{"id":59892,"date":"2019-12-28T16:17:28","date_gmt":"2019-12-28T21:17:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/?p=59892"},"modified":"2019-12-28T16:17:28","modified_gmt":"2019-12-28T21:17:28","slug":"izzy-slapawitz-passes-away-at-71","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2019\/12\/28\/izzy-slapawitz-passes-away-at-71\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Southern Wrestler &#038; Manager Izzy Slapawitz Passes Away at 71"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The wrestling world was saddened on Saturday to learn that longtime Southern Wrestling star <strong>Izzy Slapawitz<\/strong>, who competed from 1976 to 1992 for the likes of the <strong>Poffo<\/strong>&#8216;s <strong>International Championship Wrestling (ICW), Mid South<\/strong>, and <strong>Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW)<\/strong>, as well as stints with <strong>American Wrestling Association (AWA), World Wrestling Federation (WWF)<\/strong>, and <strong>Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP)<\/strong>. He passed away from cardiac arrest during surgery.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Woke up this morning to the sad news that we have lost Izzy Slapowitz (Jeff Smith). Izzy was a big part of my early career breaking in around Knoxville. He is one of the nicest &amp; kindest guys I&#39;ve ever known in wrestling. Prayers for his wife, kids Thank you Izzy wRESTle in Peace <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/JAddzsh2Yr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/JAddzsh2Yr<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Beau James (@kingofkingsport) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kingofkingsport\/status\/1210962713523957765?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 28, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Originally from New York City, he relocated to Knoxville, Tennessee in the mid-1970s to concentrate on his pro wrestling career. He began in 1976 working for various &#8220;outlaw&#8221; (non-NWA affiliated) territories before heading to the AWA and several Southern-based NWA affiliates, like GCW, <strong>NWA Oklahoma<\/strong>, and others. While a talented grappler in his own right, Izzy became more utilized as a &#8220;manager of champions&#8221;, creating the <strong>Slapawitz Syndicate<\/strong>, a faction that featured the likes of <strong>Cowboy &#8220;Ace&#8221; Bob Orton Jr., &#8220;Macho Man&#8221; Randy Savage, Rip Rogers, Archie &#8220;The Mongolian Stomper&#8221; Gouldie<\/strong>, and more.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Ma_2kS3qJGY<\/p>\n<p>While he won the IWC US Heavyweight title in singles action, he saw more gold with the tag teams he managed, such as NWA Tri-States Tag Team Champions<strong> Oki Shikina<\/strong> and <strong>James &#8220;Sugar Bear&#8221; Harris<\/strong> (the latter would find greater success in WWF as Kamala The Ugandan Giant).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-59896\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/12\/7c7b353c09751f3bffabaaa44187c190.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"407\" height=\"419\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/12\/7c7b353c09751f3bffabaaa44187c190.jpg 407w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/12\/7c7b353c09751f3bffabaaa44187c190-291x300.jpg 291w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 407px) 100vw, 407px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The team he was most famous for directing, <strong>The Devil&#8217;s Duo<\/strong>, featured <strong>Doug Vines &amp; Jeff Sword<\/strong>, whom he guided through such promotions as ICW, <strong>Southern Championship Wrestling (SCW), Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling<\/strong>, and others.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-59894\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/12\/01-e1577567666587.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"389\" height=\"500\"><\/p>\n<p>The entire Last Word on Pro Wrestling staff offers their condolences to Izzy&#8217;s family, friends, and peers.<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The wrestling world was saddened on Saturday to learn that longtime Southern Wrestling star Izzy Slapawitz, who competed from 1976 to 1992 for the likes of the Poffo&#8216;s International Championship Wrestling (ICW), Mid South, and Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW), as well as stints with American Wrestling Association (AWA), World Wrestling Federation (WWF), and Jim Crockett [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":649,"featured_media":59895,"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":[2,547,6],"tags":[5945,5944],"class_list":["post-59892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-in-memorium","category-north-america","tag-devils-duo","tag-izzy-slapawitz"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59892","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=59892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}