Pro-Wrestling Gary Albright Page Pro-Wrestling Gary Albright Page
Last updated 15 January 2000
GARY ALBRIGHT May 18, 1963 - January 7, 2000
Gary Albright, best known as a wrestler for All Japan, died in the ring during an independent show in Pennsylvania on Friday night. He was 36.
Albright was working a WXW show in Hazelton, PA promoted by Afa the Wild Samoan when he reportedly collapsed in the ring. Albright was married to one of Afa's daughters.
Albright won many amateur championships as well as professional wrestling titles, including the UWFi World Heavyweight Championship, defeating Vader near the end of 1994 and holding the title for about six weeks.
More details on this story can be found at 1wrestling.com.
Here is BostonIdol's biography of Albright for tOA. Many thanks to him for making it available for inclusion in this article. You can also find it, with pictures, at http://www.otherarena.com/htm/cgi-bin/wrindex.cgi?garyalbr There are many other fine biographies at tOA as well.
GARY ALBRIGHT
Gary Albright began his career in pro wrestling in 1988 as Vokhan Singh in Bruce Hart's Calgary Stampede promotion. He teamed with Mukhan Singh (Mike Shaw, Norman the Lunatic) to defeat the British Bulldogs for the International tag titles. Albright was probably paired with Shaw because both of them weighed over 300 pounds, even though neither one looked like they were from Karachi, Pakistan. The Singhs held the tag titles for four months, losing them to Chris Benoit and Beef Wellington.
Albright made his debut with UWFi on 8/24/91, knocking out Yoji Anjoh in 7'29. UWFi matches focused on striking, suplexes, and submissions. Over the next eight months, Albright was pushed as a suplex machine. Albright's massive size made his suplexes seem very impressive and he typically won by knocking out (ten count) his opponents with brutal german suplexes.
Albright's first UWFi push culminated on 05/08/1992 when he knocked out Nobuhiko Takada, UWFi's biggest Japanese star, with a german suplex in front of an announced crowd of 14,000 at Yokohama Arena. Albright continued his winning ways in singles and tag matches until he lost a rematch with Takada on 09/21/92 when he submitted to Takada's cross arm breaker.
Albright continued to win singles matches, typically in less than five minutes, but he was pushed aside by the bookers when Vader started working with UWFi. Albright teamed with Mark Fleming and Dan Severn in several matches, with his partners losing all of them.
Albright began to get pushed again in 1994 as part of UWFi's "Best of the World" tournament. Albright knocked out Billy Scott and Yoji Anjoh in the first two rounds to advance to a semifinal match with Nobuhiko Takada. On 06/10/1994, in front of a sellout crowd at Budokan Hall, Albright lost by submission in 16'26 in what was probably his finest professional match.
Albright defeated Kiyoshi Tamura on 08/18/1994 to finish third in the tournament, the same night that Vader defeated Takada for the UWFi title. During his three years in UWFi, Albright had been able to develop his mat skills and was now a well rounded shoot style worker rather than a one dimensional suplex machine.
Albright was given a renewed push to challenge Vader for the UWFi title in a UWFi fan's dream match. On 10/08/1994, Albright forced Vader to sumbit to the cross arm breaker in a main event tag team match, then on 11/30/1994, Albright forced Takada to submit to a cross arm breaker in the main event to earn a match with Vader in January.
Albright and Vader were not ideal opponents for each other. Both relied heavily on power moves which were largely negated by each other's size, so their match on 01/16/95 was disappointing with Vader winning in 11'25 with a choke hold. Nevertheless, the build up and the match were a commercial success, with Albright and Vader drawing large sellout crowds in their two tag team main events, Albright's contenders match with Takada, and the Vader versus Albright title match.
Despite their successes at the gate, UWFi was having problems because they had not pushed enough of their young talent. On 05/17/95, Albright lost to Masahito Kakihara to build up Kakihara for a match with Takada.
On 06/18/95, Albright was supposed to put over Kiyoshi Tamura. Angered by his new role, Albright sabotaged the match with Tamura by refusing to cooperate. He ignored the referee's instructions leading to the now infamous quote of "Break Gary, break!" Albright also laid around on the mat, not trying to secure any holds of his own and not selling for any of Tamura's holds either.
Eventually Tamura secured a rear choke and Albright tapped out. Albright left the ring without shaking Tamura's hand and a dejected Tamura, on the eve of what was supposed to have been his biggest victory as a professional, broke down crying in the ring. Two months later, on 08/18/95, Albright returned to UWFi and submitted to Tamura in the main event. Six days later UWFi announced a working agreement with New Japan and Albright left the promotion.
Albright signed with All Japan Pro Wrestling. On 10/25/95, Albright lost to Toshiaki Kawada at Budokan Hall in a semi-main event singles match which stole the show from the Misawa versus Kobashi main event.
Albright teamed with Stan Hansen on the following tour and the pair finished third in the Real World Tag League. On 01/24/1996, Albright and Hansen beat Kawada and Taue for the Unified tag titles, but lost them four weeks later on 02/20/1996 in a rematch.
Albright challenged Mitsuharu Misawa for the Triple Crown on 03/02/1996. Their match had a few exciting moments, but was disappointing overall because the contrast between Albright's UWFi style and Misawa's high flying style was too great to overcome. Misawa won by pinfall after "rolling elbow" forearm smash.
Albright was never pushed again as a singles wrestler in All Japan, finishing seventh in each of his four Carny appearances while scoring a few upsets. Albright teamed with Sabu in the 1996 Tag League, finishing last.
Albright teamed with Steve Williams and Lacrosse to form the Triangle of Power in 1997. Albright and Williams won the Unified tag titles on 07/25/1997 and went on to finish third in the Tag League. In 1998, Albright became the leader of T.O.P. after Williams left the promotion, but Albright's faction was not pushed.
Albright teamed with Kimala in the 1998 Tag League and teamed with Wolf Hawkfield to finish last in the 1999 Tag League. Albright won his final match in All Japan in 1999, beating Masao Inoue in 8'35. Albright was scheduled to appear again in All Japan in February, 2000, but he died in the ring at an indy show in Hazelton, PA on 01/07/2000.
Albright will be remembered for his brutal array of suplexes and his matches with Takada and Kawada, but it is worth noting that he became an accomplished all around wrestler during his four years in UWFi. Unfortunately he was slow to adapt to the pro style wrestling of All Japan and his deteriorating health limited what he could do in the ring.
Thanks to Hisa's Dojo, Jason Campbell's Supercards, John Williams, All Japan Pro Wrestling, and 1Wrestling for contributing information to this bio.
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