13 Wrestlers Who Died In The Ring 13

13. Gary Albright

                                                         

Gary Albright was a beast of a man. Standing 6’3″ and weighing in at 350 lbs (25 stone), he won many accolades as an amateur wrestler. Starting as a college wrestler, he won state, national and then world championships in the early 1980s. After graduating from university, he begun training in professional wrestling, With such legends as Lou Thesz and Billy Robinson training him, it was no surprise that he turned out to be a solid pro, with a realistic as opposed to showy style. His first major promotion was Stu Hart’s Stampede Wrestling in Canada, where he became a tag team champion with Makhan Singh (Mike Shaw, aka Bastion Booger). They defeated no less of a team than The British Bulldogs to win the titles.
However, with a style developed by training with Thesz and Robinson, Albright eventually found his true calling: a career in Japan. The UWFI had started up and Albright arrived there in 1991. Their style was very different from western pro wrestling, presenting the matches as legitimate fights, which emphasised strikes and submissions. Albright won his first match by knockout in seven minutes. The UWFI style was made for Albright, with his fearsome size and amateur credentials. Unlike western wrestling, Albright did not need to be a showman. He just wrestled. After UWFI folded, Albright moved to All Japan Pro Wrestling, where he made one unsuccessful challenge to Mitsuharu Misawa’s Triple Crown championship in 1996.
Away from the ring, Albright married Monica Anoa’i, the daughter of Afa Anoa’i of the Hall of Fame tag team, the Wild Samoans. As Japanese wrestling operated on a touring schedule, between tours, Albright would wrestle for Afa’s WXW promotion based out of Allentown, Pennsylvania. On January 7th 2000, Albright was facing local wrestler Lucifer Grimm. During the match, Grimm hit an Ace Crusher (RKO) on Albright, however Albright did not get up. Knowing that he was supposed to lose the match, Grimm rolled Albright on top of him and instructed the referee to count to three to end the match. Medics and wrestlers hit the ring in a desperate attempt to resuscitate Albright in front of stunned fans, but it was unsuccessful. He had died in the ring at the age of just 36. The rest of the show was understandably cancelled. A post mortem determined that Albright had died of a heart attack, having had an enlarged heart and blockage of several coronary arteries. He also had undiagnosed diabetes.In April of that year, WXW held a Gary Albright Memorial Show in Allentown, which I was fortunate enough to attend live. Such was the high regard that Albright was held in that wrestlers from WWF, ECW and All Japan all arrived to compete in Albright’s memory, with the highlight for me being a classic encounter between Eddie Guerrero and Chris Jericho.