“Pretty Boy” Doug Somers Passes Away At Age 65

Photo: PWI

It’s being reported that former AWA World Tag Team Champion, ‘Pretty Boy’ Doug Somers sadly passed away earlier today at the age of 65. The cause of Somers’ death is presently unknown.

Trained by the legendary Harley Race, Somers had a successful career, particularly when working under Verne Gagne at AWA. There, Somers would go through an old school process to stardom, beginning his career as a member of the ring crew before moving up to refereeing and eventually becoming a pro wrestler. Somers’ career highlight when he and ‘Playboy’ Buddy Rose captured the World Tag Team Championships in a match against Scott Hall and Curt Hennig.

Somers stuck it out with AWA until the promotion’s demise as a prominent performer in the tag division. He would later work as an enhancement talent for both WCW and WWF before working the odd independent show as a seasoned veteran, making his final in-ring appearance in 2012.

In 2011, Somers made headlines when he filed a lawsuit against WWE and the McMahons regarding the issue of the company making use of his matches and likeness form AWA in a number of DVDs and classic on demand content. The court would eventually ruled in favor of WWE as the company had legally acquired the rights to the old AWA tapes in question.

The thoughts of everyone at Top Rope Press are with the family and friends of Doug Somers at this sad time.

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