Arnold Skaaland RIP

Vince135792003

He was 82. This has been quite the period for wrestling deaths.

He would have been way before my time of getting into wrestling but as I looked at older shows he kept propping up, particularly as a manager.

Heres a bit from Wikipedia:
A former tag team champion for the World Wide Wrestling Federation of New York City (now World Wrestling Entertainment), Skaaland was best known as manager of the legendary wrestlers Bruno Sammartino and Bob Backlund. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 1994 for managing both Sammartino and Backlund to WWE Championships.

In the early 1960s, Skaaland was a successful singles wrestler, and received title matches against two NWA World Heavyweight Champions, Pat O'Connor and "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers.

Skaaland’s most controversial moment occurred in 1983, when he threw in the towel for Backlund after the Iron Sheik trapped the titlist in the camel clutch – ending the clean-living kingpin’s long reign.

Although Backlund and Skaaland seemed to be still on good terms Backlund later turned against him as part of his heel turn later in his career.

He passed away on March 13, 2007, with his wife by his side.

Minto

There have been way too many former wrestlers and current wrestlers dying as of late. Don't know much about him, but he must have been very important if he is on the main flash area on wwe.com. RIP Arnold!

RebelRockChick

This is the piece from WWE.com:

Arnold Skaaland passes away
Written: March 14, 2007

“Golden Boy” Arnold Skaaland, a WWE Hall of Famer and a member of the WWE family for over a half-century, passed away Tuesday at the age of 82, with his wife, Betty, by his side.

Arnie was involved in virtually every aspect of sports-entertainment, from grappling to managing to promoting. During the era of the World Wide Wrestling Federation, Skaaland was a stockholder of Capitol Wrestling Corporation, and a producer of live events at the Westchester County Center.

As a wrestler, Skaaland was fearless, taking on much larger men and always giving them a fight. In 1967, he and Spiros Arion won the now-defunct WWE United States Tag Team Championship. He also served as the referee for the famous 1962 match in Japan between “Classy” Freddie Blassie and Rikidozan.

Another generation of fans may remember Skaaland as a manager. He regularly accompanied Bruno Sammartino to the ring during his reigns as WWWF Champion, and later led Bob Backlund to the same title. Perhaps Skaaland’s most controversial moment occurred while managing Backlund; on Dec. 23, 1983, he threw in the towel for Backlund after the Iron Sheik trapped the titlist in the camel clutch – ending the clean-living kingpin’s long reign as WWE Champion.

Skaaland was a legend in all facets of sports-entertainment, and in 1994, he became a member of the first full class inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.

R.I.P

fatal

I havent seen much of him at all but I have read up about the towel incident in the backlund vs Sheikh match and briefly about his NWA title run with buddy rogers...
Its definitley a bad year for wrestlers dying.Its March and already 6/7?
RIP Arnold Skaaland:(

Fozzy

More sad news. I never saw much of him, but he was on the Andre the Giant show on the Biography Channel that was on recently. He told a story about Andre flipping the car of some guys who were annoying him. RIP

Vince135792003

Fozzy wrote:

More sad news. I never saw much of him, but he was on the Andre the Giant show on the Biography Channel that was on recently. He told a story about Andre flipping the car of some guys who were annoying him. RIP

He was one his handlers I think. Tim White (former referee and the guy that weekly tried to kill himself on wwe.com) also helped Andre around too.

Paul Bearer was on figure four yesterday talking about him and Ernie Ladd and he had some really nice things to say about both of them.

He's actually back working as a funeral director full time and he told some real funny stories of people recognising him on the job.