Professional Wrestlers Sure Like To... Die.

Between the ages of 10-13, whenever my mother would leave the house I'd dash upstairs and squirt a bunch of ketchup onto a coffee saucer. Then I'd bring it back down to the finished basement which was basically the "Dave Zone". I was strictly forbidden to have "blood matches" with my rubber WWF wrestling figures, so this practice always had to be performed on the down-low.

I'd pit two dolls against eachother within my plastic WWF ring, and invariably one of the wrestlers would introduce a foreign object (usually Andre The Giant) and the ketchup would start flying. Pomegranate seeds also worked well for this purpose, but were only in season once a year and similarly banned from the basement.

Upon hearing my mother's car return to the driveway I'd rush back upstairs, rinse the evidence off the toys and my forearms, and go back to my Commodore 64 which was usually downloading a primitive wrestling game on my 500 baud Pocket Modem. Dave, what's changed you ask?

Well, I don't follow wrestling anymore (as far as you know) but I did discover a disturbing list that I want to share with you. It seems that Ray Traylor, a.k.a. The Big Boss Man, died earlier this week. And of course I knew Andre and Owen Heart had met with untimely deaths. But what I did not know, is that people in this pugilistic profession have been dropping like flies. And not just from steroids and their repercussions - from all kinds of nasty accidents.

For example, did anyone else know that Rick Rude, Davey Boy Smith and The Junkyard Dog are all currently pushing up turnbuckles? I didn't. Memories of my childhood just dropped a flying elbow on me. Have a look for yourself here.