Kevin Greene

**Kevin Darwin Greene** (July 31, 1962 – December 21, 2020) was an American professional football player and wrestler who was a defensive end and outside linebacker for the Los Angeles Rams, Pittsburgh Steelers, Carolina Panthers, and San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) from 1985 through 1999. He had 160 sacks in his career, which ranks third among NFL career sack leaders, and he was voted to the NFL 1990s All-Decade Team. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016.

## Professional wrestling career

Greene was born on July 31, 1962, in Schenectady, New York. His father was a colonel in the army, making Greene an army brat. He began playing football on military bases. The Greene family moved to different bases and spent three years in Mannheim, Germany before they settled in Granite City, Illinois, in 1976.

Kevin Greene later entered the NFL, playing over 15 seasons for the Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers, Carolina Panthers, and Pittsburgh Steelers. The powerful linebacker terrorized quarterbacks and according to the *New York Times, “His 160 regular-season sacks rank third behind the totals of the defensive ends Bruce Smith (200) and Reggie White (198).”*

Greene’s football career was met with tons of awards ranging from five appearances in the Pro Bowl, the NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award in 1996 (along with the NFC Defensive Player of the Year Award that same year) and a Super Bowl ring for his job as assistant coach for the Green Bay Packers at *Super Bowl XLV.* In 2016, Greene was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Greene made several appearances with the professional wrestling promotion World Championship Wrestling (WCW) during the late-1990s. He was one of several celebrities brought in by WCW president Eric Bischoff to help generate mainstream publicity for the company.

Greene made his first appearance with WCW at the TBS television special Clash of the Champions XXXII in January 1996, accompanying Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage to ringside for their match against Ric Flair and The Giant. Following the match, Greene helped Hogan fight off an attempted ambush by Brian Pillman and The Zodiac.

In June 1996, Greene wrestled his first match for WCW at its Great American Bash pay-per-view. Greene teamed with his fellow NFL alumnus Steve McMichael - who had joined WCW as a color commentator the prior year - to face Four Horsemen members Ric Flair and Arn Anderson, who in the storyline had incurred McMichael's ire after Flair repeatedly flirted with his wife Debra, leading McMichael to bring in Greene to help defend her honor. McMichael and Greene were accompanied to ringside by their wives along with wrestler Randy Savage, who was presented as their coach.

The match ended when Debra and Tara Greene were chased backstage by Flair's valets Miss Elizabeth and Woman, only for Debra to return carrying a briefcase containing a large amount of money (implicitly a bribe from Flair) and a Four Horsemen t-shirt.

After Debra showed McMichael the contents of the briefcase, he took the briefcase and hit Greene with it, enabling Flair to pin Greene. McMichael then donned the t-shirt, marking the beginning of his membership in the Four Horsemen.

Greene returned to World Championship Wrestling in May the following year, teaming with Ric Flair and Roddy Piper to face the villainous New World Order (Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and Syxx) in the main event of the Slamboree pay-per-view. The match ended when Greene pinned Syxx after giving him a running powerslam.

The following month, at that year's Great American Bash, Greene faced Steve McMichael in a match resulting from McMichael's betrayal of him at the prior year's event. The match ended when Jeff Jarrett attempted to hit Greene with a briefcase, only to accidentally hit McMichael, enabling Greene to pin him.

Greene returned to World Championship Wrestling for a third and final time in 1998. On the June 22, 1998 episode of *WCW Monday Nitro*, Greene made a surprise return; as he gave an interview, he was confronted by Curt Hennig and Rick Rude, who distracted him while The Giant attacked him from behind. The altercation led to Greene facing The Giant in the main event of *Nitro*. Greene won the resultant match by disqualification after Hennig and Rude interfered, after which they attacked Greene until his former Los Angeles Rams teammate Bill Goldberg came to his assistance. Greene faced The Giant in a rematch at the following month's Bash at the Beach pay-per-view, with The Giant pinning him following a chokeslam.

In Greene's contract for 1997, the 49ers included a stipulation prohibiting him from wrestling, as did the Panthers the following year. As a result, his professional wrestling career came to an end in 1998. Greene wrestled a total of five matches between June 16, 1996 and July 12, 1998, four of them on pay-per-view.

During his brief professional wrestling career in the squared circle, he "share[d] the ring with some of the biggest names in sports-entertainment." Professional wrestling pundit R. D. Reynolds described him as "a pretty decent wrestler given his level of experience". WCW president Eric Bischoff praised Greene's performances, stating that Greene "poured himself into the training for our show, trying to be as good as he could possibly be".

## Death

Greene died of a heart attack at the age of 58 at his home in Destin, Florida, on the morning of December 21, 2020.