Full List of Deceased Wrestlers

You are looking at the most comprehensive list of deceased wrestlers in existence.

If you’re looking for only the most well known guys, we’ve put those on this page here, along with bios, photos and videos.

Make sure to also check out our list of deceased wrestling managers and personalities.

Last updated: 1/1/2019

• About this list
• Summarized data from this list (average age of death, etc)

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This list is sortable by ring name, real name, date of death, age, and cause of death. Simply click a heading below to sort. To search the list, start typing into the search box below, just above the table. It will automatically filter your search results as you type (Note: due to the massive size of this list, it will take a few seconds to filter your search results as you type, especially if you’re on a mobile device and not connected to Wifi).

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About this List:

What separates this deceased wrestlers list from the others? For one, it’s the largest and most complete documentation of professional wrestler deaths in existence. Also, many of the other deceased wrestler lists floating around the internet simply copy and pasted Gary Will’s list (which is no longer online). Most of the copied lists don’t contain a cause of death and many haven’t been updated in 15+ years. I’ve also summarized the data from this page and compiled it onto a separate data page.

While some information in this list was double-checked using various wrestling websites, blogs and other “unofficial” sources, most of the data was sourced from reputable publications including obituaries, archived newspapers, the Cauliflower Alley Club, Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Greg Oliver’s fantastic Slam! Wrestling columns, as well as verifications from various respected wrestling historians in books and forums. See the full sources / thank you list below.

Although some may have snuck by, this list does not include Olympic, Greco-Roman, catch, and amateur freestyle wrestlers.

I will be updating this list regularly and want to make sure it remains the most up to date and accurate account of wrestler deaths on the internet. That said, due to the massive size and scope of this list, there is inevitably going to be some errors and duplicates… if you spot something that’s off, please drop me an email.

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Disclaimer:

This deceased wrestlers list is compiled for fans and is not exactly intended to be scientific. For example, “automobile accident” is not a technical cause of death. There are also other circumstances which should be taken into account – for example, someone may suffer from a heart attack, but then die from the following surgery several days later – while it’s not the heart attack itself that caused the actual death, it’s still the major contributing factor, so generally that’s what would be shown in the list above.

Another example would be something like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease. These diseases do not technically or directly cause death, but are often the major contributing factor to whatever ailment does end up causing death.

It should also be noted that ailments like cancer, strokes, pneumonia, kidney failure, heart attacks, and heart disease are considered “natural causes”, though I only used the term natural causes in the above list when it’s the only information I could source.

Note, the in-ring and training deaths may list another wrestler who was competing in the ring at the time the incident occurred, but does not necessarily implicate that this wrestler was responsible for a death that took place – in fact, a botched move resulting in a wrestler’s death is extremely rare. For historical purposes I’ve listed the other wrestler involved when that information could be sourced. Keep in mind that there are also various examples of in-ring deaths where the death occurring in the ring (or shortly after a match) is a sheer coincidence and not a direct result of the match itself (often a pre-existing health condition being the culprit).

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Using info or data from this page:

Thousands of hours have gone into the research and creation of this page. Please include a link back to this page if you’re sourcing any of the information for your blog, website, forum, etc.

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Thank you’s / Online Sources:

Gary Will, Greg Oliver and Slam! Wrestling, Cauliflower Alley Club, Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer and Figure Four online, PW Torch, Kayfabe Memories, Wrestling Classics, 1 Wrestling Legends, Wrestling Heritage, Arizona Wrestling History, Wrestling Data, The Internet Wrestling Database, Online World of Wrestling, Legacy of Wrestling, Wrestling Memories Tribute Page, Classic Wrestling Articles.

Print Sources:

• Legends of Pro Wrestling: 150 Years of Headlocks, Body Slams, and Piledrivers (Tim Hornbaker)
• Biographical Dictionary of Professional Wrestling, 2d ed. (Harris M. Lentz III)
• Chokehold: Pro Wrestling’s Real Mayhem Outside the Ring (Jim Wilson, Weldon T. Johnson)
• The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: Heroes and Icons (Steven Johnson, Greg Oliver)
• The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Heels (Greg Oliver, Steven Johnson)
• National Wrestling Alliance: The Untold Story of the Monopoly That Strangled Professional Wrestling (Tim Hornbaker)
• Historical Dictionary of Wrestling (John Grasso)
• The World of Lucha Libre: Secrets, Revelations, and Mexican National Identity (Heather Levi)
• Wrestling at the Chase: The Inside Story of Sam Muchnick and the Legends of Professional Wrestling (Larry Matysik)