Wahoo McDaniel Edward " Wahoo " McDaniel ( June 19 , 1938 – April 18 , 2002 ) was a Choctaw - Chickasaw Native American who achieved fame as a professional American football player and later as a professional wrestler . He is notable for having held the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship a record - tying five times . Early life . Wahoo was born in the small town of Bernice , Oklahoma in 1938 . His father worked in oil and he moved to several towns before settling down in Midland , Texas while Wahoo was in middle school . One of his baseball coaches was George H . W . Bush . The name " Wahoo " actually came from his father who was known as " Big Wahoo " . He was a problematic teenager but he was accepted to the University of Oklahoma . There he became a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity and he was also a part of Bud Wilkinson ' s Sooners football program . After his retirement from wrestling he became an avid fisherman . He enjoyed fishing Lake Amistad in Del Rio , Texas which was one of his favorite fishing spots . Football career . McDaniel ' s college career was somewhat marred by injuries early on but by his senior year , he was one of the top players on the Oklahoma team despite being caught drinking after games and skipping classes . He played linebacker for the American Football League ' s Houston Oilers and Denver Broncos but really became a star when he was traded to the New York Jets in 1964 . He was a crowd favorite and made 23 tackles in a single game against his former Denver Broncos . He was picked by the Miami Dolphins in the 1966 American Football League expansion draft , as the team ' s major name player . During the 1968 season , he knocked out two police officers in an altercation and was traded to the San Diego Chargers . Wahoo never played a game for San Diego and started wrestling full - time . Wrestling career . Wahoo wrestled during the off - season , a common practice at the time due to low player salaries , for Dory Funk in Amarillo , Texas while he played for Houston and Denver . When he was playing for the New York Jets , Vince McMahon , Sr . brought him in for a run in the World Wide Wrestling Federation ( WWWF ) . During his run , he wrestled with stars like Boris Malenko , Cowboy Bill Watts , Dr . Jerry Graham and Waldo Von Erich . When he played in Miami , Eddie Graham booked him and used him as a tag team wrestler with Jose Lothario . His Madison Square Garden debut was January 25 , 1965 , where he defeated Boris Malenko . Malenko at the time was essentially a preliminary wrestler . Nonetheless , the match got some strong local media coverage due to McDaniel ' s football career . After leaving football , Wahoo wrestled some in Hawaii but really made his mark and had his greatest success in Houston . He feuded with Boris Malenko , eventually winning his hair , and was a frequent challenger for Dory Funk , Jr . ' s NWA World Heavyweight Championship . The feud sold out the Sam Houston Coliseum on several occasion with Wahoo going time limit draws with the champ but ultimately coming up short . After Houston , he went to the American Wrestling Association and had a very successful feud with " Superstar " Billy Graham after Graham could not defeat Wahoo in an arm wrestling challenge and attacked him . Eventually , the feud turned into a tag feud with Wahoo teaming with the Crusher ( another legitimate tough guy ) against Graham and Ivan Koloff . In 1974 , Wahoo came to Mid - Atlantic to wrestle for Jim Crockett Promotions and help build up the territory as a singles territory in a feud with a rival from Texas , Johnny Valentine . The feud evolved into a tag feud with Wahoo and Paul Jones taking on Johnny Valentine and Ric Flair , who Wahoo met in the AWA . McDaniel and John Valentine went on to have a feud remembered to this day for the sheer force of their punch / chop exchanges , both men widely known for their hard - hitting style . Wahoo won the Mid - Atlantic title from Valentine on June 29 , 1975 , in Asheville , North Carolina . McDaniel and Flair entered into a legendary feud over the Mid - Atlantic Heavyweight Championship title throughout 1975 and 1976 after Johnny Valentine ' s career was ended in a plane crash . Flair won the title for the first time on September 20 , 1975 , in Hampton , Virginia . Wahoo regained the title in the Charlotte ( NC ) Coliseum in May of the following year . Flair regained the title three weeks later in a match remembered as the " table leg " match . Wahoo and Flair shattered a table at ringside , and Flair picked up one of table legs to hit Wahoo in the head , not realizing a nail was sticking out of the table leg . McDaniel was legitimately injured and the match quickly ended with Flair pinning McDaniel for the title . McDaniel and Flair would swap the title one more time before the final exchange of the Mid - Atlantic title between the two happened on December 27 , 1976 , when Wahoo defeated Flair for the belt in a " No Disqualification " match in the Richmond ( VA ) Coliseum . Flair went on to win the United States title and matches for the U . S . belt between Wahoo and Flair drew huge houses , with Flair holding on to the championship . In 1977 , Johnny Valentine ' s son Greg Valentine attacked Wahoo and broke his leg in an angle to establish Greg as Johnny ' s successor . Greg Valentine originally won the title on June 