The death of Rick Rude on 4/20 becomes the latest addition to a strange and macabre body count that is very close to becoming synonymous with the pro wrestling industry.
Rude passed away that evening of a heart attack after being rushed to the North Fulton Medical Center near his home in Alpharetta, GA, an Atlanta suburb, at the age of 40. Rude, who was working with WCW as an announcer for the Backstage Blast PPV airings of Nitro on DirecTV once per month after being removed from his role as childhood friend Curt Hennig's on-camera manager, had been training for an in-ring comeback after his career presumably had ended after suffering a broken back in a May 1, 1994 match against Sting at the Fukuoka Dome.
Rude's death becomes the 25th known death of an active young pro wrestling personality over the past six years and the sixth death of someone actively participating in the business so far in 1999.
Rude, whose legal name was Richard Erwin Rood, had a friendship with Hennig that dated back to childhood. His father dikk and Curt's father Larry, a famous pro wrestler of a generation ago, are also long-time friends. Rude and Hennig attended Robbinsdale High School near Minneapolis together. That afternoon Rude had taken his eight-year-old son to school, attended a martial arts class and went out to hit some golf balls. At about 5 p.m., his wife returned from shopping and found him on the floor barely breathing and with a light pulse. She called 911, and he was revived briefly in the ambulance before going into a coma and suffering cardiac arrest in the hospital.
The heart attack is being investigated as a possible drug overdose. There were empty prescription pill bottles found near his bed. The Fulton County Medical Examiners Office reported on 4/22 that the autopsy could not pinpoint a cause of death and it is officially being labeled as pending upon completion of toxicology tests, which could take several weeks or even months.
Nobody seemingly saw this particular incident coming although incidents like this are no longer unexpected. Due to a wrestling public that has been numbed with the frequency of out of the ring incidents that at one time in this sport and even today in any other sport would have been considered alarming, are now considered regular weekly occurrences, a wrestling star, even one of the biggest names from a past era, dying at a young age is no longer surprising or shocking to the wrestling public at large. The big picture in many cases, the three children and a wife left behind, which is another pattern in many of these deaths, will be forgotten as people attempt to circumvent what they fear may be the bigger truth and hide from bad publicity because this may be another case of being too much of a regular pattern.
Rude had been attempting to get out of his WCW contract since at least December, presumably to wrestle in the WWF. At one point he threatened Eric Bischoff that he'd just show up in the stands on a WWF television broadcast, not realizing his contract prohibited that and that due to all the legal problems between the two companies the WWF wouldn't have allowed it either without a release from WCW. There had been bad blood over Bischoff signing Rude from WWF for $300,000 per year on a three-year deal in a notable coup in late 1997 (with Rude appearing, sans beard, on Nitro earlier in the evening with him appearing later that evening with a beard on a taped Raw six days earlier) but, like so many others, never pushing him, although realistically it's hard to fault Bischoff on this score as he did try to groom him for a heel announcer role which turned out not to be his forte. Rude had told friends that he was going to confront Kevin Nash, claiming Nash had also promised him a larger announcing role. Before signing with WCW, Rude had been working WWF without a contract and had been negotiating with Bischoff for weeks for the right time to perform the jump. Rude was brought in originally to be a heel NWO television announcer, based on his work in ECW, however once given the shot, it was something he was clearly not cut out for (his ECW work, while initially funny, ran out of steam by the second or third week and Paul Heyman kept him in the role just long enough to create an angle to turn him heel and get him out). The bad blood was such that at Rude's viewing on 4/23, Rude's mother asked Bischoff, who came with his wife, when he showed up, to leave, which Bischoff quietly did. There has been acknowledgement from friends of Rude and others that at about the time he started trying to get out of his WCW deal, that he made contact with the WWF and tried to set up a comeback, pitching them on the idea of a run against Steve Austin (the two were friends and sometimes tag team partners in the early 90s when they were in WCW together as members of the Dangerous Alliance). The hold-up, besides being under contract to WCW, was that he had received a seven-figure settlement from Lloyds of London claiming his 1994 broken back had ended his career as an active wrestler. The settlement, combined with a lawsuit against WCW for what he claimed was his career ending injury, that wasn't settled until the new deal was made, was the reason that when Rude had worked as a manager/bodyguard/insurance policy role in ECW, WCW and the WWF over the past two years that whenever he was involved in anything physical, it was very limited, he could be on offense, but because of his agreements, was not allowed to be put in a position where he would have to take a bump since he claimed the back injury prevented him from doing that part of the pro wrestling job description. Rude had attempted to get WCW, and had talked with WWF although the talking never got past the preliminary stages, of paying off Lloyds of London on his permanent disability claim which would allow him to return as an active wrestler. Lloyds of London, which no longer will insure pro wrestlers, paid off similar claims to Hennig and Joe Laurinaitis (Road Warrior Animal), who both after taking several years off and collecting on a large disability payment, ended up returning to the ring. Laurinaitis' deal ended up where he claimed he would be able to function as a tag team wrestler, but not as a singles wrestler, which is why he hasn't been booked in any singles matches in the WWF and the WWF has never been able to go anywhere with a Hawk vs. Animal feud, which would seem to be have been about the only thing left for the team at one point (probably now it's too late for people to even care about that).
