One of professional wrestling’s most well-known interviewers, “Mean” Gene Okerlund, has died, WWE announced Wednesday.
Okerlund was 76.
The smooth-voiced, mustached Okerlund was a staple of WWE television broadcasts in the 1980’s and later left to join World Championship Wrestling as an interviewer in the 1990’s and early 2000’s.
Okerlund got his start in the American Wrestling Alliance, where he interviewed legendary grapplers Jesse “The Body” Ventura, Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, and Hulk Hogan. He followed those stars to the WWE in 1984, where his interview segments with Hogan, Randy “Macho Man” Savage, The Ultimate Warrior and many more vaulted him to bigger fame.
At the first Wrestlemania event in 1985, Okerlund even sang the National Anthem.
He moved on to WCW in 1993, remaining there until 2001, when he returned to WWE airwaves.
