Steve McMichael

Greg Oliver

Steve McMichael

Steve “Mongo” McMichael, who was an announcer and a wrestler in WCW after a stellar football career which got him into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, has died after a battle with ALS. He was 67.

Ric Flair, who was a member of the Four Horsemen with him, broke the news.

As a wrestler, McMichael was most noted for bringing his then-wife, Debra, into pro wrestling as a valet, and for being a part of the Four Horseman stable.

Stephen Douglas McMichael was born October 17, 1957, in Houston, Texas, but grew up in Freer, Texas, a small town in South Texas. For such an impact player, McMichael didn’t play football until age 12. He was a triple-threat in high school, voted all-state on offense, defense and as a kicker.

At the University of Texas at Austin, McMichael focused on defense as a defensive tackle. For his play over four seasons as a Texas Longhorn, from 1976 to 1979, McMichael was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in July 2010. A highlight was being named defensive MVP at the Hula Bowl in 1979. McMichael did not graduate, however.

The 6-foot-2, 270 pound McMichael was selected in the third-round by New England Patriots in the 1980 NFL Draft. The Patriots, though, only played McMichael on special teams in the regular season.

Cut before his second season, the Chicago Bears signed him as a free agent, and the legend of Mongo / Ming the Merciless began.

He played 15 years in NFL as a defensive tackle, 225 games, with 95 career sacks. McMichael was an NFL All-Pro four times. He was a part of the 1984 Super Bowl-winning Bears team under coach Mike Ditka.

“I love just the spectacle of the game and the violence,” McMichael told the Austin American-Statesman in 1991. “I guess that’s very Marquis de Sade to say that. But that’s why people go to the games, isn’t it?”

He played with broken fingers, broken ribs, hairline fracture of a shin, sprained ankles, and had eight knee operations, not missing a game from Week 7 of 1981 until Week 18 of 1993. “When the adrenaline is flowing, I don’t feel it. Most of these injuries, I don’t know when they happened. After the game is when I feel the pain,” McMichael told the American-Statesman.

In a lengthy Chicago Tribune feature in August 2019, writer Dan Wiederer noted that “a full 34 years after the Bears won their only Super Bowl, McMichael remains one of the most colorful and compelling characters from Chicago’s most iconic team.”

Away from the ring, McMichael hosted Bears-TV show — and won an Emmy — and later worked in radio. For a time, he owned Mongo McMichael’s restaurant in Romeoville, Illinois. McMichael played rhythm guitar in a band called Chicago 6, and coached the Chicago Slaughter of the Continental Indoor Football League, and won a championship. He ran for mayor of Romeoville and lost.

In 1995, McMichael ended up in World Championship Wrestling as an announcer — but he had been always into the sport.

“I’ve been a wrestling fan my whole life … As far back as I can remember, I’ve watched wrestling on television. When I was a little kid growing up in Texas, that was the first thing I’d turn on,” he told Matt Meachem in a syndicated column from Tribune Media Services.

Pre-WCW, McMichael was one of the football players in Lawrence Taylor’s corner at WrestleMania XI for the main event bout against Bam Bam Bigelow. Before that show, McMichael sat beside Vince McMahon for commentary on Monday Night Raw on March 20, and even brawled with Kama Mustafa (the future Godfather).

In November 1995, he told Meachem how the WCW deal came about. “I was just looking for something to do,” said McMichael, “and my wife suggested that I put together a tape of some of my television work. I sent it to the WCW, and (executive vice president) Eric Bischoff looked at it and gave me a call.” (That wife would be Debra Marshall, and they were married from 1985 to 1988.)

McMichael was used as an announcer, and had a first take on it: “When I went to do these shows live, the way these guys move around in the ring and their athleticism surprised me.”

Paired with Bobby Heenan on WCW Monday Nitro, he learned to stay on his toes. “Even if you’re not a wrestling fan, you should tune in just to laugh at what this guy says,” said McMichael. “It’s hard to keep up with him. He’ll work on you and if you don’t have a comeback you just sit there dumb-founded at what he says. Bobby Heenan is unbelievable.”

