According to a report by PWInsider, we have received news that Eddie Crawford, also known as “The Snowman” during his days wrestling in the Mid-South and Memphis territories, has passed away after suffering a heart attack.
Crawford was trained and debuted in 1984 in Memphis following training by Jerry “The King” Lawler and Koko B. Ware. He wrestled as “The Snowman” and “Dr. Detroit” there before his move to Mid-South Wrestling in 1985. Following the Junkyard Dog’s move from Mid-South to WWE during that time, he received a quick push as he would go on to win the Television Championship and had established feuds with the likes of Dutch Mantel, Eddie Gilbert and Tom Prichard. While he did receive a good push from the office, he had issues connecting with the fans and couldn’t get the same type of spark that JYD had. Crawford would drop the Television Championship to Mantel and then would leave the Mid-South territory four months later.
Crawford began to do interviews accusing Memphis promoters Jerry Lawler and Jerry Jarrett of being racist in their treatment of him and was brought back as the masked babyface known as the Killer. He would exit in 1986 and return in 1987 for a run as The Snowman, before he finally got his biggest push when he returned to Memphis (changed to the USWA at that point) in 1990.
Crawford won the USWA Unified Championship in June 1990 and participated in a “worked shoot” angle as he would confront Lawler as security would try to remove him. Crawford would say he was just buying a ticket for the following show as Lawler pretended to be angered and annoyed by he was delivering his promo to sell the angle. Crawford would then have a heated dispute with their booker Eddie Marlin the company was being racist behind the scenes. King Cobra, who was one of Lawler’s longtime rivals, came out to deny those claims. Cobra got booed and he fired back at the crowd, with Crawford saying Cobra was only in the company because management knew he wasn’t good enough to be the champion.
Lawler then came out and challenged Snowman to a match the next Monday in Memphis, which Crawford won to capture the title. He would go on to feud with several people, but after a while he walked out of the promotion with the title belt because he claimed he was unhappy with his pay not being what he was promised as well as the fact that he was relegated to the mid-card despite being champion. Eddie Marlin would go on to publicly claim that Snowman was being stripped of the title for no-showing half a dozen shows and even claimed later on TV that Crawford tried to pawn the USWA Unified Title belt for drugs. The title would not be used again, and USWA began using a modified version of Lawler’s AWA Unified World Heavyweight belt in its place.
In his later years, Crawford had worked as a police officer in Collierville, Tennessee and taught bible studies as well. On behalf of everyone here at eWrestlingNews we would like to send our most sincerest condolences to the family and friends of Eddie Crawford during this tragic time.
