A WWE Hall of Famer tragically died just six years after winning the Royal Rumble.
Millions of WWE fans are counting the seconds until the road to Wrestlemania officially begins this weekend.
WWEBig John Studd was a WWE star in the 1980s[/caption]
WWEHe had several battles with the iconic Andre The Giant[/caption]
WWEStudd won the 1989 WWE Royal Rumble[/caption]
GettyThe icon tragically died aged 47 after a lengthy health battle[/caption]
That is when the 37th annual Royal Rumble takes place on Saturday at Tropicana Field in Florida.
It promises to be an absolute thriller as some of wrestling’s biggest names prepare to take part.
‘Hacksaw’ Jim Duggan eliminated One Man Gang to win the first-ever over-the-rope Rumble match at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada way back in 1988.
The second edition took place twelve months later at Houston Texas’s The Summit – a venue that has now been transformed into a superchurch.
This time it was legendary powerhouse Big John Studd that had his hand raised after eliminating Ted DiBiase to win the Rumble.
The 6ft 10in and 365lb monster was well-known to fans of that era for his battles with Andre The Giant to determine the “True Giant of Wrestling”.
Studd, real name John William Minton, also faced the likes of Hulk Hogan and Haku during his WWE heyday.
He was also a big hit away from the ring with a number of movie cameos as well as an appearance in the hugely-popular A-Team.
Despite never winning the world title in WWE, he was a one-time tag-team champ but undoubtedly his finest achievement came when winning the Rumble.
But while many have gone on to have WrestleMania glory after that achievement, that was not quite the case for Studd.
Studd’s last match was against The Honky Tonk Man in 1993 but he retired from in-ring competition after he collapsed following its conclusion.
Studd, who was married to Donna and had three children, Robert, Jannelle and Sean, noticed a lump in his armpit later that year before a doctor found a large tumor in his chest.
He underwent chemotherapy and was even informed that he might be able to wrestle again inside six months, but unfortunately the cancer returned in 1994.
He was given a month to live after no suitable bone marrow donor was found but he underwent an autotransplantation procedure that had just a 7 per cent success rate.
The tumor remitted but in September his lungs collapsed before he then underwent another round of chemotherapy in February 1995.
But in a heartbreaking discovery, it was found that the tumor had spread widely and Studd died from lymphoma on March 20 aged 47.
WWE recognised his lifetime’s work by inducting him into the Hall of Fame class of 2004.
GettyBoth Studd and Andre are now in the WWE Hall of Fame[/caption]