THE EMPTY CORNERS: Death, Legacy & Loss in Professional Wrestling & Mixed Martial Arts in 2026
UPDATED BY VCG ON 10/05/2026 @ 06:14 EST
Anyone can do this, but most won’t.
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LIBRARY OF RICKANDRIA PRESENTS
THE EMPTY CORNERS
Death, Legacy & Loss in Professional Wrestling & Mixed Martial Arts in 2026
ORIGINAL EXCLUSIVE BY VCG
October 2026 Research Edition
Evidence window: January 1–October 5, 2026
Editor’s Note
This began as a question that sounded straightforward:
Who from the professional-wrestling and MMA worlds has died in 2026?
It stopped being straightforward almost immediately.
There is no worldwide registry of deceased professional wrestlers.
There is no equivalent registry covering everyone who:
- fought
- trained
- promoted
- refereed
- announced
- booked
- managed
or otherwise helped build mixed martial arts.
English-language wrestling databases miss Mexican regional performers.
Mainstream newspapers often ignore independent wrestlers.
A local luchador may be remembered by an arena, a family Facebook page and a specialist archive, while an AEW or UFC athlete generates hundreds of stories within hours.
Then there is another problem:
obituary information reproduces errors.
One wrestling database says a man was 74; his funeral home says 76.
A report calls dementia the cause of death when the family merely disclosed a previous dementia diagnosis.
A social-media rumor turns a post-match medical emergency into a confidently stated cardiac cause before any official finding appears.
So The Empty Corners is not going to pretend certainty where certainty does not exist.
As of October 5, this investigation has identified at least 65 people belonging to the broad professional-wrestling world, including a large body of regional lucha libre performers overlooked by the principal English-language death lists.
Two of those—Ted Turner and filmmaker Barry Blaustein—are included as historically important wrestling-world contributors rather than wrestlers.
The expanded MMA/community register adds at least 13 additional individuals, while Tadao Yasuda belongs to both histories.
Under this deliberately broad archival definition, the working memorial encompasses roughly 78 distinct lives.
That number is not an epidemiological statistic.
It is an archival count created from stated inclusion rules.
It should not be converted into:
“78 people killed by wrestling and MMA,”
because that would be false.
This is a paper about lives first, deaths second.
PART I — HOW WE BUILT THE RECORD
1. What does “all the deaths” actually mean?
One of the first databases a researcher encounters is Online World of Wrestling’s obituary archive.
Its current 2026 section contains 30 names through early September.
Yet LuchaWiki’s 2026 page contains 30 obituary entries of its own—and most of those Mexican and Latin American names do not appear on the OWW list.
POST Wrestling adds deeply researched obituaries, while local journalism and family notices identify still more people absent from either database.
Fallen Wrestlers List: Wrestling Deaths by Year | OWW
That tells us something before we learn anything about mortality:
the archive itself has a geography.
If you only search American wrestling media, American television history becomes the history.
It isn’t.
Accordingly, “all” in this paper means:
all deaths we have been able to identify within the professional-wrestling and MMA communities using the source network described here, through October 5, 2026.
It does not mean that an undocumented local wrestler somewhere in the world could not have escaped this search.
2. The evidence ladder
Rather than treating every website equally, this investigation uses four levels of evidence.
| Level | Evidence | How it is used |
|---|---|---|
| A — Primary/high authority | Family obituary; funeral home; government/police/coroner statement; official promotion or governing body | Preferred for identity, age, date, immediate circumstances |
| B — Strong reporting | Established newspaper/wire/local newsroom; specialist outlets such as POST Wrestling, F4W/WON, Sherdog, MMA Fighting | Career context, confirmation, quotations, event reconstruction |
| C — Specialist archive | OWW, LuchaWiki, Cagematch, WrestlingData and comparable databases | Discovery and career reconstruction; checked against stronger sources where possible |
| D — Limited corroboration | Local/social archive or a single specialist entry | Person remains in memorial record, but uncertain details remain explicitly uncertain |
This hierarchy produces some uncomfortable but necessary corrections.
For example, OWW currently lists Dennis Condrey as 74.
His funeral home gives a birth date of February 1, 1950 and a death date of March 20, 2026: 76 years old.
The funeral record gets priority. Online World of Wrestling
Likewise, the widely circulated age of “Flying” Fred Curry was 82, but the family obituary says Fred Thomas Koury Jr. was born June 12, 1941 and died April 3, 2026 at 84.
Fred “Flying Fred Curry” Koury Obituary (1941 – 2026) – Bloomfield, CT – westernmassnews
These are small corrections, but good history is built out of small corrections.
PART II — THE MASTER 2026 MEMORIAL REGISTER
3. Professional wrestling and lucha libre
The compact chronology below combines the principal English-language register with regional and lucha records.
An asterisk means the surviving public record is comparatively thin and the entry should be regarded as documented but not yet deeply corroborated.
| Date | Name | Age | Sphere / status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan. 2 | Johnny Legend | 77 | Wrestling personality, manager, filmmaker/musician |
| Jan. 4 | Bob Boyer / Bobby Bold Eagle | 93 | Territorial wrestler |
| Jan. 14 | Rick Link / Man Mountain Link | 66 | Territorial wrestler |
| Jan. 21 | Bobby Duncum Sr. | 81 | AWA/WWWF/NWA star |
| Jan. 22 | TC Reynolds | 69 | Independent wrestler |
| Feb. 2 | Frankie Cain / The Great Mephisto | 93 | Territory star |
| Feb. 6 | Ray Ojeda* | — | Lucha libre |
| Feb. 8 | Tadao Yasuda | 62 | NJPW champion / MMA crossover |
| Feb. 21 | El Remolino | — | Lucha libre |
| Mar. 20 | Dennis Condrey | 76 | Midnight Express pioneer |
| Mar. 21 | Fielder / Ernesto Navarro | — | Mexicali wrestler |
| Mar. 23 | DJ Pringle / Daniel Moody | 39 | Gulf Coast independent wrestler |
| Apr. 3 | “Flying” Fred Curry | 84 | Second-generation territorial star |
| Apr. 7 | Scott “The Butcher” Renwick | 41 | Scottish wrestler |
| Apr. 18 | Van Hammer / Mark Hildreth | 66 | WCW wrestler |
| Apr. 24 | Gran Markus Jr. | 72 | Mexican heavyweight star |
| May 6 | Ted Turner | 87 | Media owner; major wrestling contributor |
| May 12 | Barry Blaustein | 72 | Beyond the Mat director |
| May 20 | Phil Hickerson | 79 | Memphis/Southern wrestler |
| May 24 | Cariñoso* | — | Lucha libre |
| May 24 | Piloto Suicida (Laguna) | — | Lucha libre |
| May 25 | Jerry Grey | 62 | Wrestler/promoter |
| May 29 | Tempo* | — | Lucha libre |
| Jun. 4 | Rey Salomón | 71 | Mexican wrestler |
| Jun. 4 | Ferrari* | — | Lucha libre |
| Jun. 5 | The Great Kasaki / Anthony Fujimura | 47–48 | Canadian independent wrestler |
| Jun. 8 | Black Skeller / Jorge Renato Chávez | 55 | Juárez wrestler |
| Jun. 12 | Jordan “Black Flash” Saint | 23 | Rising independent wrestler |
| Jun. 16 | Pete “Duke of Dorchester” Doherty | 83 | WWF-era enhancement wrestler |
| Jun. 18 | Ángel Infernal (Veracruz) | 63 | Mexican regional wrestler |
| Jun. 21 | Teniente Steve Murphy* | — | Lucha libre |
| Jun. 25 | Gorutta Jones / Sergio Carelli | — | Argentine TV wrestler |
| Jun. 26 | Joe Doering | 44 | AJPW Triple Crown champion |
| Jun. 27 | Gran Jacobo / Alberto Rossi Sarrat | 87 | Argentine/Mexican wrestler |
| Jul. 10 | Doug Stahl | 63 | Wrestler / boxer |
| Jul. 16 | Siva Afi | 77 | WWF/international Samoan star |
| Jul. 18 | Alma Roja* | — | Lucha libre |
| Jul. 21 | Rizado Ruiz* | — | Lucha libre |
| Jul. 22 | El Gavilán Ramírez | — | Mexican regional star |
| Aug. 4 | Dory Funk Jr. | 85 | Former NWA World Champion |
| Aug. 8 | Diana La Cazadora | 48 | Mexican wrestler/reporter |
| Aug. 8 | Kid Panda* | — | Lucha libre |
| Aug. 10 | Ultratumba (Monterrey)* | — | Lucha libre |
| Aug. 22 report | John Anson / Karl von Schotz | 77 | Canadian territorial star |
| Aug. 23 | Solar II / Pedro Buenrostro | 66 | Mexican star |
| Aug. 25 | El Androide / Juan Manuel Figueroa | — | Argentine wrestler |
| Aug. 30 | Paul LeDuc | 89 | Canadian wrestling legend |
| Sep. 4 | Jerry Oates | 78 | Wrestler/promoter/trainer |
| Sep. 4(?) | Terremoto (Saltillo)* | — | Mexican wrestler/trainer |
| Sep. 5 | Andy “The Butcher” Williams | 48 | AEW/independent wrestler |
| Sep. 6 | Bill Dundee | 82 | Memphis legend/booker |
| Sep. 6 | Extremo / Jesús Ortiz González | — | Mexican wrestler |
| Sep. 7 | Marc Mercier | 68 | French wrestler/promoter |
| Sep. 12 | César Pabón | 98 | AWA/WWC-era veteran |
| Sep. 15 | Chocheman / Ángel González | — | Mexican regional wrestler |
| Sep. 18 | Bruce Swayze | 86–87 | Canadian territorial wrestler |
| Sep. 20 | Franco Colombo | 73 | Mexican wrestler/trainer/booker |
| Sep. 25 | Babe Face / José Guadalupe Fuentes Ochoa | — | Mexican star |
| Sep. 25 | José “Jacobs” Trujillo | 30 | Independent wrestler |
| Sep. 26 | Curro Hernández Jr. | — | Wrestler/promoter |
| Sep. 27 | PAC / Benjamin Satterley | 40 | AEW/WWE/Dragon Gate star |
| Sep. 30 | SoCal Crazy / Nestor Bustos | 47 | Southern California independent star |
| Oct. 1 | Eddie “Cousin Eddie” Osbourne | 43 | Canadian wrestler/trainer/promoter |
| Oct. 1 | Bart Batten | 68 | Batten Twins |
| Oct. 3 | Metal Maniac / Jeff Miller | 66 | Northeast independent/ECW veteran |
OWW’s shorter list and LuchaWiki’s independent Mexican chronology demonstrate why no single database can legitimately be called complete. Online World of Wrestling
4. MMA and the broader MMA community
Here the boundary requires even more care.
