Pro wrestler Sid Vicious, a star at the height of the WrestleMania era of the 1980s whose career ended with a horrific (and televised) leg injury, has died after battling cancer for several years. He was 63.
His death was announced on social media by son Gunnar Eudy.
“He was a man of strength, kindness, and love, and his presence will be greatly missed,” Gunnar Eudy wrote about Vicious, who also went by the ring names Lord Humungous, Vicious Warrior, Sid Justice and Sycho Sid but was born Sidney Raymond Eudy on December 6, 1960.
Taking his most enduring ring name from the doomed punk rocker and Sex Pistols bassist who died in 1979, Eudy began wrestling in 1987, rising to national prominence two years later when he joined World Championship Wrestling. Moving over to the WWE in 1991 as Sid Justice, Eudy entered into a notorious feud with Hogan a year later.
In the early to mid-1990s, Eudy was among the headliners for the popular WrestleMania events. Winning various world championships for both the WWE and WCW, Eudy also took part in 1997 on Monday Night Raw.
Eudy’s grappling career came to a stomach-churning end in what remains one of the ghastliest moments in televised wrestling history: During a pay-per-view match in January 2001, Eudy jumped off a turnbuckle and landed badly, his left leg snapped and dangling at a grotesque angle, bones poking through his skin.
Decades later, Eudy would remember the life-changing injury in a TV interview, saying that he was still recuperating from a shoulder injury when he was convinced by a WCW executive to return and perform the rope jump. Although Eudy agreed to the return, the stunt, he said, “was something I didn’t want to do and I wasn’t comfortable doing.”
Plans for a memorial service are pending.
Eudy is survived by wife Sabrina Paige and sons Gunnar and Frank.