The following is courtesy of F4WOnline.com‘s Dave Meltzer and is quite heavy to read:
Verne Gagne, one of the most influential pro wrestlers in history, is alleged to have thrown down 97-year-old Helmut Gutmann, on Jan. 26, breaking his hip and Gutmann later passed away over the weekend.
Both at the time were residing in a facility in Bloomington, MN, which treats patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Gagne, a week shy of his 83rd birthday, is believed to have thrown Guttman down hard on the ground, and nobody knows exactly what caused the incident at the memory loss unit. Guttman was at first hospitalized, then released, but his condition deteriorated and he died in hospice care according to an article in the MinnPost.
Gagne is no longer a resident at the facility. The newspaper reported Gagne had been kicked out of the facility due to an incident previously and at the time was allowed to return.
It’s a tragic story because Gagne would have absolutely no idea of what he had done. Gutmann’s wife Betty said she was notified about what happened in the 1/26 incident and found her husband lying on the floor in tremendous pain.
“You can’t blame the person that did it,” she said. “(Verne Gagne) doesn’t know what he’s doing. I feel so sorry for his family, bcause they are faced with a terrible problem of what to do.”
The story quoted someone only identified as one of Gagne’s daughters, who described it as a personal family matter and that nobody is saying that is the reason the man ended up dying.
Gagne was one of the biggest stars in pro wrestling history. A two-time NCAA champion, who turned down an NFL offer to become a pro wrestler, was United States champion for Fred Kohler’s Chicago-based promotion which had national television in the early 50s, making him one of the highest paid athletes in the country during that period.
He later purchased controlling interest in the Minneapolis Boxing and Wrestling Club from Tony Stecher, withdrew the promotion from the National Wrestling Alliance when he was bypassed in the selection of the world heavyweight champion, and created the American Wrestling Association, where he was both promoter and usually top babyface for much of the period from 1960 until his retirement as a full-time wrestler in 1981.
The AWA expanded from Minneapolis throughout the Midwest, and because it was a successful area that paid well, but had a limited schedule, many considered it the promotion where wrestlers had the highest quality of life. The promotion was successful until 1985, when its dated presentation was exposed by Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation and Jim Crockett Promotions. The promotion quickly lost its popularity and limped to its death a few years later.
After negotiating a deal to sell his tape collection to McMahon, Gagne was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. He had been suffering for years with Alzheimer’s.