Several people were established professionals.
Others were amateur fighters or developing prospects.
They should not all be described as:
“UFC-level professional MMA fighters.”
| Date | Name | Age | Status / circumstances |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan. 11 | Muhammadali Sadulloyev | teenager; birth year disputed | Tajik MMA youth champion |
| Feb. 6 | Pablo Oliveira Costa | 31 | Amateur/semi-professional Brazilian fighter |
| Feb. 8 | Tadao Yasuda | 62 | 2–4 professional MMA; also NJPW star |
| Mar. 2 | Jorge “Trap” Pederson | 30 | Amateur fighter preparing for pro debut |
| Mar. 25/26 | Orlando Wiet | 60 | UFC 2 pioneer; kickboxer/MMA veteran |
| Apr. 20 | Malissa Sherwood | 50 | Wrestling pioneer and MMA competitor |
| May 8 | Hrishikesh Koloth | 27 | Developing/aspiring MMA fighter |
| May 12 | Medet Zheenaliev | 30 | Professional MMA, 2–2 |
| May 31 | Jay Silva | 45 | UFC/Bellator/KSW veteran |
| Jul. 3 report | Dzhihad Yunusov | — | 19–8 professional; reported killed during military service |
| Aug. 3 | Allan Nascimento | 34 | Active UFC flyweight, 22–7 |
| Sep. 18 | David Grostic | 27 | 2–0 professional |
| Sep. 20 | Grigory Ponomarev | 31 | Former Fight Nights heavyweight champion |
| Sep. 30 | Jeremey Dustin Hunter | 44 | Obituary identifies him as professional MMA fighter |
Again, this is a fighter-death register, not a bout-fatality register.
Most of these people did not die because of an MMA contest.
PART III — THE WRESTLING AND LUCHA LIVES
5. Johnny Legend — January 2
Johnny Legend—born Martin Margulies—lived at the weird, creative intersection where:
- professional wrestling
- exploitation cinema
- music
- counterculture
meet.
He performed rockabilly, acted, produced film and appeared as a wrestling personality.
His association with Freddie Blassie helped create the cult artifact My Breakfast with Blassie.
His importance is therefore less about championship statistics than about wrestling’s ability to leak into other forms of popular culture.
He belongs in a wrestling-world memorial even though reducing him simply to “professional wrestler” would miss most of the story.
OWW records his death at 77; a definitive public medical cause has not been established in the sources used here. Online World of Wrestling
6. Bob Boyer — January 4
Boyer, who also worked as Bobby Bold Eagle, came out of the older territorial system.
His family record places his death at 93.
He had served in the Merchant Marine and later built a wrestling career that included the WWA and WWWF environment.
That is worth remembering because a performer like Boyer can disappear from contemporary fan memory despite having worked inside wrestling’s most historically important systems.
The archival value here is precisely that he was not a modern television celebrity.
7. Rick Link — January 14
Rick Link—sometimes billed as Man Mountain Link—was a large, physically imposing territory wrestler whose career reached back to his teens.
His résumé included Memphis, where he defeated Jerry Lawler for the Southern Heavyweight Championship.
Specialist reporting described Link as having entered hospice after discontinuing kidney dialysis.
That is more precise than simply writing “illness,” but it still should not be expanded into a medical diagnosis we do not possess.
His last documented wrestling activity came decades after his original territorial prominence.
8. Bobby Duncum Sr. — January 21
Duncum belongs to the great pipeline that once connected Texas athletics, professional football and professional wrestling.
He attended West Texas State, played professional football and transitioned into the ring under the training influence of Dory Funk Jr.
As a wrestler, Duncum became a believable giant heel in the:
- WWWF
- AWA
- NWA
systems and was closely associated with Bobby Heenan.
His AWA tag-team work with Blackjack Lanza is an important part of his résumé.
His death at 81 removed another living link to the period when a successful wrestler might spend years traveling territories rather than belonging to a single national company.
His publicly reported cause remained undisclosed in the core sources used here. Online World of Wrestling
9. TC Reynolds — January 22
TC Reynolds is a good example of why careful wording matters.
Some web references associate him with portrayals of Doink the Clown, but the Doink identity was used by numerous wrestlers outside the original WWF presentation.
It would be misleading to imply that Reynolds was the canonical WWF Doink.
The defensible statement is narrower:
he was an independent professional wrestler connected to versions of the character.
OWW records his death at 69.
Biographical and medical documentation is limited. Online World of Wrestling
10. Frankie Cain / The Great Mephisto — February 2
James Ault, better known in wrestling as Frankie Cain and later The Great Mephisto, had the kind of career modern wrestling rarely produces:
repeated reinvention across territories.
As Cain he formed part of the masked Infernos with Rocky Smith, managed by J.C. Dykes.
Later, as Mephisto, he became a major heel in Northern California.
The multiple names are not trivia; they illustrate how territory wrestlers often became functionally different characters depending on market and promoter.
He died at 93.
A specific public cause was not located in the strongest material reviewed.
11. Ray Ojeda — February 6
Ray Ojeda is one of the first cases demonstrating the archival divide.
LuchaWiki records his February 6 death, but this research pass has not located enough independent biographical material to write a confident career reconstruction.
That is not a reason to erase him.
It is a reason to mark the archive incomplete.
Ojeda therefore remains in the memorial register with an explicit research flag rather than an invented biography.
12. Tadao Yasuda — February 8
Yasuda is one of the most important crossover figures in this entire study.
He began in sumo, moved to New Japan Pro-Wrestling and then became central to Antonio Inoki’s fascination with legitimate fighting.
In MMA, Sherdog records him at 2–4, including victories over Masaaki Satake and, most famously, kickboxing star Jérôme Le Banner.
That success radically altered his pro-wrestling position and helped propel him to the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.
He was found dead at his Tokyo home at 62.
Specialist reporting did not establish a public cause.
The date also illustrates an archival problem: some databases use February 10, the date news circulated, while other reporting places the death on February 8. Online World of Wrestling
Yasuda belongs simultaneously to wrestling history and MMA history.
Counting him twice would inflate the combined census; treating him as only one or the other would flatten his career.
13. El Remolino — February 21
El Remolino’s place in lucha history is tied in part to one of the final chapters of El Santo’s legendary career.
Specialist lucha records identify Remolino as having lost his mask to Santo in Ciudad Obregón on July 5, 1981.
That single apuestas result places him within the web of Mexican wrestling history even if English-language biographical information is sparse.
His death is recorded by LuchaWiki on February 21. LuchaWiki
14. Dennis Condrey — March 20
Condrey’s career is much easier to recognize than his correct age apparently was.
The Midnight Express became one of the defining tag-team concepts of 1980s American wrestling.
Condrey was there from its formative versions with Randy Rose and Norvell Austin through the famous pairing with Bobby Eaton under Jim Cornette.
Their work helped establish a grammar of Southern tag wrestling—
- cutting off the ring
- building the hot tag
- tandem offense
- managerial interference
and long-form rivalry—that remains visible today.
After his death, numerous wrestling articles reported that he was 74.
The family funeral record is decisive: Dennis Noel Condrey, February 1, 1950–March 20, 2026, age 76.
Dennis Noel Condrey Obituary Mar 20, 2026 – Berryhill Funeral Home & Crematory
A lesson follows.
Memorial writing becomes unreliable when every secondary outlet copies the first incorrect biography.
15. Fielder — March 21
The luchador known as Fielder was Ernesto Rafael Navarro, also associated with names including Ángelus and Zauron.
Specialist records place him primarily in the Mexicali scene and identify a long regional career with local title success.
He is precisely the sort of wrestler who challenges national histories.
If the only criterion for significance is whether a performer appeared on American cable television, a regional ecosystem disappears with him.
16. DJ Pringle — March 23
Daniel Joseph Moody, known professionally as DJ Pringle, spent roughly two decades around Gulf Coast and Pensacola wrestling.
He was only 39.
That age naturally creates curiosity about cause of death, but curiosity is not evidence.
Public reporting reviewed for this project does not justify a definitive medical conclusion, so his cause remains not publicly established here.
The restraint matters because younger deaths are particularly vulnerable to internet speculation.
17. “Flying” Fred Curry — April 3
Curry was a second-generation wrestler, son of the famously violent “Wild Bull” Curry, but his own presentation moved in almost the opposite direction.
He was athletic, mobile and known for dropkicks and high-speed offense in an era when the American heavyweight style was far more grounded.
POST Wrestling called attention to just how unusual that style was for his time.
The passing of “Flying” Fred Curry – POST Wrestling | Podcasts, News, Reviews | WWE AEW NXT NJPW
The family obituary adds an important correction.
It states that Fred Thomas Koury Jr. was born June 12, 1941 and “passed peacefully” on April 3 at 84—not the 82 repeated in several wrestling databases.
It also records his University of Connecticut education and athletic background.
Fred “Flying Fred Curry” Koury Obituary (1941 – 2026) – Bloomfield, CT – westernmassnews
That makes him a useful case study in why family documentation deserves priority over recycled wrestling data.
18. Scott “The Butcher” Renwick — April 7
Renwick was 41 and significant within Scottish wrestling.
He began wrestling in the mid-2000s, held numerous championships and teamed with the future Killian Dain in Britain’s Most Wanted.
For some wrestlers, his significance was even more personal:
he was a trainer.
One memorial described him succinctly:
“My first trainer.
My first opponent.”
That is the kind of legacy championship lists cannot measure.
His cause was not publicly established in the strongest sources reviewed.
19. Van Hammer — April 18
Mark Hildreth, better known as Van Hammer, was one of WCW’s visually unmistakable characters of the 1990s—the guitar-carrying rock persona who arrived during the company’s pre-Nitro period and remained familiar to fans through later incarnations.
His family obituary records his military service in the U.S. Navy as well as his wrestling career.
He died at 66.
The family notice did not provide a medical cause, and the paper will not manufacture one.
20. Gran Markus Jr. — April 24
Cándido Robles Cruz became prominent as Gran Markus Jr., having also worked as Tony Benetto.
