Remembering Sid
World Champion wrestler, Crittenden County native passes away at age 63
By RALPH HARDIN
A Times Staff Feature I was working Monday afternoon when I got a cryptic text message from my son.
“Terrible news today!” it said. Now I know he knows our mutual interests, so I was fairly sure I knew where this was going. Instinctively, I opened up my web browser and went to the pro wrestling news blog I frequent, and there it was…
“R.I.P. Sid.” The brief headline was accompanies by a social media message from Gunnar Eudy announcing that his father Sid Eudy – known by a number of names in the world of professional wrestling as Sid Vicious, Sid Justice, Psycho Sid, Lord Humongous and others – had passed away at the age of 63 after a battle with cancer.
Even if you know next to nothing or have next to no interest in pro wrestling, if you’ve lived around here for any length of time, you have more than likely at least heard of Sid, even if it was just someone asking, “Who is that giant man?” after seeing him at Walmart or the football _eld. Because even though he was occasionally billed in his ring intro as hailing from “anywhere he darn well pleases,” Sid was from West Memphis and lived in Marion most of his adult life.
I have a ton of Sid-related memories, going all the way back to when I was in grade school. Memphis Wrestling wasn’t just a popular Saturday morning TV show. For generations, it was a way of life for thousands of fans. I got into it in the early 1980s, keeping up with the exploits of Jerry “The King” Lawler, “Handsome” Jimmy Valiant, “Superstar” Bill Dundee and the rest of the Memphis mainstays.
Sid came along around 1987 or so. He was Humongous. Yes, in size but also as in that was the character he played in Memphis. He wore a white hockey mask, black leather wrestling gear and at more than 6-anda- half feet tall, he was an immediate standout. He got the Sid Vicious name from UK punk rock band The Sex Pistols’ bass player who went by the same name. Like many other wrestling legends, Sid eventually went on to bigger and better things by going to work for the big national wrestling promotions. First the National Wrestling
See SID, page A3
Professional wrestling world champion and Crittenden County native Sid Eudy, known professionally by a number of names, including Sid Vicious, Sid Justice and Psycho Sid, has passed away at the age of 63.
Photo courtesy of Facebook SID
From page A1
Alliance, or NWA, where he was a part of a faction of bad guys known as The Four Horsemen, along with other top names including multiple-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion “Nature Boy” Ric Flair.
Sid eventually made it to the top of the wrestling world when he was signed by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). Going by the name Sid Justice (most likely to avoid any potential copyright infringement issues with the other Sid), in 1992, he main-evented Wrestlemania VIII against Hulk Hogan. Sid would go on to win the WWF World Championship twice in his career. He also competed in the late 1990s for World Championship Wrestling (WCW), also winning that promotion’s World Heavyweight Title on three occasions. It was during the main event World Championship title of a WCW payper- view that Sid suffered what ultimately became a mostly career-ending injury, suffering a gruesome broken leg while coming off of the ropes to hit opponent Scott Steiner.
Sid still made a handful of appearances later in life, mostly for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), which was the rebranded name for the WWF by the early 2000s. He was always a fan favorite, even when he was playing a “bad guy” in the ring. You can go on YouTube and see him beat Hall of Fame wrestler Shawn Michaels for the WWF Title inside a jam-packed Madison Square Garden back in 1996. The crowd goes absolutely bananas for Sid from the time he comes through the curtain to the three-count.
I do like that my son is the one who let me know about Sid’s passing, since appropriately enough, he’s actually training to become a professional wrestler himself. He attends Ozark Mountain Wrestling Academy up in Rogers and he is planning to use the ring name “Kyle Justice,” which has to be at least a little inspired by Sid’s WWF name, right?
My personal favorite Sid story is from the very, very early stages of his career. The Memphis Wrestling folks had a show in Sunset, of all places, in the Phelix Elementary School gym back in 1987 or so, and it was not a very high-pro_le show. Most of the big names of Memphis Wrestling of the day were not there, but at the end of the show, they had this big “battle royale” where all the wrestlers were in the ring at once and the last man left in the ring at the end was the winner.
Well, Sid, who was a foot taller than everyone else in the ring it seemed, was the eventual winner. He was an immediate hit with fans, all 100 or so of them. Less than 10 years later, he’d be winning the world championship in Madison Square Garden. No matter what you think of pro wrestling, that’s pretty cool.
“R.I.P., Sid.”
