RIP Ernie Ladd

[DokDoyle 0]

From http://percysposts.blogspot.com/

 

Ring Legend Ernie "The Cat" Ladd passed away during the night last evening. "The Cat" battled cancer for a number of years. Although I followed Ernie's career since I was a teenager, I first met him early on in my WWF years in the Dallas Airport. He came up behind me and I kept hearing... "Percy Pringle... Percy Pringle... Percy Pringle..." I turned around looked up and there he stood. We talked for a long time and have been friends ever since. He was a regular at our Gulf Coast Wrestlers Reunion. In fact, the photo below was taken at our Mobile Reunion in 2005. May he rest in peace in the arms of our Saving Lord. Our thoughts and prayers go our to his wonderful family.

 

 

 

What a crazy year it's been already

[Scroby 0]

Wow

 

RIP Big Cat and thank you.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

Geez, and he wasn't that much older than Bad News, as he was only 68.

 

RIP Big Cat.

[Vampiro69 0]

So many of the legends are dying now. It is quite sad to see.

[swan 0]

http://www.thenewsstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...008/1006/SPORTS

 

Ernie Ladd, a talented football player who made his name nationally as a wrestler, died overnight, according to family members.

 

Ladd, 68, had battled cancer — first in his colon, then later in his stomach and bones — since 2004. Born Nov. 28, 1938, in Rayville, but raised in Orange, Texas, he worked through his final years as a pastor in the Louisiana town of Franklin.

 

Funeral arrangements were still pending today, according to Roslyn Ladd, his wife of more than 45 years.

 

Selected 15th in the American Football League draft by San Diego out of Grambling College, Ladd appeared in three of that now-defunct league's championship games, winning the 1963 title.

 

"We were like a family," Ladd told The News-Star in May 2005. "We were one of the first integrated teams, with black players and white players as roommates."

 

He had entered professional football as a heralded 1960 first-team all-league defensive college lineman under former Grambling coach Eddie Robinson. There, Ladd helped GSU to its first-ever Southwestern Athletic Conference championship.

 

At 6-9 and 315 pounds, he was arguably the biggest GSU star to ever play for Robinson, who remains the all-time winningest football coach in Division I history.

 

"The first year he was here, he taught me a lesson," Robinson once said. "He told me how good he was. Sure, I'd say. Then he hurt somebody. I'd feel sorry for the people he was tackling."

Elected to four straight AFL All-Star Games from 1962-1965, he later played with the Houston Oilers and the Kansas City Chiefs. While with the Chiefs, he reunited with future Pro Football Hall of Famer Junious "Buck" Buchanan, another Grambling product, and was on the roster for both of Kansas City's Super Bowl appearances.

 

Ladd began wrestling as a sideline during his rookie AFL season, and found the payday and fame so alluring that eventually he gave up pro football. It was there that he picked up a nickname that would remain with him for life: "Big Cat."

 

Ladd's storylines resonated during wrestling's earliest flowering as a national attraction, not to mention signature moves that included the "guillotine drop" and a boot to the face. Rivalries with Andre the Giant and Dusty Rhodes helped shape wrestling's 1970s persona.

 

Today, he's the only person in both the American Football League and World Wrestling Federation halls of fame. Ladd is also a 1994 inductee into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, and joined the San Diego Hall of Champions in 2004.

 

Ladd's knees were so damaged — his first surgery came while still in college — that he was eventually forced to walk backward down long staircases. But Ladd's boundless spirit was unbowed by his body's failures, as he displayed a touch of humor even after that cancer diagnosis.

 

"The doctor told me I had three-to-six months to live," Ladd said in 2005, then at the mid-way point in his nearly four year battle with the disease. "I told him Dr. Jesus has the verdict on me."

 

Ladd was a father of four and grandfather to over a dozen more.

[yankovic fan 0]

Wow I live 45 minutes from Franklin! I wish I would have known about him preaching sooner, I would have gone sit in on a service.

 

 

RIP

[Hasbeen1 0]

Good wrestler, great man. Even in his mid 40's he was entertaining in Watts' mid-south in the early 80s. I'm glad they showed some of his interviews since most of today's fans probably never saw him in one match. He could be really intimidating and got the fans to the shows so they could see the faces try and shut him up. TNA and WWE should get today's heels to watch his interviews, not to copy it but just to get an idea on how to piss the fans off but impress them at the same time. It's sad but nobody lives forever and he certainly had his affairs in order.