He trained in the extraordinarily influential Mexican wrestling environment associated with teachers such as Diablo Velasco and became a major heavyweight, holding the Mexican National Heavyweight Championship multiple times.
He also became associated with La Ola Blanca.
For many fans, one of the career’s defining moments was his 1997 mask loss to Mil Máscaras.
That last fact demonstrates the unique historical importance of masks in lucha libre.
A mask loss can function almost like a biographical milestone—not merely a match result.
POST Wrestling’s 2026 obituary archive identifies him as a multiple-time Mexican National Heavyweight Champion.
Obituaries Archives – POST Wrestling | Podcasts, News, Reviews | WWE AEW NXT NJPW
21. Ted Turner — May 6
Ted Turner is included here, but in a separate category.
He was not a professional wrestler.
His importance is structural.
Turner’s television empire provided the distribution environment that eventually enabled World Championship Wrestling to become a true national rival to the WWF.
Any history of the Monday Night War that ignores television ownership is incomplete.
Turner died at 87. He had publicly disclosed a diagnosis of Lewy body dementia years earlier, but that does not automatically establish Lewy body dementia as his immediate cause of death.
Some wrestling databases make that leap.
A careful paper should not. Online World of Wrestling
The distinction between:
“known medical history”
and
“certified cause of death”
recurs throughout this study.
22. Barry Blaustein — May 12
Blaustein’s contribution came through a camera.
He directed Beyond the Mat, the documentary that followed professional wrestlers in unusually intimate circumstances and introduced many non-fans to the physical and psychological costs behind wrestling’s performance.
His inclusion matters because wrestling history is not made only by wrestlers.
It is also made by the people who document them.
Blaustein had lived with Parkinson’s disease and was later diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer before his death at 72, according to reporting on his final illness.
23. Phil Hickerson — May 20
Phil Hickerson belongs to the Memphis and Southern wrestling world.
His career included important tag work with Al Greene and Dennis Condrey, championship runs throughout the region, and later the PY Chu-Hi persona.
Hickerson’s history intersects with the same territory web as:
- Bill Dundee
- Jerry Lawler
- Condrey
That clustering matters: 2026 did not merely lose isolated individuals.
It lost several people who collectively remembered the same wrestling culture from different positions inside it.
24. Cariñoso — May 24
LuchaWiki records Cariñoso among the year’s dead.
At present, the research file does not contain enough independently corroborated information to offer a responsible birth name, age, championship history or cause of death.
Writing “unknown” is preferable to decorating a memorial with somebody else’s biography.
25. Piloto Suicida (Laguna) — May 24
The qualifier “Laguna” is essential.
There have been wrestlers using the name Piloto Suicida in different places, and careless searching risks merging separate identities.
The Laguna-area wrestler is identified in specialist records as José Calzada Salazar.
This is another recurring research hazard in lucha libre: reused names, inherited names and masked identities mean a name search is not always an identity search.
26. Jerry Grey — May 25
Jerry Grey had a long wrestling career that included Pacific Northwest and Florida title success, including work alongside Tom Prichard.
His health story is better documented than many in this archive.
Grey had publicly discussed a lengthy cancer battle, including stage IV colon cancer.
That makes his case different from deaths for which fans merely assumed cancer after seeing weight loss or illness.
Here the cancer history was public.
A colleague, Bob Cook, captured the wrestling-community response in a short memorial line:
“The ring feels a little emptier today.”
It is an almost perfect accidental summary of this paper.
27. Tempo — May 29
Tempo appears in LuchaWiki’s chronology on May 29.
The supporting biographical file remains thin enough that this paper will not assign details beyond the specialist archival record. LuchaWiki
Again, invisibility in English does not equal insignificance.
28. Rey Salomón — June 4
Rey Salomón is identified in lucha records as Salomón Meza Cámara and worked under several identities across his career.
He trained under the legendary Diablo Velasco, another reminder of how a comparatively small number of great trainers spread their influence across generations of Mexican wrestling.
His documented history includes apuestas matches and extensive regional work.
His death is recorded at age 71.
29. Ferrari — June 4
Ferrari is another case presently anchored primarily by the specialist lucha chronology.
The death belongs in the working census; the biography remains open for further archival development. LuchaWiki
30. The Great Kasaki — June 5
Anthony Fujimura, known as The Great Kasaki, was a Canadian independent wrestler with a career extending back to the mid-2000s.
Available records identify championship work in British Columbia and appearances through the regional scene.
His exact age is inconsistently presented as 47 or 48 in secondary material.
His cause of death should remain undisclosed unless stronger evidence emerges.
Comments about a person’s mental health are not equivalent to a documented cause of death, and this paper will not use them that way.
31. Black Skeller — June 8
Black Skeller was Jorge Renato Chávez, a longtime Ciudad Juárez wrestler born in 1970.
His career was deeply regional rather than nationally televised, but that is exactly why specialist databases matter.
Local wrestling scenes produce their own:
- stars
- grudges
- mentors
- memories
National history often preserves none of them unless someone deliberately records the names.
32. Jordan “Black Flash” Saint — June 12
Jordan Nasir St. Fort Colin was only 23.
His death was not caused by a wrestling match.
Contemporary reporting says another vehicle crossed the median on the Bethpage State Parkway and struck his vehicle head-on.
He died in the collision.
Rising Pro Wrestler Full of ‘Potential’ Dies in Head-on Collision at 23 – Yahoo Sports
Saint was a developing independent wrestler with future bookings ahead of him.
That matters methodologically.
He should be included in a memorial of wrestling’s dead, but his death should not be counted as evidence that the physical act of professional wrestling killed him.
33. Pete “The Duke of Dorchester” Doherty — June 16
Doherty is remembered by generations of WWF viewers as an enhancement wrestler whose wild appearance and exaggerated energy made him memorable even when his job was usually to lose.
The stronger family record places him at 83, correcting the 81 often repeated by wrestling databases.
He also had a broader life:
- military service
- education
- electrical work
and appearances outside wrestling.
That is another reason this project uses the word lives repeatedly.
A ring résumé is only one column of a human biography.
34. Ángel Infernal of Veracruz — June 18
Local reports identify the wrestler as Armando Martínez, a veteran of the Veracruz/Córdoba wrestling scene who began performing during the late 1970s.
Regional reporting said he was fatally struck by a vehicle in circumstances involving an allegedly intoxicated driver.
Because the reporting is local and the surviving source base is more limited, the proper wording is:
“local reporting attributed the death to the collision”
not an embellished reconstruction.
35. Teniente Steve Murphy — June 21
Teniente Steve Murphy is preserved by the lucha chronology but remains lightly documented in the sources assembled for this edition.
He stays in the roll call; his profile remains an explicit research gap. LuchaWiki
36. Gorutta Jones — June 25
Gorutta Jones was the wrestling identity of Sergio Aldo Carelli, an Argentine performer associated with the television phenomenon 100% Lucha.
He achieved major visibility within that format and won one of the program’s tournaments.
Argentina’s televised wrestling traditions occupy a different historical lane from WWE, U.S. territories or Mexican lucha libre, but they belong to the same broader family of worked professional combat entertainment.
37. Joe Doering — June 26
Joe Doering’s death is among the best medically documented cases in the paper.
He trained under Scott D’Amore, debuted in 2004 and found his greatest success in All Japan Pro Wrestling, where he became a two-time Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion and a multiple-time World Tag Team Champion.
His battle with brain cancer extended over roughly a decade.
He received an initial brain-tumor diagnosis in 2016, returned to wrestling, faced recurrence and eventually entered hospice.
He died June 26 at 44.
Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling’s memorial said:
“Joe packed a thousand years’ worth of living into every one of them.”
AJPW later scheduled a memorial service at Korakuen Hall. The promotion noted that Doering’s last match had taken place in August 2022.
Here, unlike many entries, “brain cancer” is not speculation.
It is part of a long public medical history.
38. Gran Jacobo — June 27
Gran Jacobo, born Alberto Rossi Sarrat, carried an international résumé connecting Argentina and Mexico.
Specialist records place his birth at the end of 1938 and identify his professional career as beginning in the early 1960s.
He later worked in Mexico after being noticed in the Argentine wrestling scene.
At 87, his death belongs to a very different demographic category from a 23-year-old Jordan Saint or 44-year-old Doering—another reason raw death counts can mislead.
39. Doug Stahl — July 10
Stahl’s athletic background included boxing as well as wrestling.
His family obituary records a serious youth boxing career and service in the U.S. Army.
Later wrestling training connected him with the Wild Samoan tradition.
He died at 63.
A public medical cause was not established in the principal sources reviewed.
40. Siva Afi — July 16
Papali’itele Max Amata Taogaga, best known internationally as Siva Afi, belonged to the long history of Samoan professional wrestling.
He trained under figures including Steve Rickard and Peter Maivia, wrestled internationally, challenged Ric Flair during the territorial era, worked for New Japan and became familiar to WWF audiences in the late 1980s.
Outside the ring, he also worked as a stuntman and served as a bodyguard for actor Burt Reynolds.
POST Wrestling’s obituary noted the consistent respect expressed by Afi’s peers.
His death at 77 took another witness to the trans-Pacific wrestling circuit.
41. Alma Roja — July 18
Alma Roja’s death appears in LuchaWiki’s 2026 record.
Substantial independent biographical material has not yet been located for this edition. LuchaWiki
42. Rizado Ruiz — July 21
Rizado Ruiz is similarly preserved by the specialist chronology but remains a research gap in the current English-accessible archive.
That should be understood as a limitation of this paper, not as a judgment on the wrestler’s historical importance. LuchaWiki
43. El Gavilán Ramírez — July 22
El Gavilán Ramírez, identified locally as Lidio Camarillo Sánchez, was a veteran of the Xalapa wrestling scene.
Regional accounts remember an aerial wrestling style and bouts with established Mexican names.
Local reporting attributed his death to a heart attack.
Because that cause rests principally on regional reporting rather than a medical document, it is best described as reported, not certified.
44. Dory Funk Jr. — August 4
There are wrestlers whose death removes a performer.
Dory Funk Jr.’s death removed an institutional memory.
He defeated Gene Kiniski in 1969 for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and held the title until 1973.
In the territory system that was not merely a belt reign.
The champion traveled among member promotions and had to function as a credible centerpiece across markets with different stars and audiences.
