9 Wrestling Personalities Killed Off In Mainstream Wrestling Storylines

If Dave Meltzer wrote on Twitter that, say, Goldust had died of a drug overdose before publishing his abridged thoughts on the life and career of Dustin Runnels, wrestling fans would surely be shocked and heartbroken. And if Runnels then showed up on television a few months later sporting a tacky new gimmick, the ensuing uproar and controversy would swallow Meltzer, Runnels, and Vince McMahon whole.

But in 1981, that's basically what happened when Gorilla Monsoon wrote a fake obituary for Superstar Billy Graham, pronouncing him dead of cancer in the Philadelphia Journal. And though Graham's death was never actually alluded to outside of that publication, Monsoon received significant backlash after it was revealed that the Superstar was still very much alive.

He was simply repackaged with a new kung fu gimmick for reasons that have never been made entirely clear, although some inside the business insist it was basically an F-You by Graham to his employers, who refused to put him back in the main event picture.

Regardless, the "death" of Superstar Billy Graham earned Monsoon a good deal of backlash, though he refused to retract the article or apologize for his outrageous adherence to kayfabe.