Hayward, CA, gave birth to their only child, Dwayne. Johnson had two children from a prior marriage.
The couple split up and Johnson married Sheila Northern, a longtime wrestling fan.
Johnson, who legally changed his name to Rocky Johnson during his career, started wrestling in Nova Scotia in 1964. By 1966 he was working the top circuits in Canada like Maple Leaf Wrestling, International Wrestling and Stampede Wrestling, and captured the Canadian Open tag team title with Don Leo Jonathan in 1967.
His combination of fire and agility, along with an impressive physique made him a headliner from 1966 on. He had a run as world tag team champion in Detroit in 1969 with Ben Justice, and then came to Los Angeles in 1970 during a wrestling boom.
Johnson won the first-ever major Los Angeles Battle Royal, and the Americas title from the Great Kojika, on the same night. He was the top babyface in the territory until the turn of Fred Blassie, after the two had a big money singles program.
He then had a long tenure in San Francisco, where he would be remembered as one of the biggest stars in the history of Roy Shire’s Big Time Wrestling. Always a babyface, was both a singles headliner at the Cow Palace, and tag team headliner with partners like Ray Stevens, Pat Patterson, Maivia and Pepper Gomez.
He remained a headliner, being one of the biggest draws in the history of the Tennessee territory for his matches with Jerry Lawler, where he started out in 1976 with a storyline that he was a top-ten ranked boxer who had never wrestled, doing a boxer vs wrestler program with Lawler to take advantage of the topical Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki program.
He remained one of the most in-demand wrestlers in the country, working different territories, where he almost always won the top singles title, as well as the major markets like St. Louis, Houston and sometimes Tennessee or San Francisco as a fly-in star. He was a frequent opponent of both Terry Funk and Harley Race as world champion and would be ranked as one of the bigger stars for Sam Muchnick of the 70s.
On the biggest night of pro wrestling in the 70s, the night of the Ali vs. Inoki closed circuit show, Johnson was chosen on one of the regional undercards broadcast in many NWA cities and territories to face Terry Funk in a match in Houston for the NWA title.
He also worked under a mask as Sweet Ebony Diamond in the Carolinas.
He is a member of the St. Louis Wrestling Hall of Fame and the WWE Hall of Fame.
He was the first wrestler of his race to hold the Georgia state title and the first to hold any title in the WWF, when he and Tony Atlas, called The Soul Patrol, beat The Wild Samoans, Afa & Sika, to win the tag team title. The team didn’t get along outside the ring and was broken up
quickly, losing to Dick Murdoch & Adrian Adonis.
When Dwayne Johnson, a childhood wrestling fan who moved from territory to territory while growing up, was cut from the Canadian Football League, he asked his father to train him for pro wrestling. Rocky Johnson was very negative on his son becoming a wrestler, but eventually he and Ron Slinker trained Johnson, and through Rocky Johnson’s longtime friendship with Pat Patterson, brought Patterson in on a session.
Patterson reported to Vince McMahon that Dwayne Johnson had more potential to be a pro wrestling star than anyone he had ever seen, and recommended they sign him.
Johnson worked a little with his son as a rookie, and later worked as a coach for WWE developmental in Louisville but had been out of pro wrestling.
Jesus Huerta Escoboza, who was the most recent La Parka, passed away tonight from complications of a near fatal ring accident in October. He was believed to be 55 years old.
Huerta was the second La Parka. The original, Adolfo Tapia, a Hall of Famer, used the name in the 90s in AAA and later WCW, and is now L.A. Park.
On a show for the Kaoz promotion on October 21, 2019, in Monterrey, Park did a tope aiming for Rush. He missed and his head hit the floor and the guard rail. He was paralyzed and rushed to the hospital. He underwent surgery the next morning which was described as lifesaving. He had never recovered from the injuries.
Huerta began wrestling in 1987, and joined AAA in 1995 using the name Karis La Momia. Karis was a gimmick Antonio Pena used during his own active career. He was pushed as a major star in AAA until being switched to La Parka Jr., in 1996. This was because Tapia was working so much for WCW, and La Parka was one of Pena’s most successful creations and the dancing skeleton coming out to “Thriller” was a key part of the AAA presentation..
After a falling out between Tapia and Pena, Huerta became known as La Parka, or sometimes La Parka II. The second Parka was among the most popular wrestlers in Mexico of the past two decades, although when Tapia came back at one point as a rudo and they did a feud, the crowd did side with Tapia as the original.
For the past decade, he had been simply known as La Parka.
He had won the Rey de Reyes tournament in AAA five times as well as the Copa Antonio Pena in 2013. He also headlined the 2004 TripleMania in winning a mask vs. mask match over Cibernetico before almost 19,000 fans at El Toreo in Naucalpan. He headlined the 2006 TripleMania beating Muerte Cibernetica in a mask vs. mask match which also sold out El Toreo.
He ended up headlining six different TripleMania shows between 2003 and 2010, including a match with Park where the crowd turned on him somewhat. From that point forward, he was moved down from top star position due to age and injuries, but remained a featured attraction on the shows. He was still one of the company’s signature stars at the time of the accident.
Francisco “Paco” Alonso, one of the most powerful players in the pro wrestling industry for more than 30 years passed away yesterday at the age of 67.
