Condolences & Best Wishes To Cowboy Lang, Doug Gentry, Lufisto, And Eric Walker
LUFISTO RETIRES DUE TO BACK AILMENT
I wanted to send along Condolences and Best Wishes to a few that you may or may not have heard of.
First, I wanted to send along condolences to the family, friends, and fans of Midget Wrestler Cowboy Lang who died last week. Slam Wrestling wrote an article about his passing as well as his recent years. It's a sad story involving an auto accident, alcohol issues, living homeless, and more.
CLICK HERE to read the article.
My deepest condolences go out to Eric Walker. He writes on the PWBTS.com website, runs Wrestling Belt World and involved with wrestling groups. His father passed away Tuesday night.
I met Eric only twice, one being a very momentous day in Philly at the 'XPW Arena' (to give you the era). It was the day all the heads of every wrestling company operating in PA met with the commission. A sight to see. Eric was a very cool guy towards me, and I felt terrible about his father.
I also wanted to send Best Wishes to Doug Gentry of RF Video. I was alerted last night that he had been hospitalized with a heart ailment. And after what happened to Jimmy Hustler and Danny Demanto, you just get extra nervous when hearing about heart issues.
Anyway, RF Video posted the following update about Doug. As you will see, he is very lucky to be alive. He still has a few hurdles to pass before recovery. Here's what RF wrote about Doug's condition:
I just wanted to give a quick update on the health status of Doug Gentry. I talked to Doug and he wanted to thank everyone who is writing to him and praying for his speedy recovery. He is reading all of your E mails on a daily basis, as I bring them to the hospital to keep his spirit up. Doug wanted to let everyone know he appreciates your support. Doug wants everyone to know his story, so maybe he can prevent it from ever happening to anyone else.
Starting around the first week of October, Doug started to get very tired all the time. He basically had no energy and lost his appetite. For anyone who is friends with Doug, it is no secret that he likes to sleep any time he gets a chance. So to a lot of his friends it was Doug just being himself. As time went on, Doug basically started to loose a lot of weight. As most of you know Doug has been with the company since day one, and is our main camera guy. When we started to go to shows in October, he would get exhausted after just filming the first two matches on the card. When we would go on the road, Doug loved to drive so he was always the driver. Over the last few months he was so tired that after a hour of driving he would ask someone else to drive so he could sleep. At first I thought he might just be burned out so I gave him some time off. The time off really did not change anything at all. When he came back to work he was still saying that he was burned out.
Everyone close to Doug noticed a change in his appearance. Many of the workers who see him all the time started to ask him what was up as well. He would complain to everyone that he was just burned out and tired from the busy work schedule. I told Doug around November that he did not look the same or healthy. Some of his close friends told him as well that he lost a lot of weight and he should see a doctor. At one of the shows in NY he was so sick that he could not get out of the car and he was puking all over the place. He blew it off that he just had the flu and still refused to see a doctor.
We had shows in December down South and several more workers asked Doug what is going on as he looked sick to them and he thought he was still sick with the flu. At this point in time, he could not really eat anything because it would make him sick. I told him many times he needed to see a doctor because he was not getting any better. Well around Xmas week everything came to a head. I saw him one day and it was just not Doug at all. He lost so much weight that he was pale and it sacred me to death to see my best friend like that. I insisted again that he called a doctor at that moment because he was not getting any better but worse by the day.
Well 2 weeks ago he went to his doctor and they did a bunch of blood work and tested him for everything in the book. His results came back a week later, that his red blood cell count was way below normal and they thought he might be anemic. All of his other blood work was perfect and nothing was abnormal. They wanted to see him again in a week to do more blood work. When he went back a week later, which was last week, they did more blood work. The next day, the doctor called him and told him that he lost so much blood in one week's time, that they wanted him checked into the ER room within the hour. He was rushed to the hospital that same hour.
When he got to the hospital last week he was a mystery man for a few days. The doctors could not find out what was wrong with him. They thought he might have had a ulcer or something and then they ruled out that he was not in anemic at all. They continued to do tests on him and performed a cat scan as well. As it turns out they found out that he had a rare bacteria infection that went to his heart. The infection went into his heart and clogged one of the main heart valves. 3 out of 100 people get this rare infection. They think it could have come from bacteria from a dentist office or a cut from brushing your teeth that got infected as crazy as it sounds. My brother knows somebody who got the same thing from brushing her teeth. The infection from the bacteria goes right to the heart valve for some strange reason. Most of the time the doctors said there is no direct link to getting this rare virus.
As of today the doctors told him he is lucky to be here because he would have had a massive heart attack if he never came to the hospital in 6-8 weeks tops. Today Doug received news that they are treating him with antibiotics and they now need to operate on his heart valve with-in the next two months as quick as possible or he has a 95% chance of passing away which is very scary. They said the infection is all in his heart valve that is now clogged. They have to treat him with antibiotics until the virus goes away and then they have to wait thirty days before they can perform the surgery. Once the virus is beat, and the 30 day window passes, they can then go and perform surgery on his clogged heart valve.
For anyone who knows Doug he is one of the nicest people around. He would not even drive thru a yellow light if nobody was around. He certainly does not deserve any of this. Please pray for him and send him your support by e mailing him at I will make sure he gets all of your e mails and comments. I will continue to keep you updated on his condition over the next few days. We are all praying for him to beat this so he can make his comeback as soon as possible. He wants nothing more to be at ringside once again filming all the action.
Finally, I wanted to send along Best Wishes to Womens Wrestling star Lufisto. She has wrestled all around the globe, from Canada to Japan. Mexico to Philadelphia. And I'm pretty sure she's only 26 years old. She posted the following on her website, announcing her current retirement due to severe back issues. Regardless if she can return in the future or not, we send along our Best Wishes that she can make a full recovery. Here's her statement:
Unfortunately, there comes a time when your body tells you it’s time to stop. Sometimes, you just won't listen and sometimes, you just have no more choices to listen and comply…
I've been having back pain since October but never did anything about it. I really thought it was something stupid, like simple muscle ache. Then, after every match, I was in pain. Last Saturday was no different as on the first fall I took, my back completely went numb.
I manage to finish the match and drive back home but the next day, things just got worst. As I was doing dead lifts, my back just let go. I heard a click, it burned and felt like my whole bones where squashed… So, I spent more than 14 hours at the emergency…
Two of my vertebras are in bad shape and I'm waiting to know if I need surgery. Of course, I won't risk anything this time and I will be responsible about this.
Therefore, no more wrestling…
Am I retiring? I don't like the word retirement because when you wrestle, it’s in your blood and too many people who are “retiring” are back in the ring a while after. The only thing I can say is that I'm not wrestling anymore, for now. I'll see what the doctor says, what the results of the CT Scan I'm having tonight will say. Depending if it’s a good or bad news, I will make a decision about my wrestling future in about 3 months.
I unfortunately have to cancel all my bookings and forfeit my CZW Iron-Man championship, which has been my pride and joy.
My career, if we can call it a career, lasted close to 9 years…
Is it over? Only time will tell but I will have to slow down if I do decide to come back. I don't know if I'll update this website in the upcoming months. I guess I'll see how it goes and how I feel …
I'm still dealing with all this so I won't say more right now. If you are interested in buying some of my gear and boots, most of them are available. I'll keep just a few in case but that’s about it. DVDs and shirts are also still available if you want to keep some LuFisto souvenirs.
The next three months will be quite challenging. Thank you so much for all the support and love throughout all those wonderful 9 years. I don't have any regrets as I did more than people expected me to do.
I love you guys so much.
LuFisto xxx
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