WWE And TNA: 7 Worst Moments Of The Week (April 17)
1. Goodbye Balls
Its a bad year for ECW originals. First we lost Axel Rotten in February at the age of 44, and this week we lost Balls Mahoney...at the age of 44.
Balls was never one to put on a technical masterpiece, but he was a fun character, and seems to have been well loved in the industry. Unfortunately, the way he got over at his job was by putting his body through a tremendous amount of abuse. Namely, he took an ungodly amount of un-protected chairshots to the head. It was a sign of the times, as sadly CTE wasnt as understood then as it is today.
Before his career ended, it was bizarre, but kind of cool to see him in WWE. Although it was a brief run, he stated that it was the happiest hed ever been. Once he left the company, though, his body seemed to go downhill fast. Due to the hard lifestyle hed lived, the man looked a good decade or two older than he really was. It was a sad sight, and a painful reminder of what our entertainment 20 years ago has done to a generation of wrestlers.
As Lance Storm pointed out on Twitter, hes now the only surviving person in his match at WrestlePalooza 98 (Chris Candido, Mahoney and Rotten were in the match). Thats an insane and depressing fact. Hopefully this will be the last wrestling death well have to hear about for some time, but it still seems that the past is catching up to our heroes.
Time to kick out.