38 Wrestlers Who Died In 2025
Paying tribute to the pro wrestlers who we sadly lost throughout 2025.
Death isn't easy.
Losing those dearest to us will be the most challenging hurdle most of us will ever have to overcome, and it can impact you in ways which you don't even realise. You cripple with depression, your mind fills with the fear of living life in their absence, you long to pick up the phone and have one more natter, you feel stuck; if you'll pardon the cliche, it is the very definition of an emotional rollercoaster.
As wrestling fans, we are reminded of this harrowing realisation every day, and in 2025, a pantheon of pro wrestlers took their place in the great ring in the sky. We said goodbye to a man on a mission, we bid farewell to an extreme revolutionary, and we paid our respects to a fallen hero who shaped the industry into what we now know it to be.
Firstly, however, we must honour and memorialise three non-wrestling celebrities whom we also lost in 2025, each of whom delivered an indelible performance during their guest WWE stints. With that, we say goodbye to Bob Uecker, who we lost on 15 January, WWE Hall of Famer Ozzy Osbourne, who died on 22 July, and Ricky Hatton, who passed away on 14 September.
Now, let's pay tribute...
38. Black Bart (9 January)
On 9 January, following a lengthy battle with stage four colon cancer, Black Bart passed away at the age of 76. He had first been diagnosed in 2022, managing to live for another two years, but - and this is a chilling testimony to the state of the American healthcare system - he was forced to cease any further treatment after the expiration of his medical insurance.
Born Richard Harris in January 1948, he wrestled under an array of monikers throughout a career that spanned nearly four decades, but it was as Black Bart that the Arkansan became more commonly known. This was the name he had used during his brief spells with both the WWF and WCW at the onset of the nineties, a period in which he also locked horns with many would-be WWE Champions, including Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, and Steve Austin.
Fleeing WCW as the company attempted to present him as a Stan Hansen-obsessed cowboy, Black Bart wrestled for various lesser North American independents before calling it a day in 1999. He subsequently moved into a coaching role, with his most prominent student being John 'Bradshaw' Layfield.