Funk later became fundamental to All Japan Pro Wrestling.
With his brother Terry he helped make the Funk name central to Japanese wrestling, and as a trainer and teacher he influenced wrestlers ranging from Jumbo Tsuruta and Genichiro Tenryu to Kurt Angle.
POST Wrestling also credits him with playing an important booking role in the architecture of the first Starrcade.
Even at an advanced age he continued to wrestle.
The last recorded match located in this research was the August 24, 2024 FMW-E memorial event in Japan, where the 83-year-old Funk teamed with Osamu Nishimura.
Pro Wrestling Stories – Your Daily Source of Wrestling Nostalgia!
A career database summarizing his Oklahoma work documents a 1963 debut and 2024 final match and identifies dozens of championships across his career, though its title totals should be understood as database-derived rather than an official governing-body census.
Oklafan.com v5 Beta > News > Dorrance Earnest Funk: By the Numbers
Funk died at 85 after entering hospice.
The important historical point is not simply that a former champion died.
It is that somebody who could personally connect:
- Amarillo
- the NWA traveling-champion system
- All Japan
- Starrcade
- modern training schools
and twenty-first-century wrestling was gone.
45. Diana La Cazadora — August 8
Alma Corina Gutiérrez Villarreal—Diana La Cazadora—was 48, not 47 as some databases initially listed.
Mexican reporting says she had spent weeks hospitalized with a pulmonary infection and had undergone a serious procedure shortly before her death.
Fallece la exluchadora Diana La Cazadora a los 48 años de edad; luto en la lucha libre mexicana
She debuted professionally in 1997 after training with Centurión Negro and Carnicero Aguilar.
Her championships included the LLF Junior title, LLF Tag Team gold with Nikki Roxx and a Monterrey women’s championship.
Her life also crossed into journalism: after wrestling she worked in television reporting.
So even this single profile resists a one-word category.
Wrestler.
Champion.
Reporter.
Woman in a regional scene whose history is still incompletely documented.
46. Kid Panda — August 8
Kid Panda appears in the lucha chronology on the same day as Diana.
At present the underlying biography remains too thin for responsible elaboration. LuchaWiki
47. Ultratumba of Monterrey — August 10
The Monterrey wrestler known as Ultratumba is another specialist-archive entry.
The geographic qualifier matters because ring names are frequently reused.
Until identity and career details are independently pinned down, the correct archival description remains narrow. LuchaWiki
48. John Anson / Karl von Schotz — August report
John Anson wrestled under several names, including Karl von Schotz, and became a notable Canadian territorial competitor.
He debuted very young and eventually held the Stampede North American Heavyweight Championship, in addition to tag titles in several territories.
The precise date of death is a useful example of unresolved evidence.
OWW gives August 1, while strong specialist reporting announced his death on August 22 without giving enough evidence here to establish that August 1 is unquestionably correct. Online World of Wrestling
So, the paper preserves age 77 and August 2026, while flagging the exact date for future verification.
49. Solar II — August 23
Pedro Buenrostro, better known as Solar II, belonged to the technically rich Mexican tradition associated with trainers such as Diablo Velasco.
He held the NWA World Welterweight Championship and built a career around both masked identity and later mask-loss history.
His brother, Solar I, helped confirm his death.
Public reporting did not reveal a cause.
Even his civil name demonstrates archival difficulty:
surnames differ in some secondary records.
Rather than secretly reconcile them, the discrepancy belongs in the research notes.
50. El Androide — August 25
Juan Manuel Figueroa belonged to Argentina’s televised wrestling tradition and performed under several characters, including El Androide.
He also became associated with incarnations of La Momia and other colorful television personas.
Those characters look very different from Memphis wrestling or shoot-style Japan, but they serve the same basic cultural function:
larger-than-life identities carried through episodic performance.
51. Paul LeDuc — August 30
Paul LeDuc became one half of the famous LeDuc Brothers alongside the unrelated Michel Pigeon, presented in wrestling as Jos LeDuc.
The pair became stars in Quebec and elsewhere, holding major tag championships and participating in high-profile feuds.
Their success is another reminder of kayfabe’s power:
the “brothers” did not have to be biological brothers for the identity to become historically real within wrestling.
LeDuc died at 89 in palliative care surrounded by family.
A specific public cause was not established.
52. Jerry Oates — September 4
Jerry Oates produced one of the clearest database corrections of the year.
OWW lists September 1 and age 79.
His published obituary gives September 4, 2026, age 78, with a birth date of September 5, 1947. Online World of Wrestling
Oates wrestled from the territorial era into the twenty-first century.
He teamed frequently with his brother Ted, held the NWA Georgia Tag Team Championship, won All Japan’s All Asia Tag Team Championship in 1976, toured Japan repeatedly, ran Oates Gym and worked as a promoter and trainer.
His cause of death was not disclosed.
53. Terremoto of Saltillo — September 4(?)
Even LuchaWiki attaches a question mark to the September 4 date.
That punctuation should be preserved.
Terremoto was remembered in Saltillo as a wrestler and trainer connected with the local arena scene.
The precise chronology remains unresolved. LuchaWiki
A research archive should be willing to say, in effect:
we know this happened; we are not yet certain exactly when.
54. Andy “The Butcher” Williams — September 5
Williams’ death demands unusually careful language because it followed a wrestling match.
He was a musician as well as a professional wrestler, nationally known in AEW as The Butcher alongside The Blade.
On September 5, he wrestled at an Enjoy Wrestling event at Mr. Smalls Theatre near Pittsburgh.
Police later said Williams had struck his head on a ring post, was found unresponsive and stopped breathing before emergency medical transport.
He died later that evening.
That sequence is factual.
What is not established merely from that sequence is a final medical cause.
Some databases use:
“cardiac event after a match,”
but stronger reporting has emphasized that an official cause had not yet been publicly released.
The difference between:
“collapsed after a match”
and
“wrestling caused his death”
is enormous.
The first is evidence.
The second requires additional evidence.
55. “Superstar” Bill Dundee — September 6
Bill Dundee was one of the structural pillars of Memphis wrestling.
Born in Scotland and raised partly in Australia, he came to the United States and became inseparable from the Jerry Lawler era.
Dundee could be Lawler’s partner, rival, challenger, antagonist and creative collaborator.
His significance extended behind the curtain as a booker.
What makes Memphis particularly important is how much it depended on emotional continuity.
Fans did not simply see a new touring attraction every week; they lived with recurring characters and relationships.
Dundee understood that storytelling economy.
His son Jamie announced his death at 82, writing:
“I love you Dad. … Rest in peace, Superstar.”
“Superstar” Bill Dundee has passed away – OWW
Dundee’s death, coming within a day of Andy Williams’, made that September weekend especially painful for wrestling fans.
56. Extremo — September 6
LuchaWiki identifies Jesús Ortiz González, known as Extremo, as dying September 6.
Local reporting described a fatal highway collision involving the vehicle carrying him.
That puts his death in the same broad category as Jordan Saint:
a wrestler killed in transportation circumstances rather than by wrestling competition.
The specialist record is particularly valuable because his death received little English-language attention. LuchaWiki
57. Marc Mercier — September 7
Marc Mercier represented French and European professional wrestling.
He came from a wrestling family, competed for European championships and later became involved in:
- promotion
- training
- efforts
to sustain French catch wrestling.
Reporting around his death described a battle with cancer.
The national wrestling histories most familiar to English-speaking fans—
- U.S.
- Mexican
- Japanese
- British
—can obscure continental European traditions.
Mercier belongs in the record partly because he reminds us those traditions existed.
58. César Pabón — September 12
César Antonio Pabón-Pérez died at 98.
His obituary records Puerto Rican roots and military service with honors.
Wrestling databases associate him with the AWA and WWC orbit.
At nearly a century old, Pabón again shows why a raw annual wrestling-death count requires age structure.
His death and Jordan Saint’s belong in the same memorial archive, but they should never be treated as equivalent mortality events.
59. Chocheman — September 15
Ángel González performed in later years as Chocheman, after previously using another wrestling identity.
He remained connected to the Estado de México scene and had reportedly wrestled shortly before his death.
Regional comic and character wrestlers are particularly vulnerable to historical erasure because their significance often depends on live local audiences rather than archived national television.
60. Bruce “Beautiful Bruce” Swayze — September 18
Swayze was a Canadian territorial wrestler and manager.
The surviving age information conflicts—86 versus 87, depending upon the underlying birth record used.
That discrepancy is retained here rather than resolved by guesswork.
61. Franco Colombo — September 20
Javier Esparza Coronado, Franco Colombo, spent more than four decades in Mexican professional wrestling.
He worked as:
- a wrestler
- trainer
- booker
and later became an important backstage figure in CMLL.
His championship history included welterweight-level titles.
POST Wrestling emphasized the breadth of his career—performer, trainer and booker—and its duration of more than 45 years. POST Wrestling
His age is frequently given as 73, although some sources produced 72.
An August 1953 birth date would make 73 correct.
62. Babe Face — September 25
José Guadalupe Fuentes Ochoa—Babe Face, “El Cañonero de Colima”—was part of the UWA/EMLL/CMLL/AAA span of Mexican wrestling history.
He held the Mexican National Light Heavyweight Championship for an extended reign and also toured Japan.
The length and breadth of that career again expose the weakness of English-only death lists.
A nationally important Mexican wrestler can be nearly invisible in American mainstream reporting while remaining an obvious inclusion in a global history.
POST Wrestling published a dedicated career retrospective after his death. POST Wrestling
63. José “Jacobs” Trujillo — September 25
Trujillo was just 30.
MCW announced his death and described his time with the promotion.
Publicly available sources reviewed here did not establish a cause.
One tribute phrased the most obvious human fact plainly:
“30 years old is far too young.”
There is no need to improve on that sentence.
64. Curro Hernández Jr. — September 26
Armando Solinger Esparza, known as Curro Hernández Jr., belonged to the San Luis Potosí wrestling tradition as both performer and promoter.
Specialist records credit him with a regional television championship and later promotional work connected to Arena Coliseo.
His profile demonstrates another form of legacy:
a wrestler who becomes part of the infrastructure keeping a local scene alive.
65. PAC / Benjamin Satterley — September 27
PAC’s death was the year’s most shocking loss among currently active major-league wrestlers.
Benjamin Satterley began wrestling in 2004 and developed into one of the outstanding aerial and hybrid wrestlers of his generation.
