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Brian Christopher, Nikolai Volkoff and Brickhouse Brown Pass Away

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It’s one thing when a wrestler passes away, it’s another when three performers move onto the next life. Former professional wrestlers Brian Christopher, Brockhouse Brown and Nikolai Volkoff all passed away on July 29.

All three wrestlers live made their respective marks on the industry.

Brown wrestled during the territory days, mostly under Southwest Championship Wrestling – Joe Blanchard’s promotion and wrestled his first match with no training. He would later learn under Eddie Graham and Terry Funk and wrestle in various territories. He spent some time in World Class Championship Wrestling, where he held the Texas Heavyweight Championship and was in a racially-charged angle with Robert Fuller in his Stud Stable – it was the 1980s, we’ll leave it at at – and even worked some tapings for WWE.

He the first recipient of the Cauliflower Alley Club’s Courage Award during the 2018 ceremony.

Fans will remember Volkoff for being tag team partners with The Iron Sheik, who paid tribute to his friend on social media. Who can forget the chorus of fans booing as Volkoff tried to sing the Russian National Anthem before a match.

What many fans might not realize is Volkoff was trained by Stu Hart and wrestled in numerous territories in his career. A fan like myself who watched WWF in the early ‘90s remembered his low-key babyface run where he was a liberated Lithuanian – this was right after the fall of the Soviet Union – and he was in an angle with an Iraqi sympathizer Sgt. Slaughter. My apologies for bringing up that time period and those memories.

Outside of the ring, Volkoff was said to be one of the nicest human beings in the business. He was married for 35 years and worked with youth.

Christopher passed away after being hospitalized. He was rushed to the hospital after he attempted suicide in jail. According to a report from Wrestling Inc., the family has not disclosed a statement regarding his passing. 

Of the three wrestlers who had passed, Christopher is the one I’m most familiar with. I first watched him as “Too Sexy” Brian Christopher where he played an arrogant heel and was a foil to the talented Taka Michinoku when WWF was starting their light heavyweight division. He tagged with Scott Taylor and the two would later gain popularity as “Too Cool,” even winning the WWF Tag Team Championship. He also teamed with Steve Blackman for a bit.

While Too Cool was popular during WWF’s Attitude Era, the team didn’t last and Christopher never reached past lower mid-card status as a singles star. Part of this could be attributed to him being the son of Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler. Second-generation wrestlers always seem to be in the shadow of their parent and have that hill to climb when they start their career.

Christopher also had his bouts with drug abuse and recently run-ins with the law. People who abuse drugs and alcohol struggle and battle with their issues every day. Struggling with these issues, combined with other factors can lead to someone wanting to take their own life. All we can hope is that he has now found peace.

Inside Pro Wrestling offers condolences to Brown, Christopher and Volkoff, as well as all of their family and friends. To steal a phrase from film director Kevin Smith, a big bucket of win for all three wrestlers.

As a final note, I wanted to say that if you feel like you want to harm yourself or take your own life, please reach out for help. There are numerous resources for you to contact and people who want to talk to you. No matter what you are struggling with, you are not alone and you are loved.

For a list of crisis hotlines, follow the link.

All Elite Wrestling

Adam Cole Discusses Troubling Injury Recovery

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AEW superstar Adam Cole has opened up about what he calls a “scary” recovery from a second concussion that he suffered at AEW and NJPW’s ‘Forbidden Door’ event back in June 2022, with Cole set to make his return to the ring soon.

Cole specifically talked about memory loss as the most troubling aspect of his recovery:

”The memory stuff is the really, really scary part to me” Cole said, during an appearance on Wrestling Observer Radio (h/t CagesideSeats). “When you’re in the middle of a ring and there’s thousands of people around you and I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing. That was really scary. So, I knew pretty early on after my memory started going that something was wrong.”

Cole’s road to recovery as an especially long one.

“The crazy thing was that after even a month, it was like that’s when real serious side effects started happening” he said. “Everything I said in my return in-ring promo that I did all of that was true, and more. There was a lot of stuff that was happening very late into the healing process, or, what I thought was late, like a month-and-a-half, two months.”

Cole is gearing up for his return to AEW, with all signs pointing to him stepping back into the ring at Revolution next month.

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Donovan Dijak Suffers Injury at NXT Vengeance Day

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Donovan Dijak

NXT Vengeance Day was a rousing success for WWE on Saturday which saw a number of headlines come out of the event that was well-received by fans, including an injury suffered by Donovan Dijak during his match with Wes Lee for the North American Championship.

Dijak suffered an apparent broken finger during the match, which was seen on camera and shared on social media.

Following the event NXT general manager Shawn Michaels provided an update on Dijak, stating he did not suffer a broken finger – “Yeah, everybody is good” Michaels said. “I announced it at gorilla, it’s got to be a miracle, It’s not broken.

“We got him x-ray, they said it’s not broken and so yeah, I guess what you do is you kind of numb it and put it back in place and that’s what’s happening now. But it is, again, a modern miracle because we all saw it, it was pretty gnarly looking. But, apparently, he’s going to be okay, which is obviously fantastic news for us and him.”

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All Elite Wrestling

Tony Khan Open to AEW/WWE Crossover

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Tony Khan

AEW owner and booker Tony Khan is certainly open to the idea of AEW and WWE working together for a potential crossover supershow, despite Khan’s consistent blasting of WWE over the last few years.

“It’s something I would certainly be open to and I think it’s an interesting thing for the future” Khan said during an appearance on WTF with Marc Maron. “It’s not something that’s ever really been done. They’ve kind of existed in their own space. We are working with a lot of wrestling promotions.”

Khan’s AEW has already worked with a number of promotions such as Impact Wrestling and NJPW, and WWE has even warmed to the idea of working with other promotions, as they have with Impact Wrestling, NJPW, and NOAH recently.

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