RIP Patriot (Del Wilkes)

[Hero!]

I had put this in the Ramble thread, but I think it needs more visibility.

RIP to the Patriot who had a weirdly dope wwf run and some awesome AJPW runs.

[Jarrod1983]

Awww shit just saw this.

RIP Patriot. I have a Polaroid of Patriot, King Kong Bundy and I on my fridge with Bundy choking me and Patriot giving a thumbs up next to us.

Loved Stars and Stripes with Bagwell when I was a kid.

[JuveLeo]

R.I.P Del Wilkes. Another wrestler gone too young

[Badger]

I only knew him for his short WWF run plus he had Angle’s music before it became cool.

RIP

[VHS]

Only knew him from his work in WWF, but I always thought his outfit was bangin.

RIP

[Hacksaw]

Right guy at the wrong time. Big, pretty good in the ring, could promo pretty well, he had really fun matches with Hart. He had a reputation for being injury prone (it was a torn triceps that ended his WWF run, I think), but gimmick-wise it was just a strange fit for the late 90s--worked as a foil to Bret but not sure where they were gonna go with it.

He was a good-looking guy, so I wonder if the mask hurt his ability to connect, but I do have to admit the mask was cool as hell.

RIP

[Nash Diesel]

Without the mask he looked even worse.

I do agree, he didn't really fit in with the WWF at the time. I remember seeing him in GWF and teaming up with Bagwell (not sure what came first) It just seemed like a gimmick that wasn't meant for the mainstream. If it lead to him losing the mask, that might've been cool but they never got there with him in WWF because he was always fucked up.

[Vandal]

RIP

[Hero!]

Right guy at the wrong time. Big, pretty good in the ring, could promo pretty well, he had really fun matches with Hart. He had a reputation for being injury prone (it was a torn triceps that ended his WWF run, I think), but gimmick-wise it was just a strange fit for the late 90s--worked as a foil to Bret but not sure where they were gonna go with it.

He was a good-looking guy, so I wonder if the mask hurt his ability to connect, but I do have to admit the mask was cool as hell.

RIP

The best part is that he got some mark Doctor to submit a physical to the wwf basically saying that he was in peak physical health, so wwf didn’t know that his body was destroyed after the years of Japanese matches.

[Tainted Eclipse]

this seems clearly his career-best match, an awesome tag in AJPW from 1996, teaming with kenta kobashi

[Bluegunn]

Believe it or not he had a good match against John Lauranitis.

[Tyrone]

Not really familiar with this guy, what are some of his highlights for matches or appearances?

[Nash Diesel]

Not really familiar with this guy, what are some of his highlights for matches or appearances?

I remember seeing him in Global Wrestling and then in WCW winning tag gold with Bagwell in the early 90's.

Probably his most memorable stuff in the US was his extremely short stint in WWF feuding with Bret in the Fall of 1997.