Adnan Al-Kaissie Dead, Former AWA & WWF Wrestler Dies At Age 84

By Ross W Berman IV
Adnan Al-Kaissie as Billy White Wolf The Stanley Weston Archive/Getty Images

A legend of amateur and professional wrestling has died.

According to PWInsider and other outlets, Adnan bin Abdul Kareem Ahmed Alkaissy El Farthie, better known to wrestling fans as General Adnan, Billy White Wolf, and Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie, has died at the age of 84. His friend and former in-ring ally Sgt. Slaughter paid tribute to the former tag champion in a tweet Wednesday.

The former WWF and AWA star was born in Baghdad, Iraq. Adnan attended high school with the future Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein before becoming a soccer player and amateur wrestler, which is why he was brought back to what was then the World Wrestling Federation (later WWE). Adnan is best remembered by most fans for his role managing Slaughter during his Iraqi sympathizer years in the early 1990s. The ersatz general later admitted that the things he said about America were his true feelings for the country, calling them "No bulls**t" in an interview with Ken Resnick in 2019.

Adnan's athletic background in Iraq was what first brought him to the United States. He arrived in Oklahoma, by way of Houston, where he played football and also wrestled for Oklahoma State University, nearly qualifying for the Olympics.

After turning to professional wrestling, Adnan portrayed Native American Billy White Wolf, alongside Chief Jay Strongbow, winning the World Wide Wrestling Federation (the predecessor to the WWF and WWE) Tag Team Championship at the end of 1976.

He then ended up in Verne Gagne's American Wrestling Association, where he was known as Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissey. While never a champion in the AWA, Kaissie was still a constant presence in the territory for much of the 1980s. He was inducted into the Thesz-Tragos Hall of Fame in 2021.

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