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Grappling With Tragedy: Johnny Demchuk

Posted: Oct 19th 2024 By: Brian Damage - RingTheDamnBell.Wordpress.com

Grappling with Tragedy is a series of articles that deal with unfortunate, tragic incidents that have occurred throughout the history of professional wrestling. It is unlike the ‘Wrestling with Sin’ series that deals more with the seedier side of wrestling like arrests, murders and suicides. Grappling looks more at particular tragic incidents that have in some instances altered pro wrestling in some way.

Johnny Demchuk

Johnny Demchuk was a Russian born professional wrestler. He began his career in 1933 and wrestled all across various territories in places like Canada and England and in the United States in Texas, Ohio, Illinois, California, Arizona, Washington and Tennessee. Demchuk held the Midwest Wrestling Association Junior heavyweight title six times and was an NWA Southwest tag champion with partners such as Bob Cummings and Pepper Gomez.

Demchuk was a frequent opponent of Whipper Billy Watson up in Canada. On June 16th, 1962…Johnny Demchuk wrestled Oliver Winrush at Memorial Hall in Victoria, British Columbia. Twenty minutes into the match, Winrush had Demchuk in a hammerlock. Demchuk reportedly started to turn purple and the referee ordered Winrush to release his hold. Demchuk collapsed to the mat and was pronounced dead just minutes later.

It was determined that Demchuk suffered a massive heart attack as the cause of death. Johnny Demchuk was just 49 years old at the time of his death.