10. He Left Iran Because He Feared For His Life
In his early years, The Iron Sheik was loyal to the pro-western Shah regime of Iran. He trained to be a star Greco-Roman wrestler in his country and was even a bodyguard to the Shah and his family. He was not the most popular athlete though. That honor would go to a wrestler named Reza Takhti. He was considered the Michael Jordan of his country. Reza would be found dead under mysterious circumstances in a hotel room in 1968. The government officially ruled it a suicide but his pro-democratic beliefs made the conditions seem sketchy. Sheik realized that as the number 2 athlete behind Reza coupled with similar political ties might mean that his life was in peril. He fulfilled his obligations to the Iranian Army and by the beginning of the 1970s he would emigrate to the United States. Iran experienced a significant political change over the course of the 1970s that ended with a full-blown revolution in 1979. Sheik made the right call to leave.