On 16 March 2007, I blogged about a wrestler who had died. His name was Bill Hughes, and I don't remember how I became aware of him, when the first email passed between us or who sent it. We had your typical email friendship. We never met in person, but I felt sad when I learned of his death.

I felt something different this past weekend when I learned of the death of another wrestler. My friend Ed. As with Bill, I don't remember when I first found myself in touch with Ed. I think he was living in Memphis but was at the point of moving somewhere else. Oklahoma maybe. I never met him in either place, and we didn't really keep in touch very well. But then he moved again, this time to Indianapolis, a city where another of my good wrestling friends lives. With two of them there, I had a goal to work towards, and eventually I made it there to wrestle them. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Readers of this blog will know that my favorite hold is the head scissors. They probably get tired of being reminded of that. But that was what brought Ed and me together. That was his favorite hold as well. Once my Indianapolis trip began to come together, we emailed each other often to suggest variations of the hold that we might try when I arrived. We were quite excited.

When I arrived in Indianapolis, my schedule demanded a doubleheader. I wrestled my friend Larry first--our fourth meeting, I think. We had a great time as usual, although he was somewhat handicapped by an injury and was also in recovery from a serious health issue. We'd been wrestling for an hour or more when Ed called. He told me that his dog was terminally ill, so he didn't have a long time to wrestle. That was disappointing for both of us, but I understood. Larry and I were still wrestling when Ed knocked on the door. The two of them knew each other, so we had a nice little visit. Before Larry departed to leave Ed and me to it, he took this picture of me working Ed over with a head scissors.

I remember that Ed and I created a little video of our wrestling. When the clip was finished, he hovered over my shoulder to watch it. He was sweating a great deal--both of us were--and he kept wiping the drops from where they fell on my shoulder or thigh. We had a great time that evening and both looked forward to wrestling again--a longer meeting this time.

But then I got Larry's call this weekend. He had tried to call Ed for the first time in a year or so. The man who answered told him that Ed died back in the winter. We don't know how. He was a strong sixty-something, as you can see in these pictures. I'd been afraid that something had happened to him. We hadn't emailed in some time--almost exactly a year--but I'd emailed him just recently to check in. When I didn't receive anything back from him, I was uneasy, but I hoped he was just busy.

Here's the brief text of my last two emails from him:

"Sure wish I had ur head in a good fig 4 scissors..... damn" (7/8/2008)

"Louisville might be doable, M.... I look at the pic of you in my head scissors from time to time and have good memories.. I love that action and I know you are about as hooked as I am.... Nothing like two big men going at it and having a good bonding session based on this masculine, primal and visceral action.....!!!!" (7/9/2008)