Wrestling pioneer dies

You have to be a big old-time wrestling fan to recognize this name. Maybe some will.

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=680f4df2-cada-4554-b2b1-38321d900ad2

Wrestling 'villain' Kamata dead at 70
Daryl Slade, Calgary Herald
Published: Friday, July 27, 2007

McRonald (Tor) Kamata was the perpetual bad guy, readily booed in his famous long-standing feuds with the likes of Cowboy Dan Kroffatt and Abdulluah the Butcher in

the heyday of Stampede Wrestling in the 1970s.

But Kamata, an international star who died on Monday in Saskatoon at age 70, was every bit as popular outside the ring with professional wrestling fans and one of the most colourful and witty characters ever in the sport.

 

Thank goodness he lived to a semi-old age.

 

That's what relatively clean living and a lack of performance-enhancing drugs will do for a man.

 

Hey Gene Kiniski, Canada's greatest athlete (pre-Iron Mike Sharpe anyway), is still going strong in his 80s.

 

Imagine what Kiniski could have done with a broken arm.