For the Pro Wrestling Fans...

[Dan]

I don't know enough about HGH, but I would think that after a few years you can tell if someone's going to be small. Plus, if you wait until puberty, might you have missed out on a lot of time? I know HGH only works if you're still growing.

[clemsonfan]

I don't know enough about HGH, but I would think that after a few years you can tell if someone's going to be small. Plus, if you wait until puberty, might you have missed out on a lot of time? I know HGH only works if you're still growing.

I don't know much about it either. But sometimes being small before puberty isn't a good indicator. Butter was really short and skinny before he hit puberty. He's now 6' 4.

[cuddlyevil]

Daniel (Benoit's son) was diagnosed with a form of dwarfism, that explains the HGH. There are more details about the crime in the article too.

[Poncho]

Another one bites the dust...

Crush = Gone

[rva]

I saw the Hardy Boyz at BWI airport on Friday.  It was kind of weird.  I don't know where they came from, I just saw them walking down past the gate.  I wouldn't have looked twice except for the hair.  Even then, I might not have except just then someone asked if they could have a picture because neither one of them looks that big.  I mean, they look like dudes who work out but no bigger than a lot of people you see in the gym.

Anyway, the one thing I noticed was like they sorta looked and definitely moved like 60 year old men.  Jeff was just sort of dragging, and I was like "Wonder if he's on drugs again?"  But Matt was even worse.  He was walking really gingerly, and then he bumped it someone accidentally and it looked like he almost screamed for a second.

There wasn't a crowd around them or anything.  A few people recognized them and they obliged everyone who asked for pictures or autographs.  But mostly people didn't notice them or saw them pose for pictures and were like "Who's that?"  One guy showed me his picture from the camera and they were doing the Hardy Boyz pose all WWE-like.  The photo was really nice.  They had two, one with the Hardy Boyz smiling with the kid and another with them looking all WWE-like they were just about to execute a couple of Swanton bombs no problem.
It was pretty amazing to see how they looked in that photo vs how they looked in real-life.

It seemed like a very tough and lonely existence.  Getting beat up and then flying around all over the place wandering the airports in a painful haze. 

I wonder if Jeff already knew he was going to win the title belt?

[Doug]

Maybe this needs it's own thread, but I just read a review on The Wrestler with Micky Rourke.  I have to say it looks like a great movie.

[Wherle]

I wonder if Jeff already knew he was going to win the title belt?

My guess would be yeah. I haven't followed wrestling for a while, but read a rumor that he would be getting the belt soon, then saw an article on it yesterday. Good for him. Vince has a hard on for giving the title to big guys (Cena and Michaels excepted), so it's nice to see he finally gave it to somebody who (literally) busts his ass for the company.

Maybe this needs it's own thread, but I just read a review on The Wrestler with Micky Rourke.  I have to say it looks like a great movie.

I saw the trailer for this ages ago and thought it looked great. Rourke and Tomei have already gotten some Golden Globe noms, and there's Oscar talk as well. Can't wait to see it.

[JohnnyRoyale]

I'm pretty excited to see it and I might even do a review on it.

[matt]

MINNEAPOLIS -- If you grew up in Minnesota in the 1950s and '60s, you remember Vern Gagne as the king of old-school professional wrestlers -- burly guys in little shorts and big boots who tossed each other around in the ring.

For decades, beginning in the 1940s, Gagne's feats in football and pro wrestling made him seem larger than life. And by all accounts, his stature never outgrew his heart.

But now, at 82, with his mind ravaged by Alzheimer's disease, he is the focus of an inquiry into an altercation with a fellow resident of a Bloomington, Minn., health-care facility that led to the other man's death.

Gagne and Helmut Gutmann, 97, clashed Jan. 26 in the memory-loss section of Friendship Village, Gutmann's daughter, Ruth Hennig of Boston, said Thursday.

Gutmann, a scientist and musician who fled to the United States from Nazi Germany in 1936, suffered a broken right hip in the altercation and died about 2 1/2 weeks later.

"No one knows" what led to the clash, Hennig said. "I don't think anyone was present when it began... or even if anything precipitated it."

She said that because of her father's dementia, he had "no memory at all" of his fight with Gagne and "didn't understand why his hip hurt."

Bloomington police are trying to determine whether to recommend charges to the Hennepin County attorney's office, deputy chief Perry Heles said.

 

-- Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

[Nate]

Yeah, that's sad.  There's been a fair amount of outcry over this up here.

[matt]

I haven't really read anything except that article.  It's definately a sad and unfortunate situation.  What are they saying up there?

[Nate]

Well just that Gagne is the father of Professional Wrestling.  The AWA was long popular before the WWE ever came along.  And just how his life has gone downhill over the last twenty years.  This isn't the first time Gagne and the deceased got into scuffles there, apparently.

[Poncho]

RIP Captain Lou Albano... you will be miss by girls wanting to have fun everywhere.

CNN Obit

[JohnnyRoyale]

Weird. I just wikipedia'd him the other day out of boredom while being on-call.

Sad.

[matt]

Wrestler 'Umaga' Edward Fatu dies of heart attack

(CNN) -- Wrestler Edward Fatu, better known as the hulking, tattooed WWE superstar "Umaga," died Friday of a heart attack in a Houston, Texas, hospital, a family friend said.

Born in American Samoa, Fatu, 36, was member of the famous Anoa'i wrestling family, which includes cousin Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, his two uncles, who wrestled as The Wild Samoans in the 1980s, and brothers, Sam "Tonga Kid" and Solofa Jr. "Rikishi," according to Wrestlers Rescue, a support group for retired professional wrestlers.

The two-time WWE Intercontinental champion, also known as "The Samoan Bulldozer," squared off with the likes of Triple H, The Game and Ric Flair before the WWE terminated in contract in June for having violated the WWE's Wellness Program and refusing to enter rehab, the WWE said on its site.

The organization offered its condolences to his family in a brief statement on its site.

To friends and family, Fatu was a devoted father who was looking forward to spending more time with his children after leaving the WWE.

"He had his demons, but he found a lot of strength in his family," said Dawn Marie Psaltis, family friend and founder of Wrestlers Rescue. "He was always a jokester, he was always playing a practical joke on someone. He comes from a long line of professional wrestlers and did his family proud."