In WWE he became NXT Champion and Cruiserweight Champion.
In AEW he became the inaugural All-Atlantic Champion—later associated with the International title lineage—and a multiple-time World Trios Champion.
He wrestled at AEW All Out less than a day before news of his death at 40 spread publicly.
Contemporary reporting did not initially disclose a cause.
That remains the central fact this paper preserves:
cause not publicly established in the authoritative material relied upon here.
The Associated Press quoted fellow English wrestler Will Ospreay calling PAC:
“the greatest export from our country.”
That is nine words, but it captures how wrestlers themselves understood his level.
PAC’s death also produced an unusually large cross-promotional response.
The Rock publicly emphasized that:
“humanity matters most”
when discussing tributes that crossed company lines.
The Rock doesn’t care who is surprised by his AEW comments: ‘Humanity matters most’ | Cageside Seats
It is tempting, because PAC had performed so recently, to make the final match part of a causal narrative.
We cannot.
A final match is a chronology. It is not an autopsy.
66. SoCal Crazy — September 30
Nestor Bustos, SoCal Crazy, represents the life of the independent wrestler who becomes locally indispensable without ever needing national television to validate the career.
He began around 2000 and became one of Southern California’s respected veterans, winning regional championships and recognition as a leading local wrestler.
His colon-cancer battle was public.
He returned to wrestling during treatment and used his platform for cancer awareness.
He died at 47.
Unlike cases with unknown causes, there is no reason to hedge the broad illness history here:
his death followed a documented battle with colon cancer.
67. Eddie “Cousin Eddie” Osbourne — October 1 report
Canadian wrestler, trainer and promoter Mike Becherer, known as Cousin Eddie/Eddie Osbourne, was 43.
His career stretched back to the early 2000s, and he became particularly important as a trainer and promoter.
Reporting credited him with more than a thousand appearances.
Even the founding date of his promotion is inconsistent across sources—another tiny reminder that wrestling records often require active reconciliation.
He had wrestled only days before his death.
No authoritative public cause had been established by October 5.
68. Bart Batten — October 1
Bartley Alan Batten formed one half of the Batten Twins with his brother Brad.
The team worked Central States, Puerto Rico and other territories, carrying the classic identical-twin tag-team concept across promotions.
Secondary wrestling reports have called him 67.
Family-associated reporting places him at 68, which is the age used here.
Dead People – Updated and Organized Archive of Recent Deaths and Obituaries
Cause not publicly disclosed.
69. Metal Maniac / Jeff Miller — October 3
Jeff Miller, known as Metal Maniac, was a Northeast independent mainstay.
He became particularly associated with Jimmy Snuka during the latter portion of Snuka’s independent career—not simply as an opponent, but as a traveling partner who helped get Snuka to bookings.
F4W reported Miller’s death at 66, correcting at least one later entertainment article that incorrectly called him 70.
Daily Update: Metal Maniac passes away, previews for this week’s shows – F4W/WON
He also had ties to early ECW and to figures including Don Muraco and Siva Afi.
That is an appropriate final wrestling profile for the October 5 evidence window:
another person whose historical contribution partly consisted of the invisible labor surrounding more famous names.
PART IV — THE MMA LIVES
70. Muhammadali Sadulloyev — January 11
Sadulloyev was a young Tajik MMA athlete whose exact age is itself disputed in reporting.
Asia-Plus described him as a highly successful youth competitor and reported that he was fatally stabbed during an altercation at a gaming center in Kulob.
His coach said the wound was to the chest/heart area.
The correct wording is therefore not:
“MMA death in competition.”
It was a violent civilian death of an MMA athlete.
Because reporting conflicts over whether his birth year was 2007 or 2010, this paper calls him a teenager rather than pretending one age is settled.
71. Pablo Oliveira Costa — February 6
Pablo Oliveira Costa, 31, was a Brazilian combat-sports athlete reported as competing at the amateur/semi-professional level while working toward a professional MMA career.
He died in an electrical accident while installing an air-conditioning unit; reports said an aluminum ladder contacted a high-voltage line.
Again, his connection to MMA explains why the community mourned him.
MMA did not cause the electrocution.
72. Jorge “Trap” Pederson — March 2
Pederson was 30 and on the verge of transitioning from amateur MMA toward a professional debut.
He was shot during a mass shooting at an Austin bar and later died after life support was withdrawn.
Reporting from Texas and Minnesota documented both the shooting and his fighting background.
This entry widens an important distinction:
a fighter can die violently without violence in the cage being the cause.
73. Orlando Wiet — March 25/26
Orlando Wiet was a veteran of UFC 2, one of the earliest events in modern UFC history.
He came from Muay Thai and kickboxing, then competed in early mixed martial arts when the sport’s rules, presentation and athlete preparation were dramatically different from the modern UFC.
Sherdog records a professional MMA career of 1–5.
His UFC 2 victory over Robert Lucarelli placed him inside the historical record of the organization’s earliest tournament era.
His death at 60 followed what specialist reporting described as a lengthy illness, but the illness itself was not publicly specified.
74. Malissa Sherwood — April 20
Sherwood’s inclusion is particularly important for women’s combat-sports history.
USA Wrestling remembered her as a pioneer in women’s wrestling.
She became a Pan American champion, repeatedly finished near the top of U.S. national and world-team competition and later moved into MMA and coaching.
She died at 50 after cancer.
Malissa Sherwood, Trailblazer in Women’s Wrestling, Passes Away at 50 | USA Wrestling
Sherwood’s career helps connect amateur wrestling’s expansion for women with the emergence of women’s MMA.
75. Hrishikesh Koloth — May 8
Koloth was 27 and pursuing a fighting future in Canada.
He was killed by a black bear while working at a uranium exploration site in Saskatchewan.
Reporting said he had trained in MMA, had a boxing coaching job scheduled to begin and hoped eventually to reach the UFC.
The circumstances became internationally newsworthy because they were so extraordinary.
His death belongs in an MMA-community memorial.
It does not belong in statistics for fatalities caused by MMA competition.
76. Medet Zheenaliev — May 12
Zheenaliev’s Sherdog record was 2–2.
His death had nothing to do with the result of a fight.
Reports say he entered Lake Issyk-Kul after seeing teenage swimmers in distress.
The teenagers survived; Zheenaliev drowned during the attempted rescue.
His body was recovered afterward.
The number of teenagers differs in some retellings, which is why this paper avoids building a dramatic scene around a disputed count.
The uncontested center is enough:
he went into the water during a rescue and did not return alive.
That became the defining act of his public legacy.
77. Jay Silva — May 31
Jay Silva was a genuine international MMA journeyman.
Sherdog records him at 12–14–1, with fights in the:
- UFC
- Bellator
- KSW
and other promotions.
His opponents included recognizable names across several generations and organizations.
He died at 45.
The public announcement did not establish a cause in the authoritative sources used here.
A research paper should be comfortable ending the sentence there.
78. Dzhihad Yunusov — reported July 3
Sherdog reported that 19–8 fighter Dzhihad Yunusov had been killed while serving with Russian forces during the Russia-Ukraine war.
Because wartime death reporting can be difficult to independently verify and because the source chain is not equivalent to a funeral record or government death certificate accessible here,
this paper deliberately says:
“reported killed.”
That caveat is not skepticism for its own sake. It is source discipline.
79. Allan Nascimento — August 3
Nascimento’s death was arguably the most consequential MMA loss of the year because he was an active UFC fighter.
He died at 34.
The UFC said he suffered an apparent heart attack in his sleep.
That wording matters.
“Apparent” is evidence of what was believed at the time; it is not the same as quoting a final publicly released autopsy.
Nascimento finished with a 22–7 professional record, including 4–2 in UFC competition, with 16 submission victories.
His final fight was a split-decision loss to Mitch Raposo only weeks before his death.
Allan Nascimento, UFC fighter known as ‘Puro Osso,’ dies at 34 – Los Angeles Times
Former UFC champion Charles Oliveira wrote:
“Today I lost a brother that fighting gave me.”
Nascimento’s case deserves medical attention because sudden death at 34 naturally raises questions.
But a question is not a conclusion.
80. David Grostic — September 18
David Grostic died at 27.
His family obituary establishes his death and age, while Sherdog records a 2–0 professional MMA record.
His most recent documented fight was a March 2026 submission win.
A reliable public cause was not located.
That combination—young age, recent competition, no public cause—is exactly the kind of situation where rumor rushes in to occupy silence.
This paper will not help it.
81. Grigory Ponomarev — September 20
Ponomarev was a 31-year-old Russian heavyweight and former Fight Nights heavyweight champion, with a professional record reported at 6–3.
His career had effectively been interrupted by a severe knee injury suffered in ACA competition in 2023.
The Russian MMA Union publicly announced his death without giving a cause.
Later reporting attributed a blood clot to an associate, but that is a weaker level of evidence than the official announcement.
Accordingly:
cause officially undisclosed; later associate attribution exists but is not treated here as equivalent to a medical finding.
82. Jeremey Dustin Hunter — September 30
Hunter’s family obituary says directly that he competed as a professional MMA fighter.
He died at 44.
Jeremey Dustin Hunter Obituary (1982 – 2026) – Meeker, OK – The Shawnee News-Star
The unusual part is that this research has not located a reliable professional fight database record under that exact identity.
Rather than choose between them, both facts belong in the archive:
the family identifies professional MMA competition; a verifiable major-database record has not yet been located.
That is how unresolved research should look on the page.
PART V — CAREER RECORDS, CHAMPIONSHIPS AND FINAL APPEARANCES
83. Major championship and career markers
A full record of every regional championship would run hundreds of entries and would create a false equivalence between titles with radically different status.
