This Is What The Iron Sheik Is Up To Today
The Iron Sheik is a legend in the world of professional wrestling, and not simply for his talent or entertainment value. Don’t get us wrong, he certainly had more than enough of that to go around during his active years, but it was the part he played in the growth of the professional wrestling industry that made The Iron Sheik more of a legendary figure than he is a man.
In January 1984, The Iron Sheik, whose real name is Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri, lost the heavyweight wrestling title, a title he’d won only a month previously, to the great Hollywood Hulk Hogan. The official WWE website cites this match as the single event that put Hogan’s name on the map and brought the production to the mainstream for the first time in history. If it wasn’t for The Iron Sheik, the WWE might be nothing more than a forgotten thing of the past.
The WWE legend would wrestle until effectively retiring in 1991. After which, he’d appear a handful of times for gimmick wrestling matches and pose as a manager to The Sultan. Naturally, 30 years of being consistently off the mat brings up a couple of questions, like “What happened to The Iron Sheik?” and “Where is he now?” Don’t worry, we’re here to tell you.
He walked a hard road post-retirement
The once-great wrestler has been wracked with painful experiences coming from all sides since leaving the WWE. As reported by Yahoo! Sports, The Iron Sheik’s body was breaking down from a lifetime of high-impact athletics. He had bones that were misaligned and had admitted to his wife that he was in pain daily from top to bottom, and that’s only the start of this wrestling icon’s troubles.
In 2003, his 27-year-old daughter was murdered by her boyfriend. The pain of that loss sent the Sheik down a dark road. Bleacher Report says the former wrestler once snuck a razor blade, hidden in his mouth against his cheek, into a courtroom with plans of slitting the murderer’s throat, but the Sheik’s family ultimately stopped him. It surely couldn’t have helped that he was suffering from alcohol and cocaine addictions at the time, either. After his daughter’s death, he made attempts to get clean, but they didn’t stick. Not even rehab, where an employee snuck the Sheik an eight-ball, would do the trick. He only gave up substance abuse in its entirety after having a heart attack in 2005. Things couldn’t have gotten much lower for this favorite of the WWE’s villains, and luckily, they didn’t.
Things have gotten better
The dark days eventually waned for The Iron Sheik, though it’s safe to say the pain of his losses will stick with him for the rest of his days. Nobody goes into professional wrestling for the wins. It’s a fictional production. They take up the athletic performance because they love to entertain, and the Sheik has found a way to scratch that itch off the mat as well. Bleacher Report recounts how the legend gained a large following through appearances on The Howard Stern Show, which was later leveraged into a Twitter following. As of now, the Sheik has over 550,000 followers and tweets fun things like a threat to “suplex” Chris Hemsworth for playing Hulk Hogan in an upcoming biopic and other NSFW content.
Outside of Twitter, The Iron Sheik’s life seems simple. He’s close with his grandchildren and is known to, on occasion, give them a lecture that’s become famous in his family circle after the tragic death of his daughter about the dangers of being too hard on one’s self. And, with the exception of the occasional speaking gig (which can be booked here if you’re interested), that seems to be all the 78-year-old former wrestler is up to today. You didn’t expect his life to be too exciting forever, did you?
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