HE WAS THE “PRINCE Of Darkness.” “The Taskmaster.” “The Boston Battler,” once upon a time.
When Kevin Sullivan left us on Friday, August 9, at the age of 74, he took with him one of the keenest minds that the professional wrestling industry ever produced. At the vanguard of an entire generation that’s been departing en masse in recent years—Terry Funk, Harley Race, Roddy Piper, Dusty Rhodes, just to name a few—his loss is a reminder to cherish the wisdom of those who have forgotten more about wrestling than most of us will ever know.
I was honored to get to know Kevin Sullivan over the past five years, thanks to a series of conversations for research I’d been doing on various book and magazine projects. I knew immediately that he was someone whose knowledge I could, my book on one of his greatest mentors and inspirations, The Sheik.
