{"id":4813,"date":"2017-05-16T13:49:03","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T17:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/?p=4813"},"modified":"2017-05-16T13:49:03","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T17:49:03","slug":"awa-legend-pretty-boy-doug-somers-passes-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2017\/05\/16\/awa-legend-pretty-boy-doug-somers-passes-away\/","title":{"rendered":"AWA Legend &#8220;Pretty Boy&#8221; Doug Somers Passes Away"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was learned today that former AWA World Tag Team Champion &#8220;Pretty Boy&#8221; Doug Somers &#8211; whose tag team with &#8220;Playboy&#8221; Buddy Rose battled The Rockers in the AWA before they moved to the WWF &#8211; has passed away today, at the age of 65.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-4815\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2017\/05\/f0c15fc96edougsomers.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"421\" height=\"484\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2017\/05\/f0c15fc96edougsomers.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2017\/05\/f0c15fc96edougsomers-261x300.jpg 261w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2017\/05\/f0c15fc96edougsomers-365x420.jpg 365w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 421px) 100vw, 421px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Somers made his pro wrestling debut in 1971 and was a frequent star in the NWA, often competing in the NWA Tri-State territory (which eventually got absorbed by Bill Watts&#8217; Mid-South territory and NWA Western States territory in Texas. Primarily a tag team specialist, he captured tag team gold with both regions. In the 1980&#8217;s, he moved to Verne Gagne&#8217;s AWA, where he was paired with &#8220;Playboy&#8221; Buddy Rose and the duo captured AWA World Tag Team gold when they defeated Scott Hall and Curt Hennig in 1986. They would embark on a legendary feud with The Midnight Rockers (Marty Jannetty &amp; Shawn Michaels), eventually losing the titles to the young upstarts.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4817\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4817\" style=\"width: 479px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4817\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2017\/05\/untitled.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"479\" height=\"368\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2017\/05\/untitled.png 479w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2017\/05\/untitled-300x230.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2017\/05\/untitled-80x60.jpg 80w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 479px) 100vw, 479px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4817\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: WWE Network<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Somers would do enhancement work in the early 1990&#8217;s for both WCW and WWE, before spending the rest of his career in the independent circuit, officially retiring in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Details of his passing have not fully been released, but Somers was 65 at the time of his passing.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4814\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2017\/05\/01.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"336\" height=\"490\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2017\/05\/01.jpg 336w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2017\/05\/01-206x300.jpg 206w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2017\/05\/01-288x420.jpg 288w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 336px) 100vw, 336px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was learned today that former AWA World Tag Team Champion &#8220;Pretty Boy&#8221; Doug Somers &#8211; whose tag team with &#8220;Playboy&#8221; Buddy Rose battled The Rockers in the AWA before they moved to the WWF &#8211; has passed away today, at the age of 65. Somers made his pro wrestling debut in 1971 and was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":649,"featured_media":4816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,547,12],"tags":[835,834,836],"class_list":["post-4813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-in-memorium","category-news","tag-buddy-rose","tag-doug-somers","tag-the-rockers"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/649"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}