JAMES RYDER

Road Warrior Animal Was Dealing With Health Issues Before His Death

Road Warrior Animal Was Dealing With Health Issues Before His Death
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Joseph Laurinaitis, known to the wrestling world as Road Warrior Animal, tragically passed away on September 22nd at the Margaritaville Resort (formerly known as the Tan-Tar-A Resort) in Osage Beach, Missouri. He was there celebrating his wedding anniversary. Not much was known about his passing other than it being natural causes, but now Pro Wrestling Torch columnist Bruce Mitchell has revealed that Animal was suffering from heart and kidney issues.

Now looking back and understand, and I’m not surprised that he had some heart issues, he had some kidney issues. We’ll talk about this too because he’s part of that generation that came up and really part of that Minnesota Gramma B’s generation and now you look at who’s left, and you see Nikita Koloff, and that’s about it that’s left, and they paid such a price, and there’s reasons why and choices they made. Bruce Mitchell

Gramma B’s was a biker bar in Northeast Minneapolis where former pro wrestler Eddie Sharkey was bartending. He recruited many of the bouncers to become pro wrestlers who included Animal, Hawk, Rick Rude, The Bezerker, Smash, Nikita Koloff, and Scott Norton. Of the group, three are now sadly no longer with us, all seemingly for heart-related issues, which can be a side effect of taking high doses of steroids.

JAMES RYDER
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