Naturally, Meachem asked McMichael to compare football and wrestling. “Every one of these wrestlers could put on a uniform, learn what to do, and become professional football players,” said McMichael. “They are that kind of athlete. It’s more physically demanding than pro football, because they go out there and do these high-risk maneuvers to please the crowd and they get hurt.”

McMichael noted that he had found a new home. “I thought I would miss the camaraderie in the dressing room — that’s what everybody says — but you know, I have more in common with these wrestlers than I did with most football players. It’s like being at a family reunion. Whether we’re backstage, in the dressing room or out on the town, we all have the same outlook on life.”

He also predicted that one day he’d be called to perform in ring. “So far, I’ve been treated with respect and nobody’s got up in my face,” said McMichael, “but when that happens, I believe I will get up in the ring to extract a measure of revenge on whoever the perpetrator was. It’s more than likely.”

In an October 1995 interview in The Times (Munster, Indiana), McMichael addressed the appeal of pro wrestling:

People like to be entertained. Wrestling is entertainment. Sports fans like contact. They’ve got lots of it here. Why do they come to auto races. To see the crashes. Anybody who thinks it’s fixed is full of (bleep). It’s physical and it’s violence. This is full-body contact. But it’s entertaining.

I feel I’m a natural entertainer. If you’re a character, they’ve got their eyes wide open and they’re watching you. If you’re a robot and you’re in line with everyone else with a cookie-cutter image, you’re boring and not entertaining.

The WCW is full of championship athletes who have that character. When I go have a couple of brews with the guys after the matches, it’s like I’m with pure kin, like at a family reunion.

Debra McMichael was the conduit for Mongo to get into the ring. In April 1996, Ric Flair started hitting on her at ringside, and her husband had to stand up for her. That led to McMichael and another former football player, Kevin Greene (who died in December 2020), against Flair and Arn Anderson. In a wild storyline, during the bout at The Great American Bash, McMichael was offered a briefcase of money, turned on Greene, and joined The Four Horsemen. Later, McMichael and the Horsemen would feud with the Dungeon of Doom, and, in a convoluted storyline, with Jeff Jarrett.

Former football stars Greene and Reggie White (who died in December 2004) also battled McMichael. White hyped the match in April 1997, telling The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin), “Steve McMichael, one-on-on, me and him, that’s the way I wanted it,” said White. “It seems like to me that he has a little problem controling everything. His wife is in there (the ring) with him and she has the crown on. And to me, it looks right now, he’s the one who should be wearing the crown.”

McMichael’s top run in WCW was as US champion, beating Jarrett on August 21, 1997, and losing to Curt Hennig at Fall Brawl.

In his autobiography, To Be The Man, Flair said that “Mongo was a marginal performer, but he had a million-dollar look to go along with his Super Bowl ring.”

Debra McMichael became a manager, and her husband (and later ex-husband) fought her charges, including Jarrett, Eddie Guerrero and Alex Wright.

Mongo was not shy about parading his Super Bowl ring, though he had to always find someone he trusted to give the ring to while he was in the ring. It was used as an angle where Bill Goldberg (another ex NFLer) stole the ring and McMichael chased him down and used a pipe to get it back.

In early 1998, Mongo was a part of a new group of Four Horsemen, including Flair, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko and manager Arn Anderson.

The last appearance of Steve McMcMichael in WCW on was the February 8, 1999 episode of Nitro.

He didn’t have anything to do with pro wrestling until appearing for TNA in 2008, refereeing the Monster’s Ball Match at Bound For Glory in 2008.

In March 2001, McMichael married Misty Davenport, and they had one daughter, Macy, born in January 2008.

McMichael was very public with his battles with ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. His wife would tweet out photos of various teammates and wrestlers visiting him. A campaign was started to try to get him into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, as well, and he was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 2024 on February 8, 2024.

He was unable to attend the induction on August 3, 2024, but instead, the organizers did the ceremony at his bedside, surrounded by friends and family.

A quote he gave to Wiederer in the 2019, summed up McMichael’s take on his journey: “If you really want to enjoy your life and get everything you can out of it,” he said, “make sure you understand that it’s the journey that’s the reward, baby, it’s not the destination. The journey is what makes you who you are. The mountaintop is great. But how you got there is what you remember.”

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