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where bruiser brody was stabbed

from bruiser brody posted in pro wrestling by chewing_the_scenery

Frank Goodish, a 6'8" giant best known as Bruiser Brody, wrestled in the NWA, the AWA, the WWWF and many other promotions during the territory days of the 70s and 80s.

In 1988 Brody traveled to Puerto Rico for a show on July 16 at Juan Ramón Loubriel Stadium in Bayamón. In the locker room before the show he was stabbed by a wrestler named Invader (real name José González). Brody died at the hospital early the next morning.

González was charged with the murder and claimed self-defense. In spite of the controversy surrounding his motives for killing Brody, González was acquitted after a trial in Puerto Rico the following year.

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where owen hart died

from owen hart posted in pro wrestling by chewing_the_scenery

Owen Hart fell to his death at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City on May 23, 1999 during WWF's Over the Edge pay-per-view.

Hart had recently reprised the masked Blue Blazer gimmick that he used when he first debuted in the WWF over ten years before. A stunt was planned where he would descend from the ceiling in a harness and grapple line before his match, but he ended up accidentally falling over fifty feet into the ring.

Luckily the arena house lights were down at the time while a backstage promo aired and no footage exists of the fall.

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the site of ric flair’s 1975 plane crash

from ric flair posted in pro wrestling by chewing_the_scenery

On October 4, 1975, wrestling promoter David Crockett, along with four wrestlers, Ric Flair, Johnny Valentine, Tim Woods and Bobby Bruggers, boarded a twin-engine Cessna to fly from Charlotte to Wilmington, North Carolina for an outdoor wrestling show. This was before Ric Flair was 'The Nature Boy' when he was just a 24-year-old starting out in the business during his early NWA days as part of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling.

Because of the weight of the wrestlers, the pilot dumped fuel to lighten up. It was a tragic mistake, and the plane ran out of gas. They crashed just short of the Wilmington airport runway.

The pilot was the only one who died, although he survived in a coma for some time. Bruggers, Valentine and Flair all suffered broken backs. It ended the careers of Bruggers and Valentine, but Flair went through rehab and returned in six months to continue his feud with Wahoo McDaniel.

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the site of ric flair’s 1975 plane crash

from ric flair posted in pro wrestling by chewing_the_scenery

This was back in the days when all the marks still thought pro wrestling was real. The hospital staff panicked when Wahoo McDaniel, currently feuding with Flair, showed up at the hospital to visit him.

Johnny Valentine was in the middle of a feud with Tim Woods (aka Mr. Wrestling) at the time of the crash. The company feared that exposing the business as a work would be a catastrophe, and they went out of their way to make sure the public didn't know that the two had been traveling together. Woods was the only one to walk away from the crash, and he made some appearances shortly after to convince the fans he hadn't been on that plane, thus saving the reputation of the wrestling business forever.

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randy savage car wreck

from macho man randy savage posted in pro wrestling by prof_improbable

On the morning of May 20, 2011, former professional wrestler "Macho Man" Randy Savage was driving his Jeep Cherokee near his home in Seminole, FL when he had a heart attack and lost control of the vehicle, crashing into an oak tree in front of Bay Pines Evangelical Lutheran Church.

He was brought to Largo Medical Center where he was pronounced dead from "atherosclerotic heart disease." Savage was 58 years old.

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