According to friends, Rude had been training intensely for a comeback even though no such deal was specifically on the table. He was in the process of building a new home on 20 acres in Rome, GA, and talked of opening a pro wrestling camp on the property. He had just purchased a new truck. He was about 255 pounds and looking almost as muscular as ever, at a considerably higher bodyweight then during most of his career up until a recent bout with pneumonia caused him to drop nearly 40 pounds. At the time of his death he had gained some of the weight back and was in excess of 235 pounds. During his career his weight generally varied from as low as 205 off steroids to about 235.
"He was a great entertainer," said his wife Michelle, 33. "He was nothing like the person in the ring. He was a great family man. He lived for his kids, and he ate and slept wrestling."
With no cause of death, the speculation has run rampant. There had been a series of incidents going back two months. On 3/1, when Rude was brought to Chapel Hill, NC to do the Backstage Blast, he literally passed out on the set in between on-air segments and his performance was said to have been embarrassing to the point it was debated between segments about even allowing him to continue on camera. His next assignment, the 4/5 Backstage Blast in Las Vegas, he missed due to the pneumonia. Four days later near his home, he was arrested on a DUI.
Within wrestling, much of the talk links it to Gamma Hydroxy Butyrate, commonly known as GHB, a drug also known as ecstasy, which from several sources is considered epidemic within the company and many claim throughout pro wrestling. There have been many behind-the-scenes incidents involving pro wrestling personalities over the past two months that are commonly traced to abuse of GHB including one near death experience in a dressing room and an incident that is believed traced to the drug that cost a former WWF performer his job. The drug was very popular in pro wrestling and night clubs in the early 90s before it was taken off the market due to the incidences of problems. A new form is more readily available, and is popular among bodybuilders and strippers because it induces quick and deep sleep, and allegedly increases the secretion of Growth Hormone while sleeping, and thus leads to burning more calories while sleeping and thus cutting body fat, considered particularly beneficial to women who have a hard time fighting nature when it comes to maintaining youthful legs. Because of how GHB breaks down in the body, if this was the case, it probably will never show up in a coroners report. Nor as noted in the ESPN "Outside the Lines" segment, would Human Growth Hormone. The natural speculation, given his physique, would also gravitate toward speculation about steroids, which frequently elevate blood pressure and in extreme cases can lead to heart attacks. There is no indication Rude ever used HGH. Rude's steroid use was well documented.
Richard Rood was born December 7, 1958 and grew up in Robbinsdale, MN. After high school, he was working as a bouncer at Gramma B's, considered the toughest bar in the Northeastern section of Minneapolis along with Laurinaitis, Michael Hegstrand (Road Warrior Hawk) and Barry Darsow. He was considered to be the toughest of the four, even though he was the lightest, and was noted for being so powerful he often was able to knock people out with an open handed slap. Years later while in pro wrestling, he knocked out 400-pound Samoan Paul Neu, who wrestled as P.N. News (and who currently works in Austria as Cannonball Grizzly) while the two had a problem, with one open handed slap. Although very muscular and known in particular for having perhaps the best abs of any wrestler in modern wrestling, which he credited to having great genetics, and deceptively tall at 6-foot-4, because of his relatively thin legs and long thin torso, he had the look of being in great condition, but not necessarily of great power. But obviously those looks were deceiving as he had incredible grip strength, said to be similar to Danny Hodge, and was well-known as a tough street fighter. He was a noted arm wrestler, finishing sixth in the world championships held in Las Vegas in the light heavyweight division in 1983 after placing second in the U.S. nationals in 1980.
