By "Net.cop" Scott Keith

I had the great pleasure of meeting the man called Sid on several occasions, and when his death was reported last week, no one was more shocked, hurt, and mortified than I. Why should the life of one so undeserving of death be taken so callously? Why must life be so unfair?

What follows is my attempt to make sense of the life of this great man. We can only remember him now, as he was, and as he could have been. RIP, Sid Eudy, 1948-1997.

Howdy.

It was a sad day for all concerned as I decided to grab a flight down to Memphis, Tennessee, where the remains of "Sycho" Sid Eudy were to be laid to rest.

There were actually quite a few wrestlers in attendance there, including lifelong friends Brian Pillman and Arn Anderson, as well as former partners Mark "Undertaker" Callaway and Kevin Nash.

Most of the eulogies were pretty subdued. There was a kind of dark humor about the whole thing, because he asked to be cremated and his ashes scattered on a baseball diamond (I'm not sure why -- Sid hated baseball).

Kevin Nash spoke first, talking about his time in WCW as part of the Master Blasters, teaming with Sid (then called "Iron") and the times they shared. Nash credited Sid with thinking of most of the important parts of the nWo angle currently ongoing in WCW, and noted that Scott Hall would be hard pressed to find anyone to replace Sid as part of the Outsiders. Nash expressed regret at never wrestling in the WWF, and thus losing the opportunity to team with Sid again there during Sid's tenure. He closed with a poem by William Butler Yeats, "Death Be Not Proud."

Mark Callaway spoke next, but briefly, because he was on his way to Missouri for a WWF house show to defend the WWF World title against Bret Hart. I thought it was a bit tacky to plug a house show during a eulogy, but it's wrestling, right? Not much of note here, he told a couple of stories about the years in the NWA as the Skyscrapers and the times they won the tag team titles, and even broke kayfabe by mentioning Sid's brief run in 1992 as the "fake Undertaker," and their subsequent match at the first In Your House that year, the infamous Undertaker v. Undertaker match.

Arn Anderson was pretty long-winded, actually. Oddly enough, he mainly related road stories from Sid's trip through the NWA as a member of the original Four Horsemen in 1984, and essentially side-stepped the entire Germany incident, where Sid caught Anderson's head in the ring ropes and took off his right ear, which led to a fight in the dressing room where Arn attacked Sid with a rock and Sid used paper to counter. Anderson also expressed regret at not signing with the WWF during his career. He became visibly shaken at one point, perhaps remembering the recent funeral of Ric Flair, and had to be helped down.

Brian Pillman spoke last, basically just threatening to "whip out his johnson and piss on the gravesite" and slamming a squeegee into the ground before storming off. Obviously he had some issues with Sid to work out and never got a chance.

The ashes were scattered by Sid's widow, Rena "Sable" Mero, and the Reverend Kenneth Johnson blessed the ground. I was in tears by the end, I can tell you.

And yes, I did see the actual cremation, and I can verify that it was Sid Eudy who was cremated. I would recognize the greatest of all midget wrestlers anywhere.

RIP Sid Eudy, 1960 - 1997. With the untimely death of "Sycho" Sid "Vicious" Eudy on Sept. 4 due to heart failure, I felt it only appropriate to take a look back at the career of the man who was Sid.

Sid first broke into the business in 1982 as manager "Downtown" Bruno, in the UWF (which was later known as the "Mid-South" area), managing UWF World champion Brad Armstrong. He spent 5 years in the area, although only actually staying until 1984, and became something of a local wrestling legend in the Memphis area, despite never actually wrestling.

Sid was proclaimed dead after a particularly heavy bout of drinking on January 9, 1985, although it was discovered fairly soon after that he was merely sleeping.

In the spring of 1984, two years after being declared dead for the first time, Sid moved to the NWA, where he helped found the legendary Four Horsemen with Ric Flair, Barry Windham and Arn Anderson. Inexplicably, they were managed by Downtown Bruno, although many write this off as historical inaccuracy and point out that the kind of people who worry about that sort of continuity in wrestling have no business watching in the first place, and usually aren't very fun at parties either.

Regardless, Sid only last one year with the fabled Horsemen team, departing in 1991 for the greener pastures of the WWF after winning a loser-leaves-town match against the Diamond Studd, who was to gain greater fame later on as Billy Jack Strong.

While on the way from Atlanta to Stamford, Sid's plane reportedly blew into a million pieces and crashed into the side of an active volcano, which then erupted and not only buried all the remains of the passengers, but the entire town of Yakima, Washington, as well. It was later discovered that Sid was on a different plane, and in fact Yakima Washington is nowhere near either Atlanta or Stamford, but by then it was too late to stop the inevitable rumors. It was only by showing up at his own funeral that Sid was able to prove his livelihood. The same cannot be said for the inhabitants of Yakima.

In 1994, a mere 2 months after leaving WCW for the WWF, Sid defeated Shawn Michaels for the Intercontintal title live on Monday Night RAW. Originally the booking had Shawn winning, but rival federation WCW was set to announce the results on "WCW Monday Nitro" so the match was changed at the last minute. One month into that WWF World title reign, Sid was reportedly discovered dead in his apartment in Puerto Rico, cause of death unknown.

It was later reported to be Eddie Gilbert, to everyone's relief.

In early 1996, Sid and fellow "clicke" member Kevin Nash signed a lucrative deal with WCW and made the jump, forming the "New World Order" and calling themselves the "Outsiders." This fell through quickly, however, as Sid and Arn Anderson got into a fight in Germany after Sid accidentally severed Anderson's right ear in the ring ropes during a match. Backstage, Sid attacked Anderson with a squeegee and nearly stabbed him to death with it.

Sid was reported dead in hospital a few hours later, but it was quickly realized that Anderson was the one they were thinking of. When Anderson protested the announcement of his death personally that night, everyone just went to the bar and had a good stiff drink and tried to forget about the whole thing.

Finally, afer being fired by WCW, Sid moved back to the WWF in early 1997, teaming with ex-bodyguard Shawn Michaels to win the WWF tag team titles at Wrestlemania 13. Sid was a member of this team until his death yesterday, and the doctors reportedly had to pry the belt from his cold, dead hands.

Sid Eudy was truly one of the greats, even if he did suck. He will be missed.

[All information above was derived from online sources, so it must be true.]