Alonso, who was the only person voted into the Hall of Fame in 2008, had been running CMLL, then known as EMLL, its original name, since taking over from his uncle, Salvador “Chavo” Lutteroth Jr., in 1987, who preferred working as a boxing promoter. Alonso’s grandfather, the original Salvador Lutteroth, founded EMLL, the first major pro wrestling company in Mexico, in 1933.
Alonso took over in the middle of a wrestling war with the UWA promotion, and through wrestling getting on television, presided over a huge boom period almost immediately built around new stars like Konnan, Octagon, Atlantis, Rayo de Jalisco Jr. and veterans like Perro Aguayo and Los Hermanos Dinamita.
At the time, both companies were doing great business, but then Alonso’s booker, Antonio Pena, made a deal with Televisa, the largest network in Mexico, to start a wrestling company in 1992, and suddenly EMLL had even stronger and more heated competition. In the EMLL vs. UWA war, the sides were at times at odds and at other times had a relationship to a degree that the biggest stars were able to work for both companies simultaneously.
But with the CMLL vs. AAA war, it was very different. For the most part the companies have always been at war.
Alonso was a quiet major player. He largely kept himself out of the public eye and gave no public interviews. He was able to forge a working relationship with New Japan Pro Wrestling, which had previously worked with AAA, and led to the New Japan/CMLL/ROH/Rev Pro alliance.
He had great advantages as a promoter since the company itself had built its own arenas, so he paid no rent meaning it was relatively easy to break even, as well as making money renting the arenas for other events.
Chris Jericho, who was really broken up about Alonso’s death, noted that Alonso was the first promoter to give him a big push, giving him the name Corazon de Leon, meaning Lion Heart, in 1993 and putting him in main events during a boom period.
Over the decades the company has had many boom periods, notably 1988-1992, and a second boom period behind Mistico (now Caristico), Dr.Wagner Jr., El Hijo del Santo, Negro Casas and Ultimo Guerrero in the mid-00s.
In 2008 when he was voted into the Hall of Fame, it was estimated conservatively that Alonso’s company and top talent from 1975, when he became a key player in the office, to 2008 had drawn more than 80 million fans to live events.
Shannon Rose, a Florida ring announcer and publicist who had battled health problems since childhood, passed away yesterday.
Rose battled muscular dystrophy for much of his life. He’s been a part of the Florida scene since the mid-80s after Gordon Solie and Dusty Rhodes met him through the Make-a-
Wish foundation when he was 12 years old. He did ring announcing at a small Championship Wrestling from Florida show and later ring announced for a number of independent groups. He also handled publicity for a number of companies in dealing with the Observer since the 80s.
He did a public access talk show on pro wrestling which aired for many years on a Tampa television since he was a teenager. He did ring announcing for the 2010 version of the EA Sports MMA video game, worked in local radio in Tampa and was named Rising Star of the Year by the St. Petersburg Times newspaper in 2009. He was also at one time the National Spokesperson for Elhers Danlos Network CARES and ran his own public relations company, Electric Media Productions.
“Shannon was anointed a selfless survivor during his time with us, constantly defying scientific boundaries associated with MS,” wrote his family on his Facebook account.
Aguayo started wrestling in 1968, mainly working for the now defunct UWA. He helped found AAA in 1992 and continued his run as a top star, with a three way feud between Konnan and Cien Caras drawing huge business.
He jumped to CMLL as part of a retirement tour where he was successful in taking the hair of brothers Cien Caras and Mascara Año 2000. In 2001, he lost what was billed as a retirement match against a third brother, Universo 2000. Aguayo would return to lucha libre a few years later in 2005.
His last match on record is a tag team bout teaming with Rayo de Jalisco to defeat Mascara Año 2000 and Universo 2000 in Tijuana on August 24, 2007.
His son Perro Aguayo Jr., also a notable wrestler in Mexico who founded the Los Perros del Mal group, passed away in 2015 at the age of 35 following an in-ring accident that caused severe whiplash, breaking three vertebrae in his neck. Aguayo withdrew from public life following his son’s passing.
César Cuauhtémoc González Barrón, best known in the wrestling world as Silver King, passed away today during the course of a match in London, England at the age of 51.
He was wrestling Juventud Guerrera for the Lucha Libre World promotion’s “The Greatest Show of Lucha Libre” event at the Roundhouse. King hit Juventud with a flying clothesline during the match then went for a cover. Juventud kicked out, but it appeared after this that King was struggling to move. Juventud kicked Silver King in the collarbone then went for a cover, but King was unresponsive as Guerrera tried to roll him over. The referee, Black Terry, paused before he hit his hand the third time, but eventually did make the three count, ending the match.
According to those in the arena, the rest of the show was cancelled.
Silver King, son of Dr. Wagner, started wrestling in November of 1985. After losing his mask a few years later, he began teaming with El Texano and together they were known as Los Cowboys. During the course of his career, he wrestled for UWA, CMLL and AAA among other promotions in Mexico.
King may be best known in the United States for his appearances in WCW, joining the promotion in 1997. He mainly worked with other luchadores in six man tag matches, though he also was a part of WCW cruiserweight division.
He continued to wrestle in Mexico after his release from WCW in 2000 and also wrestled in Japan as the third iteration of the Black Tiger persona for New Japan Pro Wrestling.
