Former WCW star Charlie Norris has passed away at the age of 57.
The Cauliflower Alley Club announced the passing of Norris this afternoon. There’s no word yet on Norris’ cause of death, but PWInsider notes that in recent years Norris was living on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Northwestern Minnesota, while working as a personal trainer.
Norris began wrestling back in 1989, training with Eddie Sharkey and working for Sharkey’s PWA promotion in Minneapolis. Norris won the PWA Heavyweight Title within a few months of debuting, and went on to hold the title on five occasions. Norris debuted for the NWA in 1993, and signed with WCW that same year. He worked for WCW from August 1993 until January 1994, and received a strong push in his early days with the company. Norris’ last WCW match was a loss to then-WCW World Television Champion William Regal (fka Lord Steven Regal) on the January 29, 1994 edition of WCW Worldwide. Norris returned to his home promotion after leaving WCW, and held the PWA Tag Team Titles on two occasions, once with Sam Houston, and once with Derrek Dukes. He worked for the AWF and various indie promotions until around 2006 or so.
Norris worked WWE dark matches in 1991, which were tryouts for the company s they wanted to debut a new Native American wrestler, but they ended up going with Chris Chavis, who portrayed the Tatanka character. Norris worked as Johnny Grey Feather and Thunderblood in his WWE matches.
After leaving WCW in 1994, he filed a lawsuit against the company, accusing officials of asking him to perform demeaning and racially insulting acts, such as an Indian dance and the hand chops in the air. In the lawsuit he specifically named then-WCW executive Greg Gagne, who would call Norris “Big Chief” and would show him how the promotion wanted him to dance in the ring. Norris also alleged that he was underpaid at $800 per week, which Norris said was well below what other talents were making. Norris also said other talents were receiving travel and costuming pay, but he was not. Norris also alleged that WCW refused to honor a deal that he signed when Ole Anderson was in charge of talent. Norris eventually won the lawsuit.
Below is the full tweet from The Cauliflower Alley Club, along with several matches from his career, including the match with Regal:
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