DM 12.15.03

 

In what has become an endless pattern in the profession, Jerry "Gigantes" Tuite was found dead in his hotel room on 12/6 in Narita, Japan, the afternoon after the finish of his tour with All Japan Pro Wrestling. Tuite was 36.

 

It's been almost a mind-boggling past few weeks, and for that matter, past two years, when it comes to these stories. It's a problem with no answers due to the nature of it having no central authority and virtually no oversight, and it appears nothing can be done to end this cycle.

 

Tuite had major drug problems in his past, including a heroin addiction that he went to rehab for in 2001 that nearly killed him. He Had wrestled the previous night at Budokan Hall in Tokyo, the final night of the tour. He had been a regular with the company since starting early in the year, as part of the top heel group, R0&D, led by mouthpiece Taka Michinoku, with D-Lo Brown, Bull Buchanan, Jamal and Justin Credible. Several sources claimed he had cleaned himself up from the addiction for much of the past two years, but had apparently backslided before and during the Japan tour.

 

He was making a good living from wrestling, working a part-time schedule, likely doing better than at any time in a career that dated back to 1991, except for possibly his WCW days. He, Buchanan and Credible beat Tomoaki Honma, Kazushi Miyamoto and Nobutaka Araya that night. They went that night to the Narita Airport Resthouse Hotel. Narita is a city that's nearly a two hour drive north of Tokyo, but that's where the main airport is located. He last used his hotel room phone at 10 am the next morning, to call his girlfriend back home, would be the last sign of his being alive. He was to be packing for his 3pm flight back home. According to All Japan officials, when Brown and Buchanan knocked the door at about 1:10 pm to go with him to the airport, nobody answered. Since they had to leave, they had hotel management open up the door, and they found him, looking lifeless and pale, and called for an ambulance. He was rushed to the hospital and declared dead at 1:45 pm, from an apparent massive heart attack. Japanese newspapers reported that his body was cremated almost immediately, which, if true, would mean no toxicology tests.

 

Tuite was born December 24, 1966. He was a New Jersey native who broke in pro wrestling relatively late, training at a wrestling school operated by former WWF prelim wrestler Mike Sharpe. Chris Ford [Devon "Crowbar" Storm] and Pat Kenney [Simon Diamond], were his best social friends among wrestlers, and they often hung out and didn't talk much about the business.

 

"It would be hard to find anyone to say anything about him," said Ford, who was a junior when the two met and had many of their early matches with one another and became close social friends. "He was a good friend. We'd go out and meet together with Dawn [Kenney's fiance Dawn Marie], my fiance and we really didn't talk a lot about wrestling except goof on the crazy stuff. He was the best guy in the world."

 

Tuite, who used numerous names in wrestling, but in recent years was best known as the Wall in WCW, Malice in TNA and Gigantes, was hand picked by Hulk Hogan to work a program in early 2000 when WCW felt it needed to create new stars. His highest profile match would have been on March 27, 2000, at the company's annual "Spring Breakout" Nitro at South Padre Island in Texas. Booker Kevin Sullivan gave him a big push. Tuite was legitimately close to 6-7, and probably 330 pounds at the time. But he wasn't ready for that kind of push as a main eventer, particularly after earlier being outsmarted by Sid Eudy, who ribbed him into taking his shirt off and posing to mock Hogan, but at the time, he had a terrible looking body, which was well hidden by his suit and tie body guard outfit, and later his Wifebeater ring outfit where he looked like a giant Sandman. When fans saw he had a soft gut, it hurt his monster aura, not to mention it got the wrestlers in the back to laugh at him. The booked finish was Hogan pinning him clean with a legdrop. Hogan, trying to create a program that would build, re-booked the match. Hogan put in key spots, including where Hogan would get up from Wall's choke slam, by Wall would pop up from his legdrio, a spot he hasn't allowed a ton of guys to do. At that point, Vampiro, then a babyface, did a run-in, and bother together put Wall through a table. Wall got up from that as well to establish him as a monster. But it was a disastrous period for the company. The match went head to head with a Raw main event of Vince Mcmahon and Rock vs. Big Show and Shane McMahon, with not only HHH and Mick Foley as referees, but Rock saying he'd retire if his team lost. The numbers for the head to head segments were 7.56 to 2.27.

