The biggest name comes from pro wrestling with the passing of
King Kong Bundy at the age of 61.
Bundy's time is best remembered for his angle with Hulk Hogan where Bundy "injured" the ribs of Hogan (as pictured above) and built to a steel cage match as the main event of Wrestlemania II.
Bundy was a headliner in several territories before his biggest success in the WWF, where part of his gimmick was demanding a five-count because a "three count wasn't enough" to demoralize his opponents.
I seem to remember some promotion doing this, but I'm not sure about this, but I've always thought that a way to really build Bundy as a star/title contender, etc, would have been for him to receive a three count from the referee against the champion, but have the champion "kick out" at four and due to Bundy's demand for a five count, the title would not change hands, yet Bundy could claim a three count over the champion.
Bundy also wrestled a series of matches against Andre the Giant after Bundy "injured" his ribs in what was Andre's last big feud before his heel turn against Hulk Hogan, replaced the jailed Ken Patera as John Studd's tag team partner and then there was the Wrestlemania 3 match with Bundy crushing "little person" Little Beaver with an elbow drop after a body slam, which to Beaver must have felt like he was thrown off a roof.
Bundy to me is best remembered for two personal stories.
The first of which is his LJN toy figure, where that line was made of these molded rubber figures that did nothing in moves but they were somewhat flexible-Not Bundy's.
The Bundy figure felt like it weighed five pounds, had zero movements and the damn thing felt like a brick!
In all seriousness, if you threw the King Kong Bundy figure at someone or something, it would have done some damage!
The other memory came in the mid-'90s when Cherie was working with a lady that was a few years younger than us that went to the same high school, which put her in the perfect age group to have attended high school with me and my brother.
We were eating dinner and somehow Shane's name came up and she said that they called him "King Kong Bundy" because he wore this Bundy t-shirt all the time.
I don't even remember the shirt, let alone how often he wore it, but when Bundy's name comes up, I often smile thinking of that story and wondering why I don't remember that shirt- haha!
Goodbye to "The Destroyer" Dick Beyer at the age of 88.
Beyer might not have had the same name recognition if you are under 60 as King Kong Bundy, but Beyer made his name known as well during a career that saw him as one of the American stars that helped to establish pro wrestling in Japan.
Known as the Destroyer in most places, but as "Doctor X" in the Midwestern-based AWA, won the company's world championship, which considering that the main star was also the promoter in Verne Gagne, was not something given to just anyone.
The Destroyer was a much bigger star in Japan, where in the early 60s, 70 million people watched him battle with the original Japanese wrestling star Rikidozan on television.
Beyer was beloved in his home area of Buffalo, as the glowing article above in the Buffalo News shows for his charity work and time coaching various sports in high school and children,
Goodbye to "Terrible Ted" Lindsay at the age of 93- Thanks to Jeff Heimberger for the note.
Lindsay scored over 800 points in his career, mainly spent with Detroit, and was known for his toughness and "rule stretching" play.
The league created rules against kneeing and elbowing mainly due to the aggressive play of Lindsay and Gordie Howe with the Wings.
Detroit won four cups with Lindsay, who entered the hockey hall of fame in 1966 and Lindsay would both coach and hold the general manager position for Detroit in the 1970s as well as the NBC color commentator on their Game of the Week series before rejoining the Wings management team.
Goodbye to Jack Gregory at the age of 74.
Gregory played for the Browns before being traded to the Giants and returned to the Browns for his final season to finish his career, which ran from 1967 thru 1979.
Even though Gregory spent his share of time in Cleveland, I remember him best as a Giant, who acquired him from Cleveland with Freddie Summers (a name that will pop up in regular inbox cleaning next time out) before the 1972 season for the Giants first and second-round draft picks.
Gregory was the best defender on the terrible Giants teams of the seventies and was unofficially credited with 65 sacks with the Giants, 18.5 of those coming in his first season of 1972 in New York.
Sacks were not an official statistic in the NFL during Gregory's career, which is why his numbers will be unofficial.
Goodbye to John Romano at the age of 84. Thanks to Lefty Koch for the note.
Romano spent all but the final 24 games of his career (Cardinals) with the White Sox and Indians before his career ended at 32.
Romano hit 124 homers from 1960-66 with those two teams and might have had a case as the top power-hitting catcher in the American League in those seasons.
Romano's best seasons were as an Indian before being the main asset given up by Cleveland in the three-way trade with Chicago and Kansas City that returned Rocky Colavito to the Indians in 1965.
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