Wrestlers who have died since 2010
By Ray The Rambler

Hey, this week I will admit I had a little difficulty in coming up with a column. So, I did the logical thing, look on the Internet for ideas. I came across an article about Chris Benoit, another about Eddie Guerrero, I remembered how much I loved both of them. So, this got me thinking, I should write a column about wrestlers who have tragically passed away. However, as much as I admired both Eddie and Chris, there are a bunch of columns and articles about them on pretty much every wrestling website.

So, I started researching wrestlers who have died since 2010. Since 2010, there have been seven wrestlers who have passed away. Unfortunately, once any professional sport star moves away from their profession, many, not all, just don’t look after themselves and turn to alcohol and drugs.  As I mentioned, some not all, so I will be going to a list for all the seven wrestlers who have died since 2010, will explain how they died, little about them etc.

Ludvig Borga
Many of you may or may not know much about Ludvig Borga, to be honest, I don’t know much about him. He worked for promotions such as Universal Wrestling Federation, New Japan Pro Wrestling, Catch Wrestling Association. However, Ludvig is best known as far as his wrestling career goes for his duration of just year in WWF. He worked with wrestlers such as Marty Jannetty , Undertaker, Yokozuna, Shawn Micahels and others. His wrestling career ended in 1997 as he retired from the sport, but went onto fight in UFC, he had little to no success there, he faced Randy Couture, whom was a former World Champion for UFC. On January 8, 2010, Halme died of self-inflicted gunshot wound from an unlicensed handgun he used. Jim Ross commented on his death and said “Guys like Halme don’t mix well in any locker room and need to be removed from the ‘team’ sooner than later.” Ross added: “I still feel badly about the last years of Tony’s life as things really unraveled for him seemingly due to alcohol and drug issues” 

Chris Kanyon
This wrestler perhaps was more known than Ludvig Borga. Chris spent time working for both WCW and WWF. Chris during his time with WCW, debuted as a Jobber . After several months, he was placed in a tag team with Mark Starr called ”Men at Work”. They were built as two working construction men with the jeans and all that. The team was suffered by Chris’s cause to lose matches. Later, in 1997, Chris was donned with a mask and renamed Mortis. Chris faced guys like Billy Gunn, Big Show. In 2001, he made his Smackdown debut, as he was apart of the WCW alliance. Chris had a small feud with Matt Hardy over Chris hitting Lita. The feud ended with the Hardy boyz defeating Chris and multiple WCW alliance members. Chris suffered from bipolar disorder  and in the weeks prior to his death, he had threatened suicide. Chris’s brother Ken Klucsarits, found Chris dead in his apartment in New York. It is known that Chris had an empty bottle of anti-depressants beside him. Chris left an apology note for his family behind him.

Lance Cade
Lance would of been more known than the above two. Lance by far, was best known for his time with WWE where he was a 3 time World Tag Team Champion. His wrestling career started in just 1999, where he was trained by none other than Shawn Michaels at Shawn’s wrestling academy in San Antonia Texas. For a year, Lance wrestled in Heartland Wrestling Association where himself and Mike Sanders faced and defeated Val Venis and Steve Bradley to win HWA Tag titles. He made his WWE debut in 2003, where he was teamed up with Trevor Murdoch. As a tag team, they faced the likes of Hurricane and Rosey, the Hardy Boyz, Paul London and Brian Kendrick while Tag Team Champions. The team was broken up in May if 2008 when Lance attacked Murdoch. Then, Lance immediately was formed with Chris Jericho to feud against his former mentor and trainer Shanwn Michaels. He helped Jericho retain the World Heavyweight Championship against HBK in a ladder match at No Mercy PPV. The following night on Monday Night Raw, Lance faced HBK in an anything goes match and lost, this was the last we saw of Lace Cade on WWE television.  He was released for an incident aboard an airplane (which he acknowledged was a mistake), the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported at the time. Cade was re-signed by the company in September 2009 but never made it back to the main roster and was quietly released in April. It was noted that he died of Heart failure at the age of just 29.

