2. Bruiser Brody Passes Away
Date: July 17th, 1988 There have been bigger and more well-known names to pass away at an early age in wrestling history, but none of them had their lives ended in the same manner or fashion that Bruiser Brody did. Brody was one of the very first true brawlers in the business, and made his name in the southern United States, Japan, and Puerto Rico. On July 17th, 1988, Brody was murdered in a shower stall during an event in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. The man accused of murdering him, fellow wrestler Jose Gonzalez, was eventually acquitted on all counts, with his claim being that he killed Brody in self-defense. The trial was seen as a farce in the eyes of many. The judicial system in Puerto Rico was known to be weak, and most of the wrestlers in the country were afraid for their lives, so they never spoke out. They were even afraid to cooperate in the immediate aftermath of the stabbing, refusing to translate for Tony Atlas as he spoke to police officers while Brody was in a nearby hospital. Wrestler Chris Youngblood said that Gonzalez approached Brody in the locker room with a towel covering his arm, and requested that Brody join him in the stall to "talk business". Moments later, there was a scuffle, and Brody stumbled through the door with a stab wound. According to Dutch Mantell (WWE's Zeb Colter), who was also in the locker room at the time, over 40 minutes went by after the incident before Brody would be loaded onto a gurney, and he would eventually bleed to death on the operating table at the hospital. People, including Mantell, continue to feel that Brody would still be alive today if the incident happened in America instead of Puerto Rico. The entire event was a tragedy, and one that absolutely did not need to happen. We'll probably never know the entire truth, which only makes it sadder.