Jeff Gaylord obit

Jeff Gaylord Passes Away At Age 64

 

 He was not on the list.

2023 has not been a good year for pro wrestling fans, as we have sadly lost a few legends and pro wrestling veterans already. It is with great sadness that we report the passing of former wrestler Jeff Gaylord, who passed away at the age of 64.

The news was announced by his brother Joel Gaylord who shared that Jeff had passed away after a brief illness.

    “I am very very sad to report that my brother, Jeffrey Scott Gaylord passed away after a short illness. He was 64. He was a member of a Shawnee Mission South State Champion Football team. He graduated on to professional football where he played for several years. Jeff matriculated to the entertainment industry and was a professional wrestler for many years. Recently he was doing outreach work for his church and provided warm clothes to folks living off the grid on the streets of Denver. We miss him dearly; however, we are content with the knowledge that Jeff is enjoying the Precious Gift of Eternal Life!”

Jeff Gaylord was a former member of the Shawnee Mission South State Champion Football team and went on to play professional football for several years. However, after a serious knee injury ended his football career, Jeff transitioned to the entertainment industry and began his professional wrestling career in 1985.

Jeff Gaylord first made a name for himself in Bill Watts’ Universal Wrestling Federation promotion, where he spent four years before moving on to World Class Championship Wrestling in 1989. While in WCCW, Jeff took on the persona of the Missouri Tiger, paying homage to his college football days. He later found success in the United States Wrestling Association, winning the USWA Tag Titles on two occasions with Jeff Jarrett.

Despite retiring from wrestling, Jeff Gaylord remained active in his community and was involved in outreach work for his church, providing warm clothes to those in need in Denver who were living off the grid.

Gaylord played high school football at Shawnee Mission South in Overland Park, Kansas before embarking on a college career at the University of Missouri. He went on to be a 4th round draft pick (88th overall) of the NFL's Los Angeles Rams in 1982. After being cut by the Rams in camp later that summer, Gaylord spent part of the 1982 season with the CFL's Toronto Argonauts playing just four games before being released.

In 1983, he was signed as a free agent by the Boston Breakers of the United States Football League (USFL) and played in 14 games during the 1983 season becoming the team's starting nose tackle. When the Breakers' franchise transferred to New Orleans in the fall of 1983, Gaylord played in 13 games with the Breakers in 1984 before being suspended for the last three games of the season. Later that fall, the Breakers relocated once again to Portland, Oregon, for the 1985 season, however Gaylord was traded to the San Antonio Gunslingers where he was a starting defensive tackle for the first seven games before ending his season on April 8. The USFL folded in the summer of 1986.

In the fascinating book about the upstart league, Football For a Buck, Jeff Pearlman wrote about Gaylord:

    Perhaps the best training-camp narrative belonged to a pair of Boston Breakers. First, there was Jeff Gaylord, a nose tackle and former fourth-round draft pick of the Los Angeles Rams who, while attending the University of Missouri from 1978 to 1982:

    – Went on a five-month cocaine binge that, he recalled, “fried my brain.”

    – Agreed to fill in for an absent male stripper at the nightclub where he worked as a bouncer. Gaylord purchases a tin of green paint, coated his body head to toe, and nicknamed himself “the Incredible Hulk.” That night he was arrested for indecent exposure and fined $50.

    – Filled his body with every imaginable steroid and steroid knockoff.

    – Served as a certified chiropractor who arrived early to the stadium to crack his teammates’ backs before games.

Gaylord debuted as a pro wrestler in October 1985, in San Antonio, where his football days ended. He’d run into Scott Casey and Tom Jones in a San Antonio gym. According to Gaylord, “They trained me in 100-degree weather in a tin shack … There was no breeze and no water. They taught me two years’ worth in four months.”

The Kansas City Times covered the early days of Gaylord’s wrestling mayhem, catching up with him in February 1986 when he was wrestling for Bob Geigel‘s All-Star Wrestling. “It’s flattering to have the shrieks,” Gaylord told columnist Jonathan Rand. “I’m trying to be the good-looking, humble guy.”

“I don’t want to sound cocky, but I have been blessed with a unique body,” Gaylord added, “and have been told that in six months I could be Mr. Olympia material because there’s nobody my size as cut up (well-defined) and well-proportioned in any sport.

Geigel saw potential, telling the Times, “He’s a big, good-looking kid, isn’t he?”

It was a time of upheaval in pro wrestling, with the territories drying up. Gaylord worked in the early days for Bill Watts’ Universal Wrestling Federation, though most of his matches were mid-card at best.

In World Class Championship Wrestling, out of Dallas, “Missouri Tiger” Gaylord got a bigger push. He started out under a mask as The Hood. Then World Class and the Memphis-based USWA became one, and he was in the mix, winning the USWA tag team titles with Jeff Jarrett on two occasions. By 1995, he was gone from the USWA, and working where he could, including the short-lived American Wrestling Federation.

There were a couple of WWF tryouts — he was one of Shawn Michaels’ masked Knights too — and one appearance with WCW.

Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter wrote in 2009 that “Gaylord had a bad reputation in wrestling, and once ambushed and beat up Eddie Gilbert in a dressing room when both worked for the Global Wrestling Federation allegedly as a hit from a promoter. Gordon Scozzari, who promoted some TV tapings where Gilbert was supposed to be the booker, but then no-showed the tapings, always denied he put Gaylord up to it. He also had a bad rep in the dressing rooms.”

Life post-wrestling was complicated.

In 2001, robbed a bank in Aurora, Colorado, stealing $5,000, and robbed the same bank four months later and was caught. He spent six-and-half-years in prison after pleading guilty.

In January 2009, he was arrested after robbing a U.S. Bank branch in Monument, Colorado, and charged on that as well as another attempted bank robbery of a U.S. Bank branch in Castle Rock, Colorado. He blamed “personal economic conditions” for the robberies.

Gaylord’s passing has left a void in the wrestling community and his brother Joel shared that while they miss him dearly, they are comforted in knowing that Jeff is now enjoying the precious gift of eternal life. Jeff’s legacy as a talented wrestler and a caring member of his community will not be forgotten.