Luna Vachon
Luna, born in Canada, wrestled from many wrestling promotions such as ECW, WCW,  WWF, WSU, WWAS  and few others. Many of her family members were wrestlers, so when she was attending events, often she was allowed to ”play” in the ring, so wrestlers would often teach her moves and stuff. Around the age of sixteen, she was trained by her aunt Vivian and later Fabulous Moolah. Luna started her carear off by wrestling for Moolah’s all woman’s promotion. In 1992, she began her carear with WWF, strangely enough, she was trying to get David Heath a job with then, as she approached WWF, they showed an interest in her, herself. Her first role was to be alongside none other than HBK leading up to Wrestlemania 9 to face Tatanka for the Intercontinental Championship. Later, she played a masked ”Spider Lady” who attacked Sable as Sable was the WWF Women’s Championship at that time. Shane McMahon supported her during this. Sable retained the title in the end, but Luna has said that this was the highlight of her carear. On August 27 2010, she was found dead at her home in Florida. We understand that she died of “accidental overdose of oxycodone and benzodiazepine”. She was buried in a ceremony open to immediate family only, at the ranch formerly owned by her close friend and godfather André the Giant.

Bastion Booger
Best known for his time with WCW as Norman the Lunatic, then with WWF as Bastion Booger. In 1989 and 1990, he made his debut for WCW with the assistance of hi manager, now Smackdown general manager, Theodore Long who led him around with a giant key. This key was symbolic of Long’s potential to recommit Norman to the insane asylum he came from if he did not follow orders. Finally, he broke away from Teddy Long, to turn face and was known as Norman the ”Maniac”. He had matches with wrestlers such as Ric Flair, Chris Benoit, Bret Hart and many more. He has a wrestling school opened up in his hometown of Skandia, Michigan. He died of a heart attack on September 11, 2010 at age 53.

Giant Gonzalez
Gonzalez began his career as a basketball player, a selection of the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA Draft. However, despite his massive size, he was unable to make the team. At that point, Turner Broadcasting also owned World Championship Wrestling, and Gonzalez’ future shifted to pro wrestling. He wrestled in WCW from 1990 through early 1993 when he signed with WWE (then WWF). He was best known for his airbrushed body suit, as opposed to being a great worker in the ring. Gonzales had a short run in WWF as a heel. He lost to the Undertaker in a match at Summerslam in 1993 and soon after left the company. After Gonzales’ wrestling career he acted a bit, including one appearance in “Baywatch.” He then returned to Argentina, where he reportedly owned a farm. At the age of 44, on September 22, 2010 he died, due to complications of diabetes, in his hometown of San Martin, Argentina.

”Macho Man” Randy Savage
Perhaps the most known recent wrestler to have died since 2010. Randy began to wrestle in 1985 with the WWF. His catchphrase ”OOOOOOOOH YEAAAAHHHHHH” is trademarked. Randy was so popular, that he became the spokesperson for Slim Jim in the mid ’90s … and became virtually synonymous with the brand. Randy was one of very few wrestlers that were both capable of being a great heel, and a great face. Randy had feuds with the likes of  Hogan, Flair, Ultimate Warrior, Stine Cold and many more top stars in the wrestling business. During his time with WWF, he’s won many titles. Including 2 WWF Championships, 2 Intercontinental Championships,  and won the King of the Ring tournament in 1987. During his time with WCW, he won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship 4 times, King of Cable Tournament in 1995, also in 1995 Randy won the WCW World War 3 in that PPV. His death, came as a surprise to many of us pro wrestling fans. While Randy was driving his car, with his wife in the passanger seat, suddenly, Randy had a heart attack. Randy became unresponsive and lost control of the car, and drove into a tree. It was recorded that injuries from the crash were only minor injuries and wasn’t what killed him. Later, tests were conducted and revealed that Savage had suffered from an enlarged heart and advanced coronary disease and determined his official cause of death to be “atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.” Randy was paid tribute from many wrestling fans around the world, including Vince McMahon who wrote an article about him in ”Times” magazine.

That’s my column for the week. I thought it would be nice to pay tribute to wrestlers who have died recently and give them some recognition to those of them you wouldn’t know much about. I would love to hear your thoughts/opinions etc on this subject.

Thanks for reading.
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Or, if you want to have a conversation privately, you can always email me raytherambler@gmail.com

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