WWE Death-O-Mania!

Readers of a certain age may recall that in 1982 Vic Morrow, star of the old TV series Combat!, was decapitated by a crashing helicopter on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie. Two other actors at the 2 a.m. shoot, 7-year-old Myca Dyhn Le and 6-year-old Renee Shin-Yi Chen, met similarly gruesome ends. As a result, safety regulations for movie sets in California were reformed and federal child labor laws were strengthened.

It remains to be seen if an oversized Hawaiian named Brian Adams will be able to claim such a serious legacy. On August 13, Adams, whose most notable role was as “Crush” in the then-World Wrestling Federation’s 1980s tag team Demolition, was found dead at age 44 at his home in Florida. Though the cause hasn’t been pinned down, his chemical history is hidden in plain sight. Like dozens of other wrestlers – as well as baseball players like Rick Ankiel and Troy Glaus, and football players like Rodney Harrison – Adams received anabolic steroids and/or human growth hormone from the Internet gray-market dealer Signature Pharmacy. (In 1995, when he was still an active wrestler, Adams was arrested for purchasing steroids and owning an illegal stun gun.)

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