Steve McMichael Passes Away

Steve 'Mongo' McMichael passed away a couple of days ago.

He was an interesting 'character' (there's a reason why I put that word in quotation marks - read on!) because he appeared in two of my favourite things - NFL football and professional wrestling.

I obviously first came across McMichael the pro footballer. That was at a time when Channel 4 was heavy into the NFL during the mid-80s. The team that got a lot of coverage back then was the Chicago Bears team which won the Super Bowl in 1986.

Over here in the UK, William Perry - AKA The Refrigerator - got a lot of the attention from that team. But, to a lesser extent, so did 'Mongo'.

When McMichael retired, his next job was to work as an enforcer - alongside other NFL players - for Lawrence Taylor when the former New York Giant wrestled Bam Bam Bigelow in the main event of WWF WrestleMania XI in 1995.

McMichael appeared in one of the episodes of Raw ahead of his Mania gig. On the episode he got into a brawl with Charles Wright, who was - at that time - portraying an MMA wrestler named Kama. 

'Mongo' referred to his foe as 'that Kama character' when he was on mic and it always struck me as a funny way to refer to someone. So, for quite a while after that, whenever I would talk about someone I often found myself referring to them as 'the (their name) character'.

Anyway, once Taylor's Mania match was completed, I expected McMichael to be done with wrestling. 

I was very wrong.

By the autumn, McMichael had moved to the WWF's rival - World Championship Wrestling - and worked as the company's color commentator for WCW Monday Nitro's first few months. By the summer of 1996, 'Mongo' had left the booth and had transitioned into becoming a wrestler.

He even spent a few years in the Four Horsemen - one of pro wrestling's most historic stables captained by 'Nature Boy' Ric Flair.

Over the past few years, McMichael's health had deteriorated due to ALS. He was bedridden by 2024 when he was finally voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  He was enshrined last August.

His passing has seen condolences issued by fans of the two worlds he crossed during his lifetime.