Tag: eulogy

That’s one way to make AEW more interesting

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Unfortunate: Jon Huber AKA Brodie Lee in AEW, Luke Harper in WWE, passes away at the age of 41, due to alleged non-COVID related lung disease

Firstly, I genuinely do feel bad to hear about this story, because Jon Huber was an extremely good wrestler, and it is always a tragedy to hear of a guy leaving the world this soon, especially when he’s leaving behind a wife and two kids.  At 41 years of age, he’s not much older than me, and many of my current friends, which is also very harrowing to hear of.

I had a high opinion of Jon Huber, and it was a running joke between one of my friends and I that he was a picture-perfect future IWGP World Champion if he ever decided to cross the ocean and go to Japan, because the mold of the evil foreign white man that NJPW loved to use to have their heroes pursue for championships was basically built off of guys like him.

Instead, he went to AEW, where he briefly enjoyed a modicum of success, being unveiled as the leader of the Dark Order, having one World title shot at Jon Moxley which he lost, but then squashing Cody Rhodes for the TNT Popeyes Championship, before losing it back to him a month later.  To my knowledge, that was his last appearance, and he never appeared again on television until the news of his passing.

Here’s the thing though: the news is still fresh, the grief among the industry and the fandom is still outpouring, but I hate to be the guy that wades through all the sadness to wonder just what really happened.  From what I’ve heard, Lee passed away from an unnamed “non-COVID” lung issue, but I can’t help but feel all sorts of skepticism for these vague circumstances.

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Happy Trails, Animal

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The end of the road for this warrior: legendary tag team wrestler, Joe “Animal” Laurenaitis passes away at the age of 60

Here’s a big oof moment – when looking for a picture to use for this post, I came across this particular image from Survivor Series 1990, and realized that now, every single person in this particular promo was dead.  Kerry Von Erich, Road Warrior Hawk, the Ultimate Warrior, “Mean” Gene Okerlund, and now, Road Warrior Animal, all gone from mortal existence.  This particular Survivor Series was also the debut of the Undertaker, whom has just officially retired from the business after 30 years in the WWE but is otherwise alive and well.

But back to Animal, 60 is not quite an age where the royal we can say he’s gone too soon, but at the same time it’s not really an age where we can say that he lived a full life, closer to general white male in America life expectancy than not.  The cause of death hasn’t formally been revealed, but I don’t think it’s going out on a limb to assume that it was probably his heart, it was probably enlarged, and couldn’t have been helped by some of his life spent with his former tag team partner, who was a notorious partier, substance abuser, and was someone who was gone too soon, at the age of 46.

For the record, I was always more fond of Animal than I was Hawk, even though I fully understand that when the day was over, Hawk really was the stronger worker and more talented of the two.  I guess I just preferred Animal’s power game and his general aesthetic, and the single center mohawk looked cool, and not like he was prematurely balding like Hawk’s dual mohawks.  Hawk would carry matches, take the brunt of the punishment, but then make the hot tag to Animal, who came in and bulldozed opponents, before eventually putting someone up on his shoulders for the Doomsday Device, which to this day, is still one of the more legitimately devastating looking finishers in all wrestling, and there’s a reason why so few tag teams even try to replicate it today.

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Some words for Kamala the wrestler

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I feel that I needed to clarify the disambiguation, because given the fact that the name “Kamala” is exploding the internet right now as Senator Kamala Harris has been formally tapped to be Joe Biden’s VP running mate, there has been an ironically cringey overlap between she, and James “Kamala” Harris, the professional wrestler who has just recently passed away.

When mythical wife stated to me that “some wrestler died,” I quickly did a Google search to see that it was Kamala who had passed away.  I’ll be honest, Kamala “The Ugandan Giant” wasn’t necessarily a guy I cared a tremendous amount, as I always thought he was more of a racist caricature of a character.  And given the fact that he was 70 years old at his passing, it was one of those moments of insensitivity that I felt where at least he lived to see 70, and wasn’t a guy who was found dead in a hotel bathroom from an overdose or heart explosion from a lifetime of steroids and painkillers.

But then as a little time passed, and it was revealed that Kamala had passed away, basically because of coronavirus, then I winced and felt guilty for no-selling the news of his passing, because now it wasn’t so much a passing because a guy had lived out his life, as much as it was a guy having what remaining life he had left to live, stripped away from him, on account of an extremely preventable sickness that shouldn’t been neutralized like three months ago, and now that’s something to be sad about.

