Khosrow Vaziri, widely known as The Iron Sheik, passed away in his sleep at his residence in Fayetteville, Georgia, early Wednesday morning. He was either 81 or 80 years old.
The cause of his death remains unknown, according to his managers, Page and Jian Magen.
The Iron Sheik became one of the most recognized wrestler heels in the industry in the 1980s, facing off against Hulk Hogan and teaming up with a wrestler who claimed to represent the USSR.
He utilized his Iranian heritage to develop a Middle Eastern villain character, which was a tradition in professional wrestling during his prime. He typically wore kaffiyeh, boots with curled toes, and a thick mustache. He would often enter the ring waving an Iranian flag with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s face following the Iran hostage crisis in 1979.
The Iron Sheik’s finishing move was the camel clutch, where he locked his fingers beneath his opponent’s chin and sat on the wrestler’s back, causing the opponent’s spine to curve.
He won the World Wrestling Federation championship in 1983 by defeating Bob Backlund. A month later, he went up against Hogan to defend the championship. Though things seemed to work in his favor, Hogan had a breakthrough, lifted Sheik onto his back, and pinned him down with a leg drop, winning his first WWE championship title, beginning Hulkamania.
The Iron Sheik teamed up with Nikolai Volkoff, a wrestler supposedly representing the Soviet Union, and won the World Tag Team Championship at Wrestlemania in 1985 after losing a significant match to Sgt. Slaughter in Madison Square Garden in 1984.
His character had anti-American sentiments, and he often snatched the microphone from announcers to shout “Iran No. 1! Russia No. 1!” before glaring at the audience and, finally, hocking and spitting at the ground.
Some fans even believed that The Iron Sheik’s anti-American persona was authentic, according to wrestling historian and writer Keith Elliot Greenberg.
Khosrow Vaziri was born on March 15, 1942, in Damghan, a town situated about 200 miles outside Tehran. Although his passport tells of his birthdate, he was not sure of its accuracy and, so, celebrated his birthday on Sept. 9. His parents were farmers, cultivating grapes, pistachios, and other crops.
Vaziri’s family moved to Tehran when he was a child and opened a wrestling gym where some of the country’s best wrestlers received training. It was where he grew up and immersed in the sport.
He became a remarkable wrestler, eventually earning a position as the Shah of Iran’s family bodyguard. However, after the mysterious death of Olympic gold medalist wrestler Gholamreza Takhti and assumed political involvement from the Shah, Vaziri left Iran for the United States, settling in Minneapolis.
He became a full-time professional wrestler after winning an Amateur Athletic Union Greco-Roman wrestling title in 1971 and serving as an assistant coach for the U.S. Olympic team in both 1972 and 1976.
Vaziri trained under Verne Gagne, the American Wrestling Association’s promoter, who got the Iron Sheik’s idea from his wife Mary Gagne. Vaziri experimented with the character over time.
In 1975, he wedded Caryl Peterson, and they shared two daughters, Tanya and Nicole. Along with his sister and five grandchildren, they survive him.
He began struggling with drugs and alcohol in the 1980s. In 1987, he and wrestler Hacksaw Jim Duggan were busted on the New Jersey Turnpike with cocaine and marijuana in their possession. He appeared in wrestling matches in the ’90s but struggled with drug addiction during that period, as well. In an article Keith Elliot Greenberg wrote for Bleacher Report in 2013, it was reported that Iron Sheik was able to quit drugs except for having a beer now and then.
In 2003, his daughter, Marissa, was killed by her boyfriend, Charles Reynolds. At the time, Vaziri apparently contemplated attacking Reynolds with a razor blade in court, but his family stopped him. Mr. Reynolds received a life sentence and died in prison in 2016.
The Iron Sheik was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005, and in the early 2000s, he made an appearance on Howard Stern’s radio show, where he ranted about other wrestlers.
He also made recent appearances on social media, where he would often post profanity-laced messages on a Twitter account run by his managers, with nearly 650,000 followers, to rant about other wrestlers, often mentioning Hogan.
In 2014, The Iron Sheik acknowledged that he and Hogan had reconciled outside the ring, stating, “Nobody talks bad about the past. I get along with him.”
Alain Delaquérière contributed to the research.