The table below therefore preserves major or historically meaningful honors, while individual regional records should remain in the profile database.
| Person | Selected documented achievements |
|---|---|
| Dory Funk Jr. | NWA World Heavyweight Champion, 1969–73; major AJPW tag legacy; trainer/booker |
| Tadao Yasuda | IWGP Heavyweight Champion; 2–4 MMA |
| Dennis Condrey | Midnight Express pioneer; numerous Southern tag championships |
| Joe Doering | 2× AJPW Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion; multiple AJPW World Tag reigns |
| Gran Markus Jr. | Multiple Mexican National Heavyweight Championship reigns |
| Siva Afi | International/WWF/NJPW career; NWA World title challenger |
| Solar II | NWA World Welterweight Champion |
| Jerry Oates | NWA Georgia Tag Champion; All Asia Tag Champion |
| Diana La Cazadora | LLF Junior; LLF Tag; Monterrey women’s titles |
| Bill Dundee | Numerous Memphis-area singles/tag titles; major territory booker |
| Babe Face | Mexican National Light Heavyweight Champion |
| PAC | NXT Champion; WWE Cruiserweight Champion; AEW All-Atlantic; AEW World Trios |
| SoCal Crazy | Multiple Southern California independent championships |
| Allan Nascimento | 22–7 MMA; 4–2 UFC; 16 submissions |
| Jay Silva | 12–14–1; UFC/Bellator/KSW veteran |
| Medet Zheenaliev | 2–2 professional MMA |
| Orlando Wiet | UFC 2 competitor; 1–5 MMA plus major kickboxing background |
| David Grostic | 2–0 professional MMA |
| Grigory Ponomarev | Fight Nights Heavyweight Champion; 6–3 reported MMA record |
Doering’s AJPW record, for example, included two Triple Crown reigns totaling hundreds of days as well as four World Tag campaigns.
84. The final-match / final-fight archive
This was one of the most useful additions to the project because it forces us to separate a person’s last performance from his or her cause of death.
| Person | Last reliably located appearance |
|---|---|
| Dory Funk Jr. | Aug. 24, 2024; FMW-E memorial event in Japan Pro Wrestling Stories |
| Rick Link | May 2023, according to specialist career reporting |
| Joe Doering | Aug. 2022, according to AJPW memorial reporting POST Wrestling |
| Andy Williams | Sep. 5, 2026, Enjoy Wrestling; medical emergency followed the match POST Wrestling |
| PAC | Sep. 26, 2026, AEW All Out; died the following day |
| SoCal Crazy | Contemporary reporting places final match in June 2026 |
| Eddie Osbourne | Sep. 26, 2026 |
| Metal Maniac | Most reports place final wrestling activity in 2018 |
| Allan Nascimento | Jun. 20, 2026 vs. Mitch Raposo; split-decision loss Los Angeles Times |
| Medet Zheenaliev | Aug. 30, 2019; final Sherdog-listed professional bout |
| Orlando Wiet | May 19, 2011; final Sherdog-listed MMA bout |
| David Grostic | Mar. 22, 2026; submission victory |
| Grigory Ponomarev | Aug. 2023; serious knee injury in final fight |
| Jorge Pederson | Dec. 2025 amateur bout; pro debut had not yet occurred |
Notice what the table does not say.
It does not say that wrestling killed PAC because he wrestled the day before his death.
It does not say Doering’s final 2022 match caused a cancer death four years later.
Chronology can suggest questions.
It cannot answer them by itself.
PART VI — THE CORRECTIONS LEDGER
85. Where the public record disagrees
This is one of the most important pages in the paper.
| Case | Commonly repeated version | Preferred treatment here |
|---|---|---|
| Dennis Condrey | 74 | 76, based on funeral-home dates Berryhill Funeral Home |
| Fred Curry | 82 | 84, family obituary Legacy |
| Pete Doherty | 81 | 83, family obituary |
| Jerry Oates | Sep. 1, age 79 | Sep. 4, age 78, obituary Legacy |
| Diana La Cazadora | 47 | 48, Mexican reporting/family information El Universal |
| Bart Batten | 67 | 68 in family-associated record |
| Ted Turner | “died of Lewy body dementia” | Known dementia diagnosis; immediate cause not established in this source set |
| Andy Williams | “cardiac event” | Officially: post-match collapse/medical emergency; final cause not yet publicly established |
| Tadao Yasuda | Feb. 10 | News date vs. death date; Feb. 8 appears in specialist reporting |
| John Anson | Aug. 1 | Exact date not fully resolved; death announced by Aug. 22 |
| Franco Colombo | 72 | Birth chronology supports 73 |
| Bruce Swayze | 86 or 87 | Disputed |
| Great Kasaki | 47 or 48 | Disputed |
| Terremoto | Sep. 4 | Specialist archive itself marks date “Sep. 4(?)” |
OWW remains a valuable discovery tool.
The fact that several entries require correction does not make the archive worthless; it demonstrates why discovery source and final authority are different categories.
PART VII — WHAT DO THE NUMBERS REALLY SAY?
86. The under-50 deaths
The list is emotionally jarring.
Among wrestling-world performers with reasonably established ages:
Jordan Saint, 23.
José Trujillo, 30.
DJ Pringle, 39.
PAC, 40.
Scott Renwick, 41.
Eddie Osbourne, 43.
Joe Doering, 44.
Great Kasaki, about 47.
SoCal Crazy, 47.
Andy Williams, 48.
Diana La Cazadora, 48.
Among the MMA community:
Hrishikesh Koloth, 27.
David Grostic, 27.
Jorge Pederson, 30.
Medet Zheenaliev, 30.
Pablo Oliveira Costa, 31.
Grigory Ponomarev, 31.
Allan Nascimento, 34.
Jeremey Hunter, 44.
Jay Silva, 45,
plus teenager Muhammadali Sadulloyev.
That naturally creates a feeling of pattern.
But now look at causes and circumstances.
Jordan Saint:
traffic collision.
Joe Doering:
brain cancer.
SoCal Crazy:
colon cancer.
Diana:
reported serious pulmonary infection.
Sadulloyev:
stabbing.
Koloth:
bear attack.
Zheenaliev:
drowning during a rescue.
Pederson:
mass shooting.
Pablo Costa:
electrocution.
Nascimento:
apparent heart attack in sleep.
PAC:
undisclosed.
David Grostic:
undisclosed.
Andy Williams:
medical emergency after a match, final cause not publicly established.
Those are not one phenomenon.
87. Cause-of-death evidence matrix
| Category | Examples | Evidentiary meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Documented cancer/serious illness | Joe Doering, SoCal Crazy, Jerry Grey, Malissa Sherwood | Strong public illness history |
| Reported acute illness | Diana La Cazadora; Allan Nascimento | Reported infection / “apparent” cardiac event |
| Traffic/industrial accident | Jordan Saint, Extremo, Pablo Costa | External accidental causes |
| Violence | Sadulloyev, Pederson | Civilian violence, not sports competition |
| Drowning/rescue | Medet Zheenaliev | Non-competition accidental death |
| Animal attack | Hrishikesh Koloth | Non-competition occupational circumstance |
| Post-performance medical emergency | Andy Williams | Temporal relationship established; final medical causation unresolved |
| Undisclosed/unknown publicly | PAC, Jay Silva, many wrestling veterans | No responsible inference possible |
| Reported wartime death | Dzhihad Yunusov | Different evidentiary environment; treated cautiously |
This table is the strongest argument against sensationalizing the 2026 record.
PART VIII — WAS 2026 A “DEATH EPIDEMIC”?
88. No—not on the evidence we currently possess
The word epidemic carries epidemiological meaning.
To demonstrate an abnormal mortality rate, we would need at minimum a stable definition of who counts as a wrestler/fighter, consistent annual case capture, an estimate of the population at risk, age structure, ideally sex structure, and comparable historical years.
We do not have that.
OWW currently lists 30 wrestling-world deaths for 2026, compared with 36 in 2025, 46 in 2024, 38 in 2023, 45 in 2022 and 60 in 2021.
But those numbers are not directly comparable to our expanded 65-person 2026 wrestling-world archive because our methodology intentionally captures additional regional lucha cases and contributors that OWW does not. Online World of Wrestling
You cannot broaden the definition for 2026 and then compare it to narrower historical counts and announce a record.
That would be bad statistics.
The defensible conclusion is smaller:
2026 has felt extraordinarily concentrated in loss, including multiple highly visible and unusually young deaths, but this investigation does not establish an epidemiological mortality spike.
PART IX — WRESTLING, MMA AND OCCUPATIONAL RISK
89. There are real risks. That still does not solve individual deaths.
It would be equally wrong to swing to the opposite extreme and pretend combat sports are harmless.
A modern systematic review of 43 MMA injury studies found competition injury rates ranging from 23.6 to 54.5 injuries per 100 athlete-exposures.
Head and neck injuries constituted 29.5% to 75.9% of competition injuries in the studies reviewed, while reported concussion rates were roughly 14.7 to 16.1 per 100 athlete-exposures.
The authors also stressed major methodological limitations, including inconsistent injury definitions and weak data on training injuries and women.
Weight cutting is another genuine issue.
The International Society of Sports Nutrition’s 2025 position stand discusses food restriction, fluid manipulation, sweating and acute weight loss as established combat-sport practices.
Crucially, it also states that the long-term effects of frequent weight cuts on health and performance remain unknown.
Those findings justify serious questions about fighter health.
They do not justify writing:
“Allan Nascimento died because of weight cutting.”
There is no evidence here for that statement.
Nor do the general occupational hazards of wrestling prove that PAC’s death arose from professional wrestling.
Population-level risk and individual causation are different questions.
PART X — ACTIVE VERSUS RETIRED
90. Why this distinction changes how the deaths feel
The death of a retired 93-year-old territorial wrestler and the death of someone who performed yesterday are psychologically very different events for fans.
Several 2026 losses involved people far removed from active wrestling.
Others did not.
PAC had just wrestled.
Andy Williams was at a wrestling show when his medical crisis unfolded.
Eddie Osbourne had wrestled within days.
Allan Nascimento had fought in the UFC only weeks earlier.
David Grostic was an unbeaten 27-year-old professional.
That proximity creates narrative shock.
The audience has not had time to mentally recategorize the performer from present-tense athlete to historical figure.
This helps explain why certain deaths dominate the emotional memory of a year even when older legends may have had much greater historical careers.
PART XI — THE GEOGRAPHY OF FORGETTING
91. Why American lists miss Mexican wrestlers
LuchaWiki’s 2026 obituary chronology contains names such as:
- Ray Ojeda
- El Remolino
- Fielder
- Cariñoso
- Piloto Suicida
- Tempo
- Rey Salomón
- Ferrari
- Black Skeller
- Ángel Infernal
- Teniente Steve Murphy
- Gran Jacobo
- Alma Roja
- Rizado Ruiz
- El Gavilán Ramírez
- Kid Panda
- Ultratumba
- El Androide
- Terremoto
- Extremo
- Chocheman
- Curro Hernández Jr.
that do not appear on OWW’s current 2026 list. Online World of Wrestling
That is not merely a database quirk.
