Yokozuna

The wrestling world was shocked this week when the death of Rodney Anoai, known throughout the world as Yokozina, was announced last Monday. For me it has overshadowed all other wrestling news.

Many of the newspapers and other media here in Britain have been very respectful to Anoai, with regards to himself, his profession, and his family. However, we've had the usual tabloid idiots spouting their crap, saying that it was his well known fear of spiders that killed him. Some also made fun of the fact that he was a wrestler, treating wrestling as nothing more than a kid's cartoon.

Anoai had his greatest success in the WWF, winning the World title twice, defeating Bret Hart at Wrestlemania IX, before losing it moments later to Hulk Hogan. He later regained the title from Hogan at the first King Of The Ring pay-per-view.At Wrestlemania X, having defended the title against Lex Luger, he would later lost it to Bret Hart. A year later, he was announced as Owen Hart's mystery partner, and won tag-team gold by defeating Billy and Bart Gunn.Along the way, as the top heel in the company in the mid-90's, he had some classic feuds, with Lex Luger, and most notably, The Undertaker.

Anoai had, in the past few months, been doing the circuits here in Britain. There was a story a few months ago on how he had to wait three days to catch a flight to Britain, because he needed three airline seats, and none were available.Then, of course, there was the story about his fear of spiders. Hey, this could happen to anyone. Just ask my boss' grandson.

Recently, Anoai spoke of his struggle in life as an outsized man, especially in British hotel rooms built for the smaller man. Yet he said his problems were eased by the fact that wherever he went, people stopped him and shook his hand, and that everyone was so friendly.

He also spoke of his massive appetite - 240 eggs a day, 12 pieces of chicken, and a bucket-size portion of Japanese rice, which he took with him wherever he travelled. Anoai is survived by a wife and two children.

Yokozuna wasn't exactly one of my favourites (except when he was beating Hogan), but like most wrestlers who give their all in their chosen life, who are happy with their work, and are pleased to entertain the fans, he had my respect. Wrestling has lost many great starts over the past couple of years, and I hope that I don't have to write another article like this in the near future. Rest in peace, big man. I would like to thank the reporters at the Daily Smackdown, The Chokeslam and the Essential Wrestling Newsletter publications, but in particular Russell Jenkins of The Times, who wrote a very good piece, for providing the information in compiling this article. Many thanks.