"You can talk about this and that guy being a great shooter," noted Eddie Sharkey, who trained Rood, Darsow, The Road Warriors, Nikita Koloff and numerous others for pro wrestling. "But this guy kicked more ass than any of them. People didn't realize how tough this guy was. Nobody could come close to him. He'd slap guys with an open hand and it looked like their head exploded."
Sharkey also noted that Rood was so strong at arm-wrestling that he was able to put down Hawk, who was a much larger man at the time, even allowing Hawk to use both his arms against one of his.
Growing up in Minneapolis in the early 80s, where wrestling was part of the local culture with the likes of The Crusher, Verne Gagne, Baron Von Raschke, Bobby Heenan, Mad Dog Vachon, Nick Bockwinkel, Jesse Ventura and later peaking with Hulk Hogan, it was more natural for young tough gym rats and bouncers to think about pro wrestling more than other parts of the country. In 1981, Rood was training for a Tough Man contest under Ray Whebbe Jr., a local figure and promoter who had ties to both the city's boxing and pro wrestling community. He had a 2-0 record as an amateur boxer training under Papa Joe Daszciewicz, a noted local boxing figure. Some say he could have made a lot of money as a boxer. But he and the others all gravitated toward pro wrestling and made a lot more. He had no money at the time, so he got friends to loan him the money to pay for his training under Sharkey. He broke into wrestling and often barely had enough money for gas to get to his matches and would sleep in his car. When he became a money player in pro wrestling, he paid everyone back. Years later, when Sharkey was down on his luck after serving a term in prison and was working as a referee for the WWF, and "Ravishing Rick Rude" was by then a headliner, he showed up at a card in Minneapolis and gave Sharkey a bag filled with $3,000 in cash.
Rood and Hegstrand were being trained by Sharkey to be a tag team, when Sharkey invited Ole Anderson, who was running Georgia Championship Wrestling, Inc., which had the best national television exposure in the country on WTBS about a year before Vince McMahon took the WWF national, up to his camp to look at his huge, by the standards of the time, students. Anderson had just seen the movie "Road Warrior" a week or two earlier and wanted a huge bodybuilder to play the role in late 1982, and picked Laurinaitis for the role. Rood, Hegstrand and Laurinaitis all started wrestling at that time, and all, paying their dues, getting no push and making no money in different parts of the country, quit almost immediately. Sharkey urged them to stick it out. A few months later, Anderson, who was grooming a young tag team of Arn Anderson & Matt Borne to be his top heel combination, saw Borne get arrested on a sexual assault charge and have to leave the territory. Ole needed a team in a hurry and Sharkey recommended Rood & Hegstrand. He flew back to Minneapolis, picked Hegstrand & Laurinaitis, using the Road Warriors gimmick, and Bill Watts later came up with the idea for the face paint, and the two were immediate sensations. A few weeks later, Anderson, starving for new talent as business was in a weak period due to the promotion being screwed up, a disease that would plague Atlanta-based wrestling offices more often that not over the next 16 years, brought Rood and Darsow in. Rood was given a minor push at the beginning, miscast because of his looks, not recognizing he had a certain attitude that made him a natural heel, as a babyface with the gimmick, creatively enough, as the toughest bouncer in Minneapolis, who was a former arm-wrestling champion, to feud with then-National heavyweight champion Larry Zbyszko. He didn't last long in Georgia and was sent to work briefly for Jim Crockett in the Carolinas as jobber Ricky Rood, sounding more like a race car driver, and later Watts in the Mid South territory as a good-looking undercard babyface.
Dave been on promoters minds for manys a year 
