Various: “The Patriot” Del Wilkes Passes Away, Friday’s NJPW Strong Card, Indies

Jul 2, 2021

“The Patriot” Del Wilkes Passes Away at Age 59

Former wrestler Del Wilkes passed away on Thursday at the age of 59, according to Wilkes’ family.

Wilkes’ passing was first announced in an official statement posted on Facebook by Allen Wright Adkins on behalf of Wilkes’ family. His passing was also stated to have been due to a heart attack.

“At the request of his family, it’s with a devasted heart that I let you know Heaven gained one of the most special men I’ve ever had the honor to know today. Del Wilkes, I’ve loved you for 40 years and always will. Rest in peace, my dear friend…you’ll be missed more than you could ever know.”

Wilkes’ 10-year career in wrestling spanned from 1988 to 1998 and included stints in American Wrestling Association, All Japan Pro Wrestling, WCW, and WWF.

Wilkes was most known for his “The Patriot” character, which debuted in Global Wrestling Federation in 1991, and his feud against Bret Hart and the Hart Foundation in 1997 during his second stint in WWF.

In an interesting historical wrestling note, Wilkes’ “The Patriot” entrance theme song in WWF would later become the basis for Kurt Angle’s iconic entrance theme song in the company.

Full Card for Friday’s Episode of NJPW Strong

New Japan Pro Wrestling recently announced the full card for tonight’s Fireworks Frenzy themed episode of NJPW Strong, which airs on New Japan World starting at 10PM EST.

Lio Rush vs. Adrian Quest
Jordan Clearwater vs. Hikuleo
Fred Rosser vs. Bateman

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

AEW recently announced that they have rescheduled their upcoming AEW Dynamite event in Boston, Massachusetts from its scheduled date of September 8th to a new date of October 27th. No official reason was given for the schedule change.

Major League Wrestling announced that Matt Cross has recently signed an official contract with the company. Cross was among those drafted to the company as part of this week’s final round of MLW’s Open Draft.

During a recent interview with the Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette podcast, Cassie Lee and Jessica McKay (former Peyton Royce & Billie Kay in WWE) revealed that they are currently waiting for their green cards to be approved or receive a potential work sponsorship in order to be able to resume working in the United States.

Cassie Lee – “The difficult thing for us is that — this is a whole thing but, we still don’t have our green cards, so we’re not allowed to work until we get those or until we can find some sponsorship anywhere else but it’s like we’re so excited, we have all this freedom and we have so many ideas, but pump the brakes because we can’t do any of it so it’s like this podcast that we’re doing, we’re not making any money off it or anything like that. It’s purely just to get our name out there and kind of try and stay relevant. It’s been tough just knowing we have all these things we wanna do but can’t do it.
We’re just in this holding pattern right now. There’s literally nothing we can do. It’s just waiting. We’ve been in this process for four years which is basically unheard of but, fact just came into it that no one could control the pandemic, whatever, government or that kind of stuff.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com

ROH announced a new match for the card of their Best in the World 2021 event on July 11th in Baltimore, Maryland: