And when we hadn’t caught up we held on tightly to the bootleg VHS tapes of things like Wrestlemania III – wavy lines were just part of being a fan back then. And hunks of wood…Īnd then a year or so later we caught up in New Zealand. These men colliding into one another, carrying these crazy names. On holiday in Sydney was when I first saw a few vital minutes of The Junkyard Dog and Hacksaw Jim Duggan. I’ve been an on/off wrestling fan since I was about 10/11 years old. And how funny just that seemed when played against the hairy-backed, bald-headed, green-tongued, grunting, turnbuckle-chewing “Animal” you knew from the TV. And you remember hearing that he was a devout Christian. You find the truth – or the digestible version of it (pardon that Crohn’s related pun) – on Wikipedia. He was a school sports teacher, he had a Masters degree – in mathematics – he had irritable bowel syndrome, was dyslexic, was name-dropped in an episode of Seinfeld, had a cameo role (playing Tor Johnson) in Ed Wood (a lot of people know that, and maybe only know him from that). We didn’t know a whole lot about Jim Myers, the brilliant gimmick of being a hairy monster who only yelled “Mine” meant that he got to hide his private life well away. Jim Myers was an actor, school teacher, author and – yes – wrestler. And what that actually means is that a guy called William James (“Jim”) Myers has died. Over the weekend I heard the news that George “The Animal” Steele had died. Or even if you didn’t need that it was fun to have the larger-than-life, the absurd, the grotesque, clowning around in the ring for your enjoyment, a spectacle, mad wonder, weird circus… It was the great reminder that it was not real. I liked the most cartoon-clown/ish of the wrestlers.

I loved Superstars of Wrestling and George “The Animal” Steele was – alongside The Ultimate Warrior – also R.I.P.) – my favourite. My big brother teased me about it being a “ doll” but I gave no shit at all. When I was 12 years old and in hospital my dad arrived with a George “The Animal” action figure. A pro-wrestler so utterly absurd in back-story as to be brilliantly intriguing. But in The Truth and TV Guide you’d read, via the weekly updates, that he was actually a university lecturer.

He grunted and said only the word “mine”. He had a green tongue and made Robin Williams look like someone with Alopecia.

George steele tor johnson