Rest In Peace George "The Animal" Steele.

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Pro-wrestler George "the Animal" Steele, who had also appeared in the movie, Ed Wood, as Tor Johnson, has died at age 79. I remember his matches very vividly from back when I was in my teens. I, for one, will miss him.

I always liked watching his matches. He made it quite entertaining back in the day. I had falsely assumed that he had already died, as I had not heard about him in years. Think about how many of his fellow coworkers he outlived. RIP

I loved how he'd eat the turnbuckle covers, and how he had had a crush on Miss Elizabeth. On that last, in later interviews, he told how Randy Savage, who really was a controlling and possessive person in real life as well as in the ring, would threaten him not to touch Elizabeth, to which George would remind him how he had been married for years, and that Elizabeth was young enough to be his daughter.

The Russian Bear has also died. I think he used to occasionally wrestle George.

https://www.yahoo.com/celebrity/legenda ... 54316.html

I read that he had passed away. I'm afraid I wasn't that familiar with him as I was with the likes of George, Roddy, or Mocho Man.

In the mid-80s, Ivan was often wrestling on channel SuperStation TBS in the same NWA federation that had Ric Flair, Sting, Randy Rhodes, etc. He was part of a three man "Russian" team of heels that fought mainly American tag teams. I would occasionally watch it on weekend afternoons when they were on air and I had nothing better to do. At the time, I watched the WWF first, then the Texas federation (was hard to find in my area), the NWA and then the rest of the bunch. It is sad to see how many are now gone.

He was a little before my time. But I do remember seeing him sometimes in the Rock/ Stone Cold Steve Austin days when I was a kid. The older fans got excited and he would eat the turn buckle still.