It is a case study in historical visibility.
The United States built an extraordinarily powerful professional-wrestling media machine.
- WWE’s tape library
- streaming distribution
- national journalism
- fan databases
ensure that even moderately known American television performers leave extensive digital traces.
A veteran Mexican wrestler may have worked hundreds of matches, trained students and drawn local crowds for decades while leaving behind almost nothing indexed by English-language search engines.
History therefore has a search-engine bias.
One of this project’s purposes is to resist it.
PART XII — THE VANISHING TERRITORY GENERATION
92. What was lost besides individual people
- Dory Funk Jr.
- Dennis Condrey
- Bobby Duncum Sr.
- Phil Hickerson
- Bill Dundee
- Paul LeDuc
- Jerry Oates
carried first-person memories of a wrestling business that no longer exists.
They remembered:
the NWA traveling champion;
local television studios;
town-to-town loops;
kayfabe enforced socially rather than just theatrically;
regional booking styles;
promoters trading talent;
Japanese tours before instant global media;
Memphis before national consolidation;
and the business when a successful wrestler could be famous across five states and nearly unknown in the sixth.
Their deaths gradually turn living history into recorded history.
That change is irreversible.
A tape cannot answer a follow-up question.
An old Wrestling Observer cannot suddenly remember what the locker room smelled like, what the drive was like, which promoter paid late, which finish was changed at the last moment.
When historians speak of losing a generation, this is what the phrase actually means.
PART XIII — INDEPENDENT WRESTLING AND THE ARCHIVE PROBLEM
93. The people who disappear first
Independent wrestlers are uniquely vulnerable to historical disappearance.
A person may work 500 matches for 40 promotions without any central employer keeping a file.
Promotion websites vanish.
Facebook pages disappear.
Video platforms remove accounts.
Event posters remain on somebody’s hard drive.
Championship lineages are abandoned when companies fold.
That is why:
- Jordan Saint
- SoCal Crazy
- Eddie Osbourne
- Great Kasaki
- José Trujillo
and Metal Maniac matter beyond their individual stories.
They demonstrate that professional wrestling’s historical archive is partly volunteer labor.
Fans, local photographers, database editors and old promoters are sometimes the only reason future researchers can reconstruct a career at all.
PART XIV — THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FAN GRIEF
94. “But I didn’t know him. Why does this hurt?”
That question appears whenever a famous athlete dies.
Psychology gives us a better answer than:
“because fans are irrational.”
A 2024 Death Studies experiment involving 271 participants examined anticipated grief for social versus parasocial relationships.
The striking result was that relational closeness, rather than whether the relationship was technically parasocial, predicted grief intensity.
In other words, feeling meaningfully connected to a public figure can produce substantial grief even without reciprocal personal acquaintance.
That does not mean watching a wrestler on television is identical to losing a spouse.
It means the human mind does not sort every attachment into the crude categories of:
“real person I met”
and
“fake person I watched.”
A wrestler may be attached to childhood.
A fighter may remind someone of a deceased parent.
A particular entrance theme may belong to Friday nights with friends who are no longer around.
The athlete becomes entangled with autobiographical memory.
So when PAC dies, a fan can be grieving PAC and twenty years of his or her own life at the same time.
95. Continuing bonds
Modern grief research also challenges the idea that healthy mourning requires erasing the dead from emotional life.
A systematic review covering 79 studies and about 13,366 bereaved people found that so-called continuing bonds can involve:
comfort, distress, identity, memory and spirituality; they are not uniformly beneficial or harmful.
Full article: The impact of continuing bonds following bereavement: A systematic review
That framework maps naturally onto sports fandom.
Fans rewatch matches.
They wear shirts.
Promotions ring the bell ten times.
A wrestler adopts a deceased mentor’s move.
A fighter dedicates a victory.
People tell old stories online.
Those behaviors can be understood as forms of memorial continuity—not proof that fans are confused about death.
96. Why sudden death produces rumor
There is also a less healthy side.
When somebody young dies unexpectedly and no cause is disclosed, uncertainty is psychologically uncomfortable.
The mind wants narrative closure.
Social media supplies it instantly.
Someone noticed the performer looked tired.
Someone remembers an old injury.
Someone invents a drug rumor.
Someone posts “heart attack” because the person collapsed.
Someone else converts “heart attack” into:
“confirmed heart attack.”
Within hours, repetition starts impersonating evidence.
The responsible historian has to tolerate the sentence fans dislike most:
We do not know.
That is not a failure.
Sometimes it is the most accurate thing in the entire paper.
PART XV — VOICES OF REMEMBRANCE
97. What colleagues said
The most valuable memorial quotations are often the shortest because they reveal relationship rather than résumé.
For Bill Dundee, son Jamie Dundee wrote:
“I love you Dad. … Rest in peace, Superstar.”
“Superstar” Bill Dundee has passed away – OWW
For Joe Doering, Maple Leaf Pro wrote:
“Joe packed a thousand years’ worth of living into every one of them.”
For Allan Nascimento, Charles Oliveira wrote:
“Today I lost a brother that fighting gave me.”
Allan Nascimento, UFC fighter known as ‘Puro Osso,’ dies at 34 – Los Angeles Times
After PAC’s death, Will Ospreay called him:
“the greatest export from our country.”
And in the wider reaction to PAC, The Rock emphasized:
“humanity matters most.”
The Rock doesn’t care who is surprised by his AEW comments: ‘Humanity matters most’ | Cageside Seats
These quotations should not replace biography.
They tell us something statistics cannot: how the dead existed in other people’s lives.
PART XVI — THE VISUAL ARCHIVE
98. Photographs are evidence too—but rights matter
A definitive illustrated edition should include, where licensing allows:
career portraits;
championship photographs;
final-era photographs;
event programs;
memorial graphics;
ring/cage tributes;
arena photographs;
masks;
boots;
gloves;
public memorials;
and images of historically significant venues.
But
“it is on Google Images”
is not a copyright license.
The representative images displayed at the top of this chat are presented through their source references for research and visual context.
A published PDF, website or printed Library of Rickandria volume should clear permissions, use licensed press photography, public-domain material, promotion-authorized memorial graphics or images reproduced under an applicable legal basis.
That is especially important for a project whose purpose is preservation.
The archive should not honor one person’s legacy by disregarding another person’s photography rights.
PART XVII — REPORTING ETHICS: WHAT WE WILL NOT DO
99. Rules for the final memorial archive
The final edition should not publish leaked medical records.
It should not infer suicide from vague mental-health comments.
It should not reproduce graphic death photographs.
It should not treat a GoFundMe description as equivalent to a coroner’s finding.
It should not convert:
“found unresponsive”
into
“heart attack.”
It should not turn a prior dementia diagnosis into a cause of death without evidence.
It should not claim:
- PEDs
- steroids
- drugs
- concussions
or weight cutting caused a named person’s death unless the individual evidence supports the claim.
And it should not decide a deceased person’s eternal destiny.
That last boundary brings us to Scripture.
PART XVIII — SCRIPTURE: A SEPARATE LENS
What follows is not historical evidence about the causes of these deaths.
It is not medical analysis.
It is not psychology.
It is a biblical reflection prompted by the subject of mortality.
Those categories should remain separate.
The Bible text cited here is from the supplied Authorized King James Version, Pure Cambridge Edition.
100. “The house of mourning”
Ecclesiastes says:
“It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting:
for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.”
—Ecclesiastes 7:2, KJV
What the text says
The verse explicitly connects exposure to death with reflection by the living.
It does not say death is entertaining.
It does not command morbid fascination.
It says the living can learn in the house of mourning.
Interpretive application
That provides a serious biblical rationale for a memorial project such as this if its purpose is remembrance and wisdom rather than voyeurism.
A list of deaths becomes spiritually hollow if it is merely spectacle.
The more meaningful question is:
What should the living
“lay…to his heart”?
101. “Teach us to number our days”
Psalm 90 describes human life as brief and says:
“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”
—Psalm 90:12, KJV
The psalm does not ask for the illusion of control over death.
It asks for wisdom in view of life’s limitation.
That distinction fits this research surprisingly well.
The archive records dates because dates matter historically.
Scripture directs attention beyond arithmetic.
The point of numbering days is not merely to count them.
It is to become wiser while we still possess them.
102. James and the illusion of tomorrow
James writes:
“For what is your life?
It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”
—James 4:14, KJV
A 98-year-old life is brief when measured against eternity.
A 23-year-old life makes that brevity emotionally undeniable.
The passage is addressing human presumption about tomorrow.
It should therefore not be turned into a slogan claiming that planning is sinful.
The surrounding text objects to boasting as though tomorrow were ours to command.
Applied cautiously, the lesson is humility:
our plans are real; our control is limited.
103. Luke 13 and one of the most important warnings in this entire paper
People told Jesus about Galileans killed by Pilate.
He then referred to eighteen people killed when the tower of Siloam fell.
Jesus asked whether the victims were worse sinners than others.
His answer:
“I tell you, Nay.”
—Luke 13:3, 5, KJV
This matters enormously whenever people interpret tragedy.
The passage does not authorize us to look at an unusual death and announce that the person must have been uniquely wicked or specifically targeted by divine judgment.
Jesus explicitly rejects the simplistic equation:
terrible death = worse sinner.
He redirects the hearers toward their own repentance.
That is a far different response from using somebody else’s death as evidence of our own moral superiority.
104. Hebrews 9:27 and the limit of what we can say about the dead
Hebrews states:
“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:”
—Hebrews 9:27, KJV
The following verse turns immediately to Christ’s offering and promised appearing.
What Scripture states
Death is universal.
Judgment follows.
The passage locates Christian hope in Christ.
What this paper cannot state
We do not possess biblical authority to declare the eternal state of:
- PAC
- Dory Funk Jr.
- Allan Nascimento
- Bill Dundee
- Jordan Saint
or any other person merely from a wrestling biography, an obituary or public reputation.
A memorial paper can report publicly professed beliefs where historically relevant.
It cannot see a human heart.
That distinction is important if Scripture is to be used carefully rather than decoratively.
PART XIX — WHAT THE EMPTY CORNERS MEAN
105. History
Historically, 2026 is a year in which multiple generations overlapped in death.
Dory Funk Jr. carried the NWA world-champion era.
Bill Dundee carried Memphis.
Dennis Condrey carried Southern tag-team evolution.
Jerry Oates carried the territory circuit.
