The Iron Sheik has died, aged 81.
When the WWF took off in the early-mid 80's, the Iron Sheik was one of its main villains. He won the WWF World title from Bob Backlund, as a set up to lose the title to the up and coming, Hulk Hogan.
The Iron Sheik was Hossein Khosrow Vaziri, a legitimate Greco-Roman wrestler from Iran, he had an infamous run-in with Billy Robinson, during the Brit's early years in the USA, when (during a training session) the Sheik said he couldn't be pinned by anyone, and Robinson did that.
During the Gulf War era, The Iron Sheik was "re-branded" as Colonel Mustafa, and it was under this name that he appeared in the UK rings, during WWF tours, usually taking on Sgt. Slaughter.
After his run as Colonel Mustafa, he was hired as an “enhancement talent” by WCW who gave him a one year contract paying a