As I said, Kamala wasn’t tremendously important to me, growing up as a wrestling fan, but even I knew that Kamala was a guy who’s career transcended three decades in the industry, and has rubbed shoulders with countless industry legends in the process.  In the 80’s he feuded with Hulk Hogan, in the 90’s he feuded with the Undertaker, and he even came back in the early 2000’s to still take some bumps and put over the then-current generation of performers.

In fact, it was actually in 2005 when I probably came the closest to marking out for Kamala, when on an episode of RAW, he got into an altercation with Umaga, who was being pushed pretty hard as a bruising heel at the time, and there was a segment where the husky Samoan and the husky Ugandan were up in each other’s faces, and I was like “oh shit, this is really happening!”  They would have a match where Kamala more or less got squashed, but I can admit that for about five minutes, Kamala was pretty much the baddest guy in the industry when he stood toe-to-toe with the WWE’s top heel for a brief match.

Rarely is a loss of life is ever not sad, and the wrestling industry loves to throw around the title of “legend” to all sorts of former professional wrestlers, as long as they didn’t burn bridges with the biggest promoters.  Like, I’d seen Marty Jannetty being called a legend; the guy’s career’s legacy is being the guy Shawn Michaels smashed through a window, and now he’s more known for wanting to bang his own daughter and admitting to murder on social media.  He’s definitely no fucking legend.

Let’s make it clear that in spite of my own personal ambivalence towards the character of Kamala, he is, undoubtedly a legend.  His career transcended decades, he had feuds with legitimately some of the biggest names in the industry, and had a character that basically proved that black don’t crack, as when he showed up in 2005 looking basically the same as he did in 1985.

Despite living to 70, the man frankly should have kept living, but ‘Murica being what it is today, even the Ugandan Giant from Deepest, Darkest Africa was in the prime age of susceptibility, and unfortunately the business and the world lost a life that should very well have been preventable, which is the saddest part of all of this.

Happy trails, James Harris.

Tonight, a La Parka died in the ring

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

(spoken in the same manner in which Rorschach says “tonight, a Comedian died in New York”)

I have mixed feelings about this whole situation.  A La Parka died in the ring tonight, but it was confirmed to not be the La Parka that made me a La Parka fan in the first place.  It was in fact La Parka II who dove out of the ring at an AAA show in Mexico, crashed in the guardrail, broke his neck and later died. 

No loss of life is ever not tragic, but at the same time, it wasn’t necessarily the death of the guy that I was actually a fan of, which puts me in this awkward emotional state of where I hear news that “La Parka died,” but there’s always that explanation that it wasn’t the original La Parka that I really loved.

There’s still that emotional surprise of seeing the words that La Parka died, but when I read the explanation that it was actually La Parka II and not the chairman of WCW, and there’s this almost guilty feeling of relief that it wasn’t original La Parka.

I actually didn’t know that there were two La Parkas out there, and this kind of goes back to this joke my friends and I had in high school of how there were always myths that there were multiple Ultimate Warriors, and that they came from a Mayan temple in Parts Unknown that whenever one warrior died, another would remove his robes and sprint out of the temple and begin his own reign as the next Ultimate Warrior.

The difference is that there actually were two La Parkas, and it was a little fascinating reading about how it came to be, primarily stemming from a disagreement between wrestler and promoter, and then the promoter realizing just how easy it is to replace a masked wrestler in the first place.

Either way, I’m still sad that a La Parka died at all, even if it wasn’t the La Parka that would definitely warrant a longer eulogy in the brog.  In a way, La Parka is more than just an ordinary man, proven by two different men who took the mantle and were stars simultaneously, in different parts of the world.  And it’s only a matter of time before an el Hijo de La Parka shows up and starts blending the lucha flying of La Parka II with bashing guys with chairs from the original La Parka, and sets the wrestling world on fire.

Pour one out for the real Silver King

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

If most people heard the name César Cuauhtémoc González Barrón, they’d have no clue to whom that was.  Frankly, if most people heard his ring name, Silver King, they’d probably have very little clue to who he was, either.  Then again, I am some lowly brogger living in America, and I’d wager to say that those who lived in Mexico, the names probably would definitely trigger more recognition than it would anywhere outside of the country.

Silver King passed away on May 11, 2019, inside the wrestling ring, while performing at a show in London, England.  Reports say it was due to a heart attack, but there’s still no official cause of death released, officially.  He was wrestling fellow luchador, Juventud Guerrera when this tragedy occurred, and it’s definitely a sad day in professional wrestling when one of the boys goes out so suddenly and unexpectedly.  Silver King was 51 years old, which definitely classifies as “way too soon,” especially considering he was still actively performing literally up until his death.

