{"id":73512,"date":"2020-07-28T16:52:47","date_gmt":"2020-07-28T20:52:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/?p=73512"},"modified":"2020-07-28T16:52:47","modified_gmt":"2020-07-28T20:52:47","slug":"big-slam-aka-crybaby-waldo-passes-away-at-54","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2020\/07\/28\/big-slam-aka-crybaby-waldo-passes-away-at-54\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Slam (aka Crybaby Waldo) Passes Away at 54"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Longtime indie fans were saddened to hear of the passing of <strong>Big Slam<\/strong>, a 31-year veteran of the US indies who got his start in 1989 as <strong>Crybaby Waldo<\/strong>. His death was originally announced by his wife on her Facebook page. He was just 54 years old.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FMichelleMarieFerry%2Fposts%2F10157584522046375&amp;width=500\" width=\"500\" height=\"695\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nPhiladelphia&#8217;s Walter MacDonald began his journey into professional wrestling in 1989 as Crybaby Waldo, and started working in the East Coast indies with the <strong>Tri-State Wrestling Alliance (TWA)<\/strong>. In 1992, he joined <strong>Eastern Championship Wrestling (ECW)<\/strong>, but left before the company went &#8220;Extreme&#8221; in 1994. In the mid-90s, he changed his name to <strong>Big Slam Vader<\/strong>, and began working for the likes of Virginia&#8217;s <strong>Independent Professional Wrestling Alliance (IPWA)<\/strong>, North Carolina&#8217;s <strong>NWA 2000<\/strong> and <strong>Southern Championship Wrestling (SCW)<\/strong>, and many other regional indie promotions on the East Coast and Mid-Atlantic area.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Chief Wahoo McDaniel vs Big Slam  - 1994\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dvhqNSgwQI8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>He was no stranger to some of the heavy-hitting, making his debut with <strong>Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW)<\/strong> in 1999, and in 2001, he made his debut with <strong>Jersey Championship Wrestling<\/strong> (JCW, the promotion <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/2020\/07\/28\/game-changer-wrestling-the-revolution-is-being-televised\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">that became Game Changer Wrestling<\/a> in 2015). He won multiple championships over his 31-year career, including the NWA National Heavyweight Championship (currently held by <strong>Aron Stevens<\/strong>, formerly Damian Sandow, in the new NWA) in 1997, as well as the IPWA Heavyweight Championship and the NWA Jersey Heavyweight Championship. He continued to work up until recent health issues, including promoting his own shows.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"&quot;The Blockbuster&quot; Chris Wylde vs.  &quot;Big Slam&quot; Vader\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nJbeoUxS-Wc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Last Word on Pro Wrestling sends our deepest condolences to Walter MacDonald\u2019s family, as well as his friends, peers, and colleagues in the pro wrestling community. Stay tuned to the <a href=\"http:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" 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<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Rest in Peace Walt McDonald aka Crybaby Waldo aka Big Slam Vader. You were a good dude and were very kind to me. Rest easy my friend.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Brian Heffron aka The Blue Meanie (@BlueMeanieBWO) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BlueMeanieBWO\/status\/1287838964062322692?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 27, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I am so sad to hear Big Slam passed away. I\u2019ve known Waldo from day one of my career. First to manage him as one of The Monks prior to us both being part of Tri State Wrestling.<\/p>\n<p>Rest well my friend.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/RIPSlam?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#RIPSlam<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jim Molineaux \u270c\ufe0f\u2764\ufe0f (@jimmolineaux) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jimmolineaux\/status\/1288210258930925569?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 28, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<div class=\"InformationBoxRow\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"InformationBoxRow\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Longtime indie fans were saddened to hear of the passing of Big Slam, a 31-year veteran of the US indies who got his start in 1989 as Crybaby Waldo. His death was originally announced by his wife on her Facebook page. He was just 54 years old. Philadelphia&#8217;s Walter MacDonald began his journey into professional [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":649,"featured_media":73513,"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":[547,6],"tags":[6683,6684,6685],"class_list":["post-73512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-memorium","category-north-america","tag-big-slam","tag-big-slam-vader","tag-crybaby-waldo"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73512","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=73512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}