The Associated Press out of Minneapolis, MN has an article on the world losing Gene Okerlund yesterday who passed away at the age of 76. The AP reports that Okerlund fell a few weeks back and according to Gene’s son, “it just kind of went from bad to worse” for the WWE Hall Of Famer.
TMZ Sports also reported an update, with son Todd Okerlund telling them Gene suffered multiple broken ribs and ended up in a Sarasota hospital as a result of the fall. He said Gene was admitted to a nursing home four days before his death, but was rushed to a hospital Wednesday before he passed away.
Jim Ross in his latest episode of The Ross Report also commented on how Okerlund told him how he was having a hard time keeping his balance and getting fatigued easier when the two talked during WrestleCade 2018 over Thanksgiving weekend.
The AP report also gives a quote from Jesse Ventura on calling Okerlund “Mean Gene”:
Ventura told the Minneapolis Star Tribune on Wednesday that in an interview he “laughingly called him ‘the Mean Gene Hot Air Machine,’ and the ‘Mean Gene’ stuck.”
Ventura called Okerlund “the best at what he did, the best straight man interviewer in wrestling history.”
“You only had to tell him once” how to pitch and sell a wrestling story, Ventura told the AP about Okerlund’s knack for salesmanship. “He’s like a carnival barker. … He was the best salesman. And he never did retakes. … Ninety percent of the time if there was a screw-up on an interview, it was not because of Gene. That’s how good he was.”
You can read the entire AP report by going here.
