Verne finished high school, where he wrestled and played football and baseball while living with an aunt and uncle. Times turned tough for Gagne in the early 1980s with the rise of the glitzier World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment), which went national on cable TV. ©2020 FOX News Network, LLC. Neither man could recall the episode afterward. He was born in March of 1942 in Tehran, Iran and given the name Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri. championship belt 10 times. He fondly recalled a day when he was a teenager working at a local drug store and Gagne came in and struck up a conversation. He has also won top professional wrestling promotions World Heavyweight Championship such as the World Heavyweight Championship (Omaha version) five times. In 2009, in an altercation of uncertain origin, Gagne, then 82, pushed Helmut Gutmann, a 97-year-old fellow resident in the memory-loss unit of a Bloomington, Minn., retirement home. [18], American professional wrestler and football player, World Heavyweight Championship (Omaha version), Chicago version of the NWA United States Championship, NWA United States Heavyweight Championship, George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame, NWA Minneapolis Wrestling and Boxing Club / American Wrestling Association, AWA United States Heavyweight Championship, NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship, Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame, Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum, "Wrestling Perspective: In re: Verne C. Gagne, Debtor. He trained more than 140 wrestlers from the late 1950s up until 1990, including Blackjack Lanza, Larry "The Axe" Hennig, The Iron Sheik, Sgt. However, certain wrestling territories of the NWA including Nebraska refused to go along with the decision and continued to recognize Carpentier. He spent 40 years as a cancer researcher at a veterans hospital in Minneapolis. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. [14] In January 2012 (and possibly since the 2009 altercation), he was living in the home of his daughter Beth and her husband Will. [16] He continued to make public appearances in his last years, aided by his son Greg. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. A pure technician, he relied on speed, skill and strategy rather than brutal bulk. In 1960, Gagne helped found the American Wrestling Association. Gagne, who later became the association’s sole owner, held the A.W.A. In September 1985, ESPN began broadcasting AWA Championship Wrestling, granting the AWA national exposure similar to what the World Wrestling Federation was experiencing. State law prohibits prosecuting anyone who is too mentally deficient to understand the proceedings or offer a defense. [6] Bears owner George Halas prevented Gagne from pursuing both football and wrestling (likely due to former Bears Football Hall of Fame great Bronko Nagurski having moonlighted as a professional wrestler during the height of his NFL career), and forced Gagne to make a choice. He left home at 14 to pursue the sport, defying his father and turning down a career in pro football for life in the ring. Gagne's booking strategies for the wrestlers themselves continued to follow more traditional themes than those of the WWF and Gagne continued to believe the top stars should be highly gifted technical wrestlers rather than those with just charismatic personalities.