As someone who used to cover the business, it is sad whenever someone passes, but in regard to the pro wrestling industry it’s sadly common.  I do not know what led to O’Haire’s passing, but I will say that he was a talent that didn’t really get a chance to show what he could do.  He had a good run as a tag champion in WCW before they sold to Vince McMahon, but beyond getting one decently built pay-per-view match and his brief pairing with Roddy Piper, he didn’t really get much of a chance.

After he retired from the business he did try to go into MMA and Kickboxing, but from what I have heard he didn’t do too well on the K-1 circuit.  It’s a shame because if he were given the time and the backing of those who are charged with the creative aspects of the business he could have had a shot at being something beyond a worker on the lower mid-card level.  Just one man’s opinion. 

My condolences go out to his family.  

O’Haire was already released around 2004 after he suffered an injury.  He is a perfect example of how those charged with the creative aspects of the business can ultimately damage a career when they develop characters for workers to portray, but don’t allow that character the adequate time to develop.  His pairing with Roddy Piper had a lot of potential as a teacher/student type of angle where Piper was cast in the role of mentor to O’Haire, but it never materialized the way it was drawn up.  This was due to Piper getting let go by the company due to his interview with HBO, in which some unflattering things were said about the business. 

The problem is by that going on the way that it did, it pretty much left O’Haire on the outside looking in. It’s a problem within the industry where guys are let go because a promotion’s creative department doesn’t have anything for them and not based on a talent’s lack of effort, reputation and so on.  It’s also why you see so many talents relegated to the independent circuit because there are only so many spots available to guys at any time.  Although a lot of people like to place blame on Vince McMahon for the decline of the business outside of WWE, the reality is it isn’t his fault.  There are hundreds of independent promotions throughout the United States and many groups that run on a regular basis internationally.  No company has made a legitimate attempt to compete with the one company that is still standing.  Ultimately, it leaves the talents with few options to ply their trade and make a comfortable living. 

One thing that I have noticed since my last post in relation to O’Haire while browsing is several mainstream outlets have linked him to WWE as either a recent talent or a current talent who was under contract.  It really bothers me, even though I haven’t covered the business in almost twelve years that those in mainstream media don’t follow facts.  O’Haire wasn’t with the company very long and hadn’t been involved with the business, much less with the company in over a decade.  It bothers me because it leaves the potential for unwarranted bad publicity for the company.  It’s tragic any way one chooses to look at it, as a writer though I wish those who are in mainstream media would practice more ethics when it comes to things like this.  Just one man’s opinion.  

I cover Boxing primarily, but there was a time when I covered both Boxing and pro wrestling simultaneously and have covered MMA as well in my career. Combat sports is my area of expertise.  I haven’t covered the business since 2003, but I am still a fan (lifelong fan) and follow the business closely. 

One of the reasons I got out of covering the business when I did was I pretty saw the whole industry going downhill post-WCW being sold.  When there is only one company in the industry that gets the majority of publicity, there is only so much you can cover.  Promotions in Japan could attempt to compete if they wanted, but unless you’re really knowledgeable about how the business is presented in Japan it probably wouldn’t translate well over here. 

The business is presented in a completely different manner than it is in the states. Matches are more technically based, there’s less theatrics and not many storylines.  I enjoy what companies like New Japan, All Japan and Wrestle-1 have to offer, but because American audiences haven’t been exposed to Japanese wrestling presented by a Japanese promotion, it probably wouldn’t fit.

To give you an example when WWE was running a program between Triple H and Brock Lesnar about two years ago, they had a match at Summerslam that was in essence a Japanese style match. It was a solid match, but if you look at how the crowd reacted to it, it didn’t get over well because it was something that most fans here aren’t used to seeing.  A pay-per-view (Now WWE Network special) isn’t necessarily the best place to test out something like that on an audience, but I understand why they did it.  The business has to constantly freshen things up, if you give people the same product and the same presentation, eventually it will go stale and will ultimately have an effect on a company’s bottom line.  


I apologize for trending off topic a bit, but as I said combat sports is my area of expertise.  I tend to be thorough when discussing combat sports or subjects of which I am knowledgeable.

He never held an official WWF/E title.  He was a WCW tag champion with Chuck Palumbo before AOL/Time Warner sold the company to the McMahon family in 2001.  He and Palumbo dropped the titles in the WWF/E to the Undertaker and Kane on an episode of Smackdown if memory serves me.  It will be a lot easier for me to remember exact days of non-pay-per-view television as those shows appear on WWE Network.  If memory serves me correctly if I remember what I was covering at the time it was right in the middle of the invasion angle that the company was running and shortly after the invasion pay-per-view in July 2001, where O’Haire and Palumbo dropped the titles to Undertaker and Kane, meanwhile whomever the WWF/E tag champions were at the time dropped those titles to Diamond Dallas Page and Chris Kanyon and that set up the steel cage unification match at Summerslam the next month. 

Shortly after O’Haire and Palumbo dropped the WCW titles to Undertaker and Kane O’Haire was sent down to Ohio Valley Wrestling, (OVW) which was WWE’s top developmental territory back then for more seasoning.  About a year and a half later he resurfaced with a new character and was paired with Piper, but as I said he never really got the chance to show what he could do.  He got injured and was waiting to start up again, but was released.  In essence he had the rug yanked out from under him.  Unfortunately, a lot of talents have had similar experiences.  It unfortunately happens when there is only one company.  I said this when I was still covering the business fulltime, but I have always felt that WWE blew a big opportunity by failing to run two completely separate promotions simultaneously and thus perhaps there would have been more spots available for workers. 

I know they tried to turn their weekly TV shows into “Brands”, but I was never really in favor of that and it never really got over the way the company thought it would.  Ironically after that failed they tried to re-launch ECW, another failure simply because they tried to incorporate it with the WWE product, now had they run it as a separate entity it would probably be successful.  Do I think it would be the type of product that ECW produced when it was a separate company?  Probably not, but at least they would have had a chance to be successful if they were run from a business perspective as a corporate division of WWE, thus theoretically allowing the company over all to have another potential revenue stream by running things separately and not incorporating with each other.  I see it as two missed opportunities and that could be pointed to as a reason, but not the main reason why the business overall is in the shape it’s in.  Just one man’s opinion.