- Research shows that professional wrestlers often die prematurely compared to the general population.
- Problems leading to death include cardiovascular issues, drug overdoses, cancer, committed suicides, and physiological trauma.
- One study says excess mortality risk for wrestlers who survive to their mid-50s drops to that of the general population.
When Terry Gene Bollea, better-known to the world as Hulk Hogan, died a week ago at age 71, he’d actually lived to a ripe old age compared to many professional wrestlers. His official cause of death was cardiac arrest, but he’d reportedly had numerous health issues for many years.
For well over a decade, research has suggested that professional wrestlers often die prematurely compared to the general population.
In 2014, Eastern Michigan University researchers reported in the journal PLoS One that wrestlers ages 45 to 54 were nearly three times more likely than the general population to die prematurely.
The study looked at wrestlers over a 26-year-period and found the leading cause of death was cardiovascular-related (38%), which for those wrestlers was 15.1 times greater than for deaths among males in the general population. Drug overdose-related death rates for pro wrestlers were 122.7 times greater than for deaths of males in the general population, while the risk of cancer deaths was 6.4 times greater for professional wrestlers.
The study found that body mass index “is significantly associated with the hazard of death from total time wrestling.” It noted that while pro wrestlers are more likely to die early because of heart disease, morbidly obese wrestlers are “especially at risk.”
It also said that “professional wrestlers who survived to their mid-50s had a subsequent mortality rate comparable to the general population,” meaning the excess risk dropped.
Also in 2014, University of Manchester and Benjamin Morris of FiveThirtyEight both reported that the death rate for pro wrestlers was significantly higher than for athletes in different sports.
Morris compared actuarial data, but didn’t offer a conclusion on why that might be the case. What he found, though, was startling. The actuarial death rate for those age 40-45 was 5%, but among those who’d been in the World Wrestling Federation, it was 15%. The general actuarial rate among those age 50-55 is just over 5%, but among athletes in the WWF, the death rate was 20%.
Honor roll of premature deaths
Many professional wrestlers never make it to their 70s or even into their 60s. André the Giant, whose real name was André René Roussimoff, died at age 46 of congestive heart failure.
He’s among the hundreds and hundreds of pro wrestlers who have died prematurely, including Eddie Guerrero (38), Owen Hart (34), Brian Pillman (35), Chyna (46), Kerry Von Erich (33), Scott “Bam Bam” Bigelow (45), Adrian Adonis (34), Chris Candido (33), Davey Boy Smith (39), Curt “Mr. Perfect” Hennig (44), Crash Holly (32), Chris Kanyon (40), Bray Wyatt (36), Louie Spicolli (27), Art Barr (28), Gino Hernandez (28) and “Ultimate Warrior” James Hellwig (54).
There have also been wrestling duos. Hawk, real name Michael Hegstand, was 46 when he died and his tag team partner Animal, born Joe Laurinaitis, was 60. They both suffered fatal heart attacks.
As Justin Klawans wrote for The Week US, “There is a website, Wrestlerdeaths.com, that tracks wrestler deaths and is updated depressingly often. The site’s full list of deceased wrestlers numbers more than 2,000, and over 480 of those entries died under the age of 50.“
AL.com reported after the death of Chyna in 2016 that “a physically demanding job, hard living and bad luck have too often brought tragedy to current and former professional wrestlers.”
Three years ago, sports columnist Doug Robinson raised the issue of wrestlers dying young in a Deseret News article, noting lots of potential contributing factors, including steroids.
“Pro wrestlers die prematurely so often that it hardly raises an eyebrow anymore,” Robinson wrote, then noted of 200-plus of the best-known late wrestlers who are on the wrestlerdeaths.com list, citing numbers showing that 90 died before the age of 40; 35 died between 40 and 50. He also noted that 16 died by suicide; 19 by drug overdose; 57 by heart disease; 30 by unknown causes.”
Challenges and choices
Most lists of wrestlers who died before they reached a normal retirement age list causes including heart problems, weight-related illnesses, accidents and suicides as commonly contributing to their deaths. The lists also include complications from surgeries. Pro wrestlers sustain many physical injuries. Some of the deaths are listed as related to pain killers taken for those injuries, while others die of the injuries themselves. Hart died from internal bleeding after a blunt force trauma that severed his aorta, for instance.
The New York Times reported in May that “there have been many well-known wrestlers, and many of them have lived long lives. But it is impossible not to notice the many who have died early, some startlingly early. The causes have been many, but the results the same: an early obituary for a titan of the ring.”
