Wrestler Steve Bradley dead at age 32

Photo courtesy of www.obsessedwithwrestling.com


This evening, I read on a message board that 411wrestling.com reported that professional wrestler Steve Bradley [pictured above], who worked a number of dark [non-televised] matches for World Wrestling Entertainment [WWE] in the late 1990's and early 2000's, was found dead in his car Thursday morning in a parking lot across the street from where he once operated a professional wrestling school in Manchester, N.H. Bradley was only 32-years of age.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Bradley and his career, he started wrestling in 1991, when he was just 15-16 years of age on the East Coast. In the late 1990's, Bradley signed a developmental contract with WWE and was assigned to their then developmental camp at Power Pro Wrestling [PPW] in Memphis, Tenn.

Ironically, Kurt Angle was signed at the time and the two feuded over the Power Pro Wrestling Championship, which Pro Wrestling Illustrated voted "Underrated Feud of the Year." A little trivia fact here...Bradley was actually the first wrestler to defeat Angle via pinfall. In 1999, Bradley won the third annual East Coast Wrestling Association [ECWA} Super-8 Tournament, defeating current Total Nonstop Action [TNA] wrestler Christopher "Curry Man" Daniels.

During his tenure in WWE, Bradley worked for PPW, Memphis Championship Wrestling [MCW] Heartland Wrestling Association [HWA], Ohio Valley Wrestling [OVW] and other promotions/territories that were affiliated with WWE at the time, even including Puerto Rico's International Wrestling Association [IWA] promotion. While in MCW, Bradley won the territories heavyweight championship, defeating current Smackdown superstar R'Truth.

Even though Bradley worked a number of dark matches prior to WWE television tapings and house shows, Bradley never received the call-up to the main roster, even though his ring work was said to be similar to that of Rob Van Dam and once Van Dam joined WWE in the summer of 2001, Bradley simply got lost in the shuffle and was ultimately released by WWE in the summer of 2002 during a talent purge.

Following his released from WWE, Bradley returned to the East Coast, specifically the New England area, and opened his own wrestling school, Top Rope Wrestling Academy, which unfortunately was shut down within the past six-months.

It is unfortunate that the professional wrestling community has lost another young live and hopefully, people in the media won't run Bradley's name through the mud like they did with other wrestler's who had passed away shortly before and after the Chris Benoit murder/suicide case in the summer of 2007.

However, my gut tells me that this wasn't a case of murder but rather suicide. Going on what has been reported and reading about Bradley's life, it reads that Bradley decided to end his life after having his wrestling school shut down and coming so close to realizing his dream of making it to WWE's main roster, especially when one considers that Bradley had been dealing with personal issues over the years and was one of the former talents that took WWE up on their offer of getting help to former talents within the past year.