The news broke nearly an hour ago on WrestleZone.com and several other news outlets that former WWE and WCW Superstar Sean O’Haire (real name- Sean Haire) passed away at the age of 43 on Monday in his home in Spartanburg, SC. Sean O’Haire trained at the WCW Power Plant before making his professional wrestling debut for WCW on June 26, 2000 and, after only three months on the main roster, O’Haire won his first championship when he and Mark Jindrak won the WCW Tag Team Titles. O’Haire & Jindrak would hold the tag titles on two different occasions before O’Haire was put into a team with Chuck Palumbo with this new team holding the WCW Tag Team Titles until WCW’s end in early 2001.
After three reigns as tag champions and nearly a year on the active roster, Sean O’Haire would make his way to WWE after WWE purchased WCW in March 2001. O’Haire would continue teaming with Chuck Palumbo as the reigning WCW Tag Team Champions would hang onto the titles before being defeated by The Undertaker & Kane at Invasion. After the Palumbo/O’Haire team was split, O’Haire was relocated to WWE’s developmental territory, OVW, where he remained until 2003 when he resurfaced with a new character on SmackDown. In what was arguably the biggest push in his career, O’Haire became the protege of the legendary “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, but when Piper was released from WWE in June 2003, Sean O’Haire was left on his own in WWE. O’Haire would primarily compete on Velocity before a motorcycle accident put O’Haire on the shelf for a month. and, during that time, WWE would send O’Haire back to OVW, but in April 2004, O’Haire mutually parted ways with WWE.
After spending a couple of years on the independent circuit, Sean O’Haire would retire from wrestling before making a career move to the world of kickboxing and MMA, but O’Haire never made it to any major MMA promotion and mostly competed at small MMA shows throughout 2007 before going off the radar for a few years. Sean O’Haire’s name would pop up in 2009 and 2011 when he was charged with battery and criminal trespassing, but the charges were later dropped. In 2011, O’Haire was again arrested for battery, but was later released on bail. Sean O’Haire is survived by his son, Theodore.
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