11 , 1977 , with Wahoo regaining it in Raleigh , NC two months later . On September 7 , 1977 , Greg Valentine regained the title at the WRAL - TV studio tapings . This angle is particularly remembered for a follow - up interview weeks later with Flair and Valentine throwing change at Wahoo , and Valentine asking Wahoo if he needed a custom - made wheelchair for his fat body . Wahoo won the Mid - Atlantic title for the final time in a match against Valentine in Greensboro , NC on April 2 , 1978 . Unusually enough for that decade , the title reign lasted only a week , with Wahoo dropping the title to Olympic weightlifter Ken Patera in Charlotte , NC . Other than his work in Mid - Atlantic , he wrestled in Florida , usually against then NWA World champion Harley Race . He also split his time wrestling in Georgia and the AWA . He went to Japan several times but never really caught on although he did wrestle major names like Giant Baba , Antonio Inoki and Jumbo Tsuruta . By 1980 , he was wrestling in San Antonio in a feud with Tully Blanchard and his regular tag partner , " Georgous " Gino Hernandez . When the promoter in Houston broke away from the National Wrestling Alliance ( NWA ) and recognized the AWA World champion Nick Bockwinkel , Wahoo was the regular challenger . He returned to Mid - Atlantic in 1981 and feuded with Roddy Piper over the United States title which ended when Piper brought in Abdullah the Butcher and Abby put Wahoo out on injury . Wahoo returned and had another bloody feud with Sgt . Slaughter for the U . S . title when Slaughter won the title while Wahoo was injured . In 1984 , he turned on Ricky Steamboat , taking the U . S . title for the fourth time when Tully Blanchard came to Wahoo ' s assistance with a steel chair . He was stripped of the title but regained it in a tournament later that year . Wahoo successfully defended it at Starrcade of that year against Billy Graham but lost it to Magnum T . A . in early 1985 in a steel cage match . Wahoo feuded again with the now babyface Ric Flair for the NWA World Heavyweight title at various times before Flair turned heel again . After losing the U . S . title , he booked and wrestled mostly for Championship Wrestling from Florida . He made a tag team with Billy Jack Haynes which won the promotion ' s version of the NWA United States Tag Team title from Rick Rude and Jesse Barr ( aka Jimmy Jack Funk ) . Wahoo wrestled some high profile matches in Florida like an unsuccessful world title bid against Ric Flair and a draw against Bruiser Brody at the Florida promotion ' s nationally syndicated big show , " Battle of the Belts " . In 1986 , he returned as a face to Mid - Atlantic wrestling in some of his famous Indian Strap Matches with Jimmy Garvin and Rick Rude . He won the NWA National Heavyweight Championship from Tully Blanchard in front of a packed house of 11 , 000 fans in Los Angeles at The Forum ( Inglewood , California ) on August 28 , 1986 during a wild and bloody match , but lost a unification match against NWA U . S . champion Nikita Koloff . For the rest of the 1980s , he wrestled mainly for the AWA and for WWC in Puerto Rico . He was a perennial top contender for the AWA World Title from 1987 – 1989 , challenging Curt Hennig , Jerry Lawler , and Larry Zbyszko during that time . McDaniel initially retired following a match against Mike Enos and Wayne Bloom , where he supposedly suffered a detached retina . But his retirement was brief and he returned to wrestling the following year . He continued to wrestle into the 1990s mostly for independent promotions throughout the south . In 1993 he teamed with Jim Brunzell and Blackjack Mulligan against Don Muraco , Jimmy Snuka , and Dick Murdoch in a legends match at the inaugural WCW Slamboree : A Legend ' s Reunion . The following year , he participated in an angle where he and Chief Jay Strongbow supposedly passed the torch to WWF ' s Tatanka . Had notable feuds in the indies with Ivan Koloff and Mean Marc Ash . He wrestled until 1996 when he officially retired . Wahoo is often compared to Chief Jay Strongbow , who played a Native American wrestler at the time . Wahoo was respected by other wrestlers and football players for his toughness , physical style and his crazy antics outside of the ring . The respect as a legitimate athlete made it easy for him to go to different territories and be successful when many babyfaces had trouble doing so . Although his playing ability in football is often overshadowed by his wild lifestyle . Joe Namath and Larry Csonka , who played with him early in their careers , both printed stories about him in their autobiographies . Along that same line , Len Dawson has been quoted as saying " The hardest hit I ever received on a football field was by Wahoo McDaniel " In 1995 , he was also inducted into the WCW Hall of Fame . Personal life . McDaniel was married five times to four different women . With his first wife , Monta Rae , he had two daughters , Nikki born in June 1963 and living in Houston , Texas and Cindi born in October 1965 , she lives in Rowlett , Texas . He has four grandchildren . Dustin and Brittany from Nikki and twins , Morgan and Taylor from Cindi . McDaniel ' s health started to deteriorate in the mid - 1990s , and he eventually lost both kidneys . He was awaiting a kidney transplant when he died from complications from diabetes and renal failure on April 18 , 2002 .