Bill Dundee dead: Wrestling legend Superstar was

Memphis professional wrestling legend “Superstar” Bill Dundee, whose profession spanned more than 5 a long time and included iconic feuds and tag-team runs with Jerry “The King” Lawler, has died. He was 82.

Dundee’s son, Jamie Dundee, announced his father’s death in a Facebook post, revealing that the wrestling star died at 3:30 a.m. Sunday. The trigger of death was not disclosed.

“I love you Dad. [I’ll] catch you on the [other side],” Dundee’s son wrote in the post. “Rest in peace superstar.”

Born William Cruickshanks in 1943 in Scotland and raised in Australia, Dundee received his start as a circus trapeze artist before arriving in Memphis in 1974, according to his 2018 interview with the “Kentucky Fried Rasslin’” podcast. He famous that studying circus acrobatics and aerial stunts as a teenager gave him the bodily agility in the ring to make up for his smaller stature.

In 1977, Dundee went head-to-head with Jerry Lawler at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, toppling “The King” and taking $2,000 of Lawler’s own money. This match sparked a decades-long partnership and rivalry with Lawler, main the duo to seize six regional and world tag-team titles together, according to ABC 24 Memphis.

Dundee also gained the AWA Southern Heavyweight Championship, a major skilled wrestling title during the Nineteen Seventies and Nineteen Eighties, 9 instances. Throughout the Nineties, Dundee remained a fixture in Memphis wrestling while also showing on national tv for World Championship Wrestling.

He was inducted into the Memphis Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2017. Dundee and Lawler appeared in a Facebook video earlier this 12 months where the duo thanked their followers for “never letting Memphis wrestling die,” the post said.

In a post to X, the World Wrestling Entertainment expressed unhappiness at the star’s death, including that it “extends its condolences to Dundee’s family, friends, and fans.”

Dundee is survived by his son.