Joe Doering carried the tradition of the American heavyweight finding a second wrestling home in Japan.
PAC represented the twenty-first-century international performer who could move through:
- Britain
- Japan
- WWE
- AEW
SoCal Crazy represented independent wrestling as a lifetime vocation.
Allan Nascimento represented modern global MMA.
Those are different histories converging on one calendar.
106. Methodology
Methodologically, the year’s biggest lesson is that a death list is an argument about inclusion.
Does Ted Turner count?
Not as a wrestler, but certainly in a wrestling-world history.
Does an amateur MMA fighter count?
Only if we label that status honestly.
Does a lightly documented luchador count?
Yes in the memorial archive, but not as an excuse to invent detail.
Does an undisclosed cause mean “suspicious”?
No.
It means undisclosed.
107. Psychology
Psychologically, fans are not merely reacting to abstract celebrities.
They are reacting to relationships mediated through memory, media and repeated exposure.
Research supports the proposition that perceived closeness can make celebrity grief substantial.
That helps explain why the empty ring hits differently after someone dies.
The ring did not know the person.
The fan did not necessarily know the person either.
But the fan knew what happened in that ring while his or her own life was happening outside it.
That is enough to make absence meaningful.
108. Interpretation
Interpretively, we should resist turning 2026 into a mystery requiring one secret answer.
Human beings prefer unified stories.
A “curse.”
A drug.
A vaccine.
Steroids.
CTE.
Weight cutting.
“The business.”
The problem is that the actual record contains:
- cancer
- infection
- traffic collisions
- drowning
- stabbing
- gun violence
- electrocution
- animal attack
- old age
- possible cardiovascular events
and causes that remain private.
A theory that explains everything by ignoring most of the evidence is not a deep theory.
It is a shortcut.
109. Scripture
Scripture adds a different question.
Not:
Why did every one of these specific people die when they did?
The biblical passages considered here do not provide those individual explanations.
Rather:
What should mortality teach the living?
Ecclesiastes says to lay it to heart.
Psalm 90 asks for wisdom.
James attacks arrogant assumptions about tomorrow.
Luke 13 warns against reading tragedy as proof that victims were worse sinners.
Hebrews places death and judgment within the Christian proclamation concerning Christ.
Those are theological claims.
They should not be disguised as forensic findings.
PART XX — CONCLUSION: THE LIGHTS ARE STILL ON
Professional wrestling has always been built around a strange illusion.
For a few hours, the arena makes everything feel permanent.
The music hits.
The lights move.
The crowd rises.
The wrestler walks through the curtain.
The bell rings.
The ropes are exactly where they were last week.
MMA creates a different form of the same illusion.
The cage door closes, the announcer speaks, two athletes touch gloves and for several minutes the entire world narrows to a small illuminated space.
Then the event ends.
Eventually careers end.
Eventually lives end.
By October 5, 2026, our expanded archive had already gathered roughly 78 people from the wrestling and MMA worlds, using a deliberately broad but transparent definition.
Some were legends.
Some were local workers.
Some were champions.
Some never reached the level they were chasing.
Some were almost a century old.
Some had barely entered adulthood.
Their deaths do not tell one medical story.
But their lives tell a remarkable cultural story.
Dory Funk Jr.’s life tells us how the NWA system functioned.
Dennis Condrey’s tells us something about tag-team craft.
Bill Dundee’s tells us about Memphis.
Diana La Cazadora’s tells us about women’s regional lucha.
Gorutta Jones tells us something about Argentine television wrestling.
SoCal Crazy tells us about independent wrestling.
PAC tells us what the modern international wrestler became.
Tadao Yasuda tells us where professional wrestling and legitimate fighting collided.
Allan Nascimento tells us about the modern UFC athlete.
Medet Zheenaliev reminds us that the final act by which a fighter is remembered may happen nowhere near a cage.
And the obscure names—the ones for whom we still have only a date and a ring name—tell us something else.
They tell us how easily a life can fall out of history.
That may be the real purpose of The Empty Corners.
Not to sensationalize death.
Not to build conspiracy out of uncertainty.
Not to count bodies for shock value.
But to keep the names.
To correct the dates.
To preserve the careers.
To admit what is unknown.
To remember what can still be remembered.
The lights are still burning.
The ring is still there.
The cage is still there.
But some of the corners are empty.
APPENDIX A — RESEARCH STATUS AND YEAR-END WORK
This October edition should be treated as Version 1.0, frozen to an evidence date of October 5.
The year-end edition should update deaths after October 5;
revisit every:
“cause undisclosed”
case for official later findings; obtain permissions for photographs; expand sparse lucha biographies using Spanish-language newspaper and local-promotion archives; verify real names and inherited ring names; compile complete title lineages; document trainers and students; locate legal footage of final matches; preserve web pages through archival services; add promotion-issued ten-bell salutes and memorial videos; and recalculate all descriptive statistics using a locked inclusion protocol.
The final publication should also contain separate indices for:
- real names
- ring names
- promotions
- championships
- countries
and causes/circumstances of death.
APPENDIX B — SOURCE RELIABILITY KEY
A1 — family/funeral record.
A2 — government/police/coroner/official sports body.
A3 — promotion or organization first-party statement.
B1 — established mainstream or local journalism.
B2 — established wrestling/MMA specialist journalism.
C1 — established historical database.
C2 — specialist regional archive.
D — single-source or lightly corroborated lead requiring additional research.
For death-cause reporting, an A-level medical/government/family statement outranks a C-level database every time.
APPENDIX C — SELECTED EXTERNAL SOURCE DIRECTORY & NUMBERED BIBLIOGRAPHY
The bibliography below gives readers direct paths into the evidence rather than asking them to trust this paper’s summaries.
- Online World of Wrestling, “Fallen Wrestlers: In Memoriam.” Useful as a broad annual discovery database; several 2026 details require correction against primary records.
- LuchaWiki, “2026.” Essential specialist chronology for Mexican/regional deaths largely absent from American databases.
- POST Wrestling, Obituaries archive. One of the strongest ongoing specialist sources for historically contextualized wrestling deaths.
- John Pollock, “The Life & Career of Dory Funk Jr. (1941–2026).” Extensive historical treatment of Funk’s title reign, All Japan influence, training and booking.
- POST Wrestling, “Former NWA Champion Dory Funk Jr. dies at 85.” Contemporary announcement and peer remembrance.
- Oklafan, “Dorrance Earnest Funk: By the Numbers.” Database-oriented documentation of Funk’s Oklahoma record and broader title/career information.
- Pro Wrestling Stories, Dory Funk final-match account. Documents the 2024 FMW-E bout as his last recorded match.
- Berryhill Funeral Home, Dennis Noel Condrey obituary. Primary basis for the corrected age of 76.
- People, Dennis Condrey obituary coverage. Illustrates the widely circulated but conflicting age of 74 and contains contemporary wrestling tributes.
- Carmon Windsor Funeral Home / Legacy, Fred Koury obituary. Primary basis for Fred Curry’s corrected age of 84.
- POST Wrestling, “The passing of ‘Flying’ Fred Curry.” Wrestling-career context and historical style analysis.
- POST Wrestling, “Joe Doering passes away at 44 after long battle with brain cancer.” Core medical/career source.
- POST Wrestling, “AJPW to present memorial service for Joe Doering.” Documents his All Japan title résumé and 2022 final match.
- POST Wrestling, Siva Afi obituary. Detailed international career and family confirmation.
- POST Wrestling, Jerry Oates obituary. Territory, Japan, promotion and training history.
- Jerry Oates published obituary. Primary chronology establishing September 4 and age 78.
- POST Wrestling, police statement regarding Andy Williams. Strongest source in this paper for reconstructing the post-match medical emergency without inventing a cause.
- POST Wrestling, “The Life & Career of Superstar Bill Dundee.” Historical Memphis retrospective.
- Online World of Wrestling, Bill Dundee memorial announcement. Preserves Jamie Dundee’s public tribute.
- El Universal, Diana La Cazadora obituary. Mexican reporting based on family information; supports age 48 and pulmonary-infection history.
- LuchaWiki, Diana La Cazadora profile. Training, debut and championship data.
- F4W/Wrestling Observer, Metal Maniac update. Reports Jeff Miller’s death at 66 and summarizes his Northeast independent work with Jimmy Snuka.
- Los Angeles Times, Allan Nascimento obituary. Reports the UFC’s “apparent heart attack” wording, 22–7 record and 4–2 UFC record.
- Legacy/Shawnee News-Star, Jeremey Dustin Hunter obituary. Family record identifying his professional-MMA background and age 44.
- Dignity Memorial, David Grostic obituary. Family/funeral source confirming his age and death.
- Baker & Cohen, “Relational closeness—not parasociality—determines the intensity of grief responses to celebrity death,” Death Studies. N=271 experimental study relevant to fan grief.
- Hewson et al., “The impact of continuing bonds following bereavement: A systematic review.” Review of 79 studies examining ongoing relationships with the dead in grief.
- Systematic review, “Injuries in Mixed Martial Arts After Adoption of the Unified Rules of MMA.” Forty-three-study review of injury location, frequency and concussion reporting.
- Full-text MMA injury review in PMC. Includes detailed concussion and anatomical-injury discussion.
- International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand on MMA/combat-sport weight cutting. Comprehensive 2025 review and position statement.
- PubMed record for the ISSN combat-sport nutrition/weight-cut position stand. Includes the authors’ statement that long-term effects of frequent cuts remain unknown.
- Bingaman, parasocial grieving after Kobe Bryant. Sports-fan grief study documenting shock, sadness, reminiscence and memorialization.
- Authorized King James Version, Pure Cambridge Edition. User-supplied primary biblical text used for the Scripture section.
Final research statement
This is intentionally not presented as the closed book on 2026.
It is the October 5 evidence edition.
That matters because three things can still happen before the final version: additional deaths may occur; previously unknown 2026 regional deaths may be discovered; and families or authorities may release new information about causes presently listed as undisclosed.
When that happens, the correct response is not to pretend this edition was always right.
It is to preserve this edition, issue a correction, cite the new evidence and make the historical record better.
That, more than certainty for certainty’s sake, is what an honest archive is supposed to do.
4CHAN THREAD & POST BREAKDOWNS – Library of Rickandria
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THE EMPTY CORNERS: Death, Legacy & Loss in Professional Wrestling & Mixed Martial Arts in 2026