Wrestling World Reacts To The Iron Sheik's Death

By David Bixenspan
The Iron Sheik puts Corporal Kirchner in a Boston Crab WWE

On Wednesday, the wrestling world learned of the death of The Iron Sheik, real name Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri, at the age of 81. With "Sheiky Baby" having been a colorful presence in the wrestling world for 50 years, wrestlers and wrestling personnel across multiple generations have taken to Twitter to express their condolences, many of whom worked with him directly.

Perhaps most noteworthy is Ric Flair, who broke into the business with Sheik at Verne Gagne's training camp in 1972. While sharing a Japanese magazine cover that featured the two of them posing together while Flair was NWA World Heavyweight Champion, Flair gave fans a peek at the sense of humor that the younger version of Sheik had:

AEW's Ari Daivari, meanwhile, tweeted a screenshot of a note he wrote laying out what Sheik meant to him as a fellow Iranian pro wrestler. "You are, and always will be, the greatest Iranian wrestler of all time," he wrote. "You were always good to [my brother, WWE producer] Shawn and I, and I never forgot that. Some people may not know this, but when my brother went to WWE, that's where [the] Khosrow Daivari [name] came from. It was Iron Sheik's real [first] name and also our father's name, so it had a double meaning."

WWE CCO Paul "Triple H" Levesque called him "an all-time great performer who...transcended our business" alongside the official memorial tweet from WWE proper, with AEW also expressing their condolences:

WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley shared his memories of watching The Iron Sheik as a fan on top of noting that they had exactly one match together on a 1987 tour of Dominica:

Other active performers to honor Sheik include Zelina Vega, Nyla Rose, Miro, Renee Paquette, Natalya, and Samoa Joe, among others.

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