If you are in the Louisville, KY area, or visit the area, you need to check out IWA Mid-South Wrestling. They wrestle every weekend (some Friday nights, but mainly Saturday nights) right across the river from the Louisville skyline, and right under the Colgate Clock.
WWF (or WWE as they are now called, since losing a court battle against the World Wildlife Fund) is definitely a joke. IWA is everything WWF is not. It is local, low-key, hard workers making very little pay, putting their bodies on the line. IWA is similar in style to the old ECW out of Philadelphia. Ian Rotten runs IWA, and he wrestled with Axl Rotten, his mentor, in the old ECW. In some matches, they give blood and guts in the crowd (literally), in others they give you high flying acrobatics, and in others they give you scientific amateur wrestling. Just this past weekend, Chris Hero and C.M. Punk wrestled a scientific match that lasted 92 minutes !!
At one time or another Curt Hennig, Davey Boy Smith, Rick Rude and Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart were all married to sisters in the famous Hart wrestling family.
So Hennig dies this week at 44. Rick Rude died in 1999 at 41 of a heart attack. Davey Boy died last year of a heart attack at 39 years old. As mentioned earlier on this thread, right before his death Davey Boy Smith was dating the wife of his ex-brother in law Bruce Hart. And the matriarch of the family, Helen Hart recently died of diabetes complications. Owen Hart died in 1999 at 34 years old in a wrestling accident. Brian Pillman, who was trained by the Hart family, died in 1997 at 35 years old of a heart attack.