The e-mails started coming almost immediately after the story about the crash ran in the St. Petersburg Times.

Wrestling fans wanted to know two things:

How is Bam Bam doing?

And where has he been?

Bam Bam Bigelow was huge. The 6-4 tough guy from small, rough Asbury Park, N.J., wrestled as heavy as 425 pounds. But he was agile enough to jump off the tops of the ropes and down onto his opponents in the ring.

His trademark move was a pile driver he called "Greetings from Asbury Park."

"It just blows a guy's head right off his shoulders," he once told the Seattle Times.

Bigelow played the role of the "heel" in his heyday. That means he was the bad guy in the staged matches. But he was a star.

He made his debut in the World Wrestling Federation in 1987 and won titles in Extreme Championship Wrestling and World Championship Wrestling. He wrestled with Hulk Hogan and Diamond Dallas Page and against Andre the Giant. He was in the headliner match at 1995's WrestleMania in front of more than 16,000 people.

He was even in a couple of B movies and did a commercial for Slim Jim.

But his wrestling career did not come to an easy end.

WCW folded in 2001. He didn't go to WWE. There was no ECW anymore.

Bam Bam had back problems. He had surgery. He went on a radio show in early 2002, according to 1wrestling.com, and said his career was not over and that this was "just the beginning."

According to www.obsessedwithwrestling.com and other pro wrestling Web sites, Bam Bam retired in November 2002 and unretired a month after that, only to lose to someone named Abdullah the Butcher, then quit for good in 2004 - ending a slow, reluctant fade from fame.

"It's kind of like Hollywood," said Ron Jordan, who writes a syndicated wrestling column from Fort Worth, Texas. "Only so many people can be on top at one time. Most of these guys, when they slip from the big leagues, like the WCW or the WWF or the new WWE, they just kind of slip into obscurity. Then they show up in some small arena or at a YMCA or something."

Bam Bam opened a deli in Hamlin, Pa., where he sold a 2-pound hamburger. That didn't last.

Anthony DeBlasi, who writes for Wrestling-News.com, said in an e-mail that Bam Bam contacted him early in 2004 asking for help selling a wrestling ring and some of his other mementos on eBay.