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Brian Damage
Grappling with Tragedy is a series of articles that deal with unfortunate, tragic incidents that have occurred throughout the history of professional wrestling. It is unlike the ‘Wrestling with Sin’ series that deals more with the seedier side of wrestling like arrests, murders and suicides. Grappling looks more at particular tragic incidents that have in some instances altered pro wrestling in some way.
Louis Papineau
‘Leaping’ Louis Papineau was a former amateur hockey player, turned boxer, turned professional wrestler. While Canadian, Papineau found greater success in wrestling outside of his native Canada. Papineau started his career in 1946 and quickly became a top junior heavyweight wrestler with his speed and acrobatic style.
Papineau wrestled all over the United States including the Carolinas, Detroit, California, Oregon and Idaho. He wrestled the likes of Larry Chene, Killer Kowalski, Lou Thesz and Roy Shire. Papineau had a very successful career that spanned over 17 years. By the 1960’s, Papineau got married and had a daughter. He wanted spend more time at home with his new family and decided to slow down his travel schedule.
Papineau got a regular job back home in Windsor, Ontario, Canada and would only wrestle on weekends. On March, 7, 1964….Papineau wrestled a charity event in the suburb of Detroit against Gino Brito. The two wrestled to a 20 minute draw. After the match, Papineau went back to the locker room and fell to one knee. He called out for his business manager Bert Ruby for help. Soon, Papineau had completely collapsed and fellow wrestlers and medical personnel tried to administer CPR and mouth to mouth resuscitation.
The local fire department arrived and attempted to revive an unconscious Papineau for over 30 minutes to no avail. Fans who were in attendance ran to a nearby church and got a hold of a priest, so he could administer Papineau’s last rites. Louis Papineau died of a massive heart attack. He was just 36 years old at the time of his death.