The history of pro wrestling is riddled with somewhat forgotten performers who could have been bigger deals if it weren’t for poor presentations or, worse, untimely deaths. With a career lasting from 1974 until his death 1988, Adrian Adonis is an example of both. Fans of “Golden Era” WWE who remember him likely remember Adonis for his homophobic presentation of a cartoon effeminate.
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But that WWE run was only one aspect of Adrian Adonis, who had a completely different persona before that, and spent much of his career as an accomplished tag team specialist. Let’s take a look at Adonis’ career, including how much “Rowdy” Roddy Piper figured into it.
10 Started As a Brawler
With a background in high school amateur wrestling and a brief run playing for the Canadian Football League, Adrian Adonis debuted in 1974, initially wrestling under the ring name of Keith Franks after training with Kiwi wrestler turned Canadian mainstay veteran Fred Atkins.
As the ‘70s drew closer to the ‘80s, Keith Franks evolved into Adrian Adonis, developing a persona that would surprise fans that only know of his WWE character: a brawler with a biker persona, complete with leather jacket.
9 Tag Partners And Rivals With Roddy Piper
Like many wrestlers of the pre-”WWE goes national” era, Adrian Adonis traveled the world, roaming from territory to territory, and had his earliest encounters with Roddy Piper in the west coast territories in 1977.
There, they formed a tag team and took on big-name opponents like Chavo Guerrero, Mando Guerrero, and Andre The Giant, and even held the NWA Americas Tag Team Championship for a week-long run. In 1979, Adonis moved on to Portland, Oregon-based and NWA-affiliated Pacific Northwest Wrestling. In NWA, he and Piper were often opponents in both singles matches and tag team bouts.
8 The East-West Connection
In fall of 1979, Adrian Adonis’ travels brought him to the midwestern giant American Wrestling Association, where he once again joined up with a big name in Jesse Ventura, future WWE commentator and movie star. The two formed a tag team called The East-West Connection based on their disparate origins, with Adonis being born in New York and the Minnesota-born Ventura being billed as from California.
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The two would hold the AWA World Tag Team Championship for 329 dayes, and continue to work together as a tag team when they were both brought into WWE in 1981, although they wouldn’t capture any tag titles together.
7 Tag Team Champion With Dick Murdoch
After a couple of years in WWE, injuries would catch up to Jesse Ventura, forcing Adrian Adonis to find a new tag team partner. That partner came in Dick Murdoch, who hailed from Texas, so they kept a good thing going and called their tag team the North-South Connection.
Together, the duo managed to hold the WWE World Tag Team Title for 279 days after beating Rocky Johnson and Tony Atlas, the Soul Patrol, in spring of 1984. Once they dropped the belts to Barry Windham & Mike Rotundo, Adonis and Murch ended up going their separate ways.
6 Gradually Became “Adorable”
Now a singles star managed by Bobby Heenan and later Jimmy Hart, Adrian Adonis gradually began the slow burn into becoming the character by which WWE fans would remember him over the course of 1986. No longer weight training or tanning, he stopped looking like the average wrestler, and shaved his body hair to adopt a more cherubic look.
Before long, Adonis dyed his hair blonde, started wearing excessive amounts of makeup, scarves, and gift bows in his hair, and affected a more effeminate behavior, and “Adorable” Adrian Adonis was born.
5 Gave His Jacket To Roddy Piper
As previously stated, “Adorable” Adrian Adonis was a stark contrast to the biker character clad in a leather jacket. But said jacket figures into wrestling history in a surprising way that persists to this day.
In a January 1986 edition of Roddy Piper’s talk show segment Piper’s Pit, while Adonis Adonis was gradually shedding his old gimmick, Adonis actually gifted his leather jacket to Piper, who made the jacket part of his look. Of course, the tradition would continue in 2018, as Piper’s son would lend the jacket to Ronda Rousey for her official WWE debut at Royal Rumble.
4 Had His Own Talk Show
Speaking of Piper’s Pit, in 1986, Roddy Piper took half a year off from WWE after WrestleMania 2, with Adrian Adonis hosting a new talk show segment in its place. The Flower Shop debuted shortly after and was co-hosted by Adonis’ manager Jimmy Hart.
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That wasn’t all Adonis took from Piper, as he also acquired his enforcer “Cowboy” Bob Orton — who’d stick with Adonis once Piper returned — as well as fellow heel Don Muraco. With Piper now back, the former tag partners were at odds with competing talk shows, which would escalate to Piper destroying the Flower Shop set.
3 Feud With Roddy Piper
After an attack via crutch by Roddy Piper put Adrian Adonis on the shelf in kayfabe, Adonis was briefly fired by WWE for unknown reasons, but brought back two months later, reportedly because Piper simply feuding with Muraco and Orton didn’t work. This led to a huge hair vs. hair match between Piper and Adonis at WrestleMania III, which Piper won.
Brutus Beefcake would do the honors of cutting Adonis’ hair, which was meant to set up a feud between Beefcake and Adonis, but Adrian Adonis ended up getting fired (again) soon after ‘Mania.
2 Wrestled For NJPW
Aside from WWE and AWA, one other frequent haunt for Adrian Adonis was New Japan Pro-Wrestling, which had a working relationship with WWE. There, he took part in the 1983 and 1984 editions of the MSG Tag League — now known as the World Tag League — alongside Dick Murdoch, as well as the 1984 and 1985 IWGP League, precursors to the G1 Climax tournament.
Following his firing from WWE, Adonis returned to NJPW in 1988, and once again teamed with Dick Murdoch, this time going after Masa Saito and Riki Choshu’s IWGP Tag Team Title, which they failed to obtain.
1 Died In A Car Accident
After stints in New Japan and his old stomping ground of AWA, Adrian Adonis was wrestling in Canada when he sadly met his demise on July 4th, 1988.
En route to a show with three other wrestlers in a minivan, the driver was alleged to have swerved the van to avoid a moose in the road, but unfortunately ended up careening off the side of a bridge. Adrian Adonis sustained head injuries in the accident and died hours later at the age of 34.
