8 Famous Wrestlers Whose Careers BRUTALLY Faded Away

Sting had the perfect wrestling retirement.

Consider the build: given five-ish months between his declaration of retirement and the date of his sunset match, Sting worked over a dozen wrestlers for the first time, often doing so in scorchingly hot brawls that offered 'The Stinger' limited bumps and ample time to get this stuff in, and although he was never beaten, thereby maintaining a clean AEW record of 23-0, none of his opponents were any worse off after taking the fall for him. Can you say the same thing about Chris Jericho?

Now, consider the match, and really consider the match: what a mint time that was. Convinced to put down The Young Bucks despite having pleaded to go out on his back, Sting, Darby Allin, and the brothers Jackson worked a pristine brawl at Revolution 2024 that incorporated everything that made everyone great. This wasn't Sting chucking together a bunch of his greatest hits for one last night: this was the perfect retirement match.

Nothing will ever come close to beating it, partly because wrestling retirements hold about as much weight as a fabricated Hulk Hogan tale around the campfire, and partly because so many other legendary wrestling figures have already faded into the abyss...

Despite carving a legacy that most could only dream of, Yokozuna is primarily remembered by modern audiences for three things: the shambolic circumstances surrounding his WrestleMania 9 victory and defeat, being slammed by Lex Luger on a helipad because 'MURRICA, and having an ass that was at least twice the size of Triple H's ego.

Yoko's weight was equally career-defining and career-destroying. At his heaviest frame (a reported 660 pounds, or 300 kilograms, by the dawn of 1996), his body had become so immobilised that, following an angle in which Vader supposedly broke Yokozuna's leg, it legitimately took a forklift to remove his lifeless body from the ring because a stretcher couldn't do the job.

This was done to allow Yokozuna time off to lose weight, the first of two company-mandated weight loss directives issued to him in 1996. Regrettably, despite shifting an impressive 100 pounds (45 kilograms), it wasn't enough to convince the WWF that his employment was worth the risk, and so he was let go in 1998. What followed Yokozuna was what followed every unemployed WWE wrestler of his time: a slate of indie bookings that would leave them sweating buckets in a half-filled high school gymnasium while paying the once-famous Superstars in hot dogs and handshakes.

Tragically, Yokozuna died on 23 October 2000 while on a tour of the United Kingdom. He was just 34 years old.