 

In WCW, he was known as a partier, but he had a reputation for being quiet, and hung with his group of friends and never caused any problems. He had gotten hooked up with the company through his friend, Bam Bam Bigelow. His first television role came in 1999 as part of a presentation to make Alex Wright a superstar using the name Berlyn. The initial appearances of Berlyn as an arrogant German who believed in superiority were tremendous, featuring a woman doing promos as his interpreter, and Tuite as the Wall [taken from the idea of the Berlin Wall] as his bodyguard along with an entourage, The gimmick was a brainchild of Sullivan. However, the Berlyn character fizzled once he started wrestling, particularly after a bad PPV match with Jim Duggan, which fell apart, and a feud with Buff Bagwell that went nowhere. Soon, they cut back on the entourage and broke the Wall away from him and went with Wall a star for a few months.

 

His career went downhill from there. Vince russo and Eric Bischoff were already about to start when this took place, so his push was a lame duck angle. Russo and Bischoff did the famed blow up everything show a few weeks later, where all titles were vacated and all previous angles were dropped. From a radio interview he did a few months back, it was clear that he had Russo and Bischoff for killing his push and he believed, also destroying the company. As a Sullivan project, his days as a headliner were over, and the truth was, he was push far too soon. He was turned into Sgt. A-Wall of the Misfits in Action, where his role was to stand behind Bill Demott, who used the embarassing name General Hugh G. Rection. When WCW was shut down, WWF took over his contract. When they learned of his drug problems, which were bad enough that he nearly died once from an overdose, he was let go, and told that if he cleaned up, they would be interested. There was also concern when WWF investigated his background and found some criminal convictions they weren't aware of. He went through rehab, cleaned himself up, and had a few WWE tryout matches that didn't go well. The company really never had major interest in him after that point, even though he totally changed his body and looked like a different person.

 

His other somewhat high profile U.S. match would have been on the June 19, 2002 debut of NWATNA from Huntsville, AL. Tuite, using the name Malice, was managed by Jim Mitchell. He changed his appearance with longer hair colored to almost resemble the Undertaker, a totally new physique with huge thighs, to where very few even realized it was the same wrestler that was in WCW, and was one of final two survivors with Ken Shamrock in a Royal Rumble style Battle Royal to determine the NWA champion. The two had a singles match, with Ricky Steamboat as referee, Shamrock of course won after a belly to belly suplex. Tuite looked like a new star in this match, and it led to a several week build for a rematch. But it was a tease, as he wasn't able to look that good in his future appearance. When the promotion ran into money issues and stopped flying in a lot of wrestlers, he stopped being a regular. He was used from time to time, but after a botched angle before one of his early Japanese tours where he was supposed to be injured and it came off totally unconvincing, he was never brought back. It turned out to be for the best, because he stuck with All Japan, which was in the process of changing over all its foreign talent due to it running in a financial crunch. Even so, All Japan tours were a much better paying gig, and he did well as a stereotypical big foreigner who would be protected, but lose to the top native stars. He was also involved in the final match ever of the WWA promotion on December 13, 2002, in Zurich, Switzerland. As Malice, that was a protected deal. Lex Luger had beaten Sting for the WWA title at a time when Sting wouldn't commit to any future shows while Luger would. However, during that tour, Luger was such a pain to deal with, that they didn't want him around any longer, while Sting agreed to come back for the next tour, which ended up never taking lace. However, Luger wouldn't do the job in a singles match, so they put Malice in the match to get pinned by Sting in a three way to change the belt.

 

Tuite was divorced, with no children, although he was believed to have been the godfather of Bigelow's children. When he first started wrestling, Sharpe gave him the name Big John, doing an old style lumberjack gimmick, carrying an axe, wearing the jeans shorts and wearing a flannel shirt ala Jos LeDuc and numerous others.

 

"Our first match was a battle royal," said Ford. We had done two or three matches against each other at the school and worked a lot of independents together."

 

After about a year of doing indies, he quit the business for a couple of years. He resurfaced in 1994, working Northeast indies under the name Hell Raiser, with the face paint, perhaps as a take off on the New Japan Hell Raisers tag team gimmick. He work a dinosaur skeleton looking deal on each shoulder. Through the influence of fellow Jersey-ites Bigelow and Diamond Dallas Page, he got a shot at the Power Plant and moved to Atlanta. After being dropped by WWF, he appeared at the only XWF tapings. There he was given a heel push due to his size for a possible program with Higabm using the name the Wall, which when investigating, it was found that WCW had never trademarked. But Hogan pulled out right away and the XWF went nowhere. He also used the name Snuff when working for XPW.

 

In All Japan, his biggest singles match was on a Budokuan Hall semifinal a few months back against Keiji Muto. However, he blew out his knee before the match and had to limp through it. His size was deception, as in the ring, he looked to be well over 300 pounds, with huge thighs, but he'd actually trimmed himself all the way down to 270.

 

All Japan was planning a ceremony for him at the Jan. 2 year-opener show, while K-Dojo [Taka Michinoku's group] was planning one at its next show on 12/13,