Although his career legacy is vastly greater and more colorful when you look at his accolades in Mexico and pretty much anywhere outside of the United States, I always remembered him the most from his time in WCW, when unfortunately he and many other Mexican wrestlers were primarily a part of the company to be jobbers and/or the guys to warm up the crowds, usually by jobbing.  But I’ve always had an affinity for the jobbers of wrestling, because most of the time, superstars are boring and one-dimensional, and it’s only by the strength of the guys doing the jobs to them, do they even look good.

I remember just about all of them from WCW; Silver King, El Dandy, Damien, La Parka, Psychosis, Villano IV and V, Hector Garza, Ciclope, Lizmark Jr. and Juventud Guerrera.  And it’s not just out of convenience to fit my narrative, but Silver King always stood out to me, because he was one of the few Mexican expats on the roster, that wrestled without a mask.  Furthermore, he was always a little on the tubby side of stout, yet in spite of his bulk, he was still as agile and high-flying any other luchador, which just added to the ironic entertainment value he brought to WCW.

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Happy trails, Gene Okerlund

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s somewhat interesting to me that I’m often times more saddened and upset by the passing of wrestling personalities over wrestlers themselves.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m always sad to hear of when familiar wrestler names to the wrestling I grew up watching are announced as being among the recently departed, but there’s no denying that it’s the guys that weren’t even full-time wrestlers, or even wrestlers themselves, are the ones to elicit the most reaction out of me, because I think often times, wrestlers come and go, but it’s the guys like the announcers, commentators and managers that are the spice that makes professional wrestling so intriguing to a nerd like me.

The passing of “Mean Gene” Okerlund basically means to me, that the voice of professional wrestling has died.  Obviously, I’m not old enough to have really heard other iconic voices like Gordon Solie, and today’s wrestling industry is a microcosm of society itself, and no one voice is ever allowed to stick around long enough to become the icon that Mean Gene was.  Make no mistake though, Mean Gene was a prominent voice all throughout the 80s, into the 90s, and even kept his career going well into the 2000s, for WCW before returning to the WWE for his eventual career wind down.

As I often wax poetic, Mean Gene was there before I even got into wrestling, as the unnamed interviewer interviewing the troika of the Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase, Andre the Giant and even Virgil in the WWF Superstars arcade game that was basically my gateway into wrestling fandom.  And as I often cite, it was a random Sunday afternoon in which I watched my first ever wrestling telecast, an episode of WWF All-American Wrestling, hosted by none other than, Mean Gene Okerlund.  The main event was Superfly Jimmy Snuka versus Black Bart.

And over the next three decades of watching wrestling, Mean Gene was always there.  Whether it was being immortalized in the aforementioned greatest wrestling game ever, or being at Hulk Hogan’s side after he won the world championship at Wrestlemania VII before getting a fireball thrown in his face by Sgt. Slaughter, or when after my sabbatical from wrestling in the 90s (my parents cut cable and I couldn’t watch 😢) and I watched my first episode of WCW Monday Nitro, only to see Mean Gene still present, schilling the WCW 1-900-909-9900 Hotline but only with your parents’ permission.

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Happy trails, Stan Lee

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For all the years that I’d attended Dragon*Con, I always said that I needed to just bite the bullet and pay for a meet and greet with Stan Lee.  I’d shared elevators with him, and once was next to him while we, and a bunch of other onlookers watched as Marriott security tackled a drunk guy dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow as he was trying to elude them; he made a wisecrack about how he must’ve had too much rum, before walking off.

But I still wanted to get an actual good picture and a few seconds to meet one of the true godfathers of the comic book industry, a man that is unquestionably on the Rushmore of Comics.  And as a fan that favored Marvel over all others, there was really no greater name in the existence of comic books other than Stan Lee.

Over the last few years, as the passage of time aged Stan into his 90s, I proclaimed more often about the closing window of how I should do the meet and greet.  And then when Stan’s wife Joan passed in 2017, a little bit of urgency crept in.  Every nerd and/or comic fan on the planet knew that Stan Lee was not going to live forever, but considering he himself was in his 90s and that his wife had passed, that window was closing just a little bit more quickly than we’d all hoped.

Then there was the health scare not long afterward, and then the formal announcement that after the year, he would no longer be doing any more conventions or shows in general, and we all as fans definitively knew that the window was closing, and fast.  I knew immediately that Dragon*Con 2017 was my absolute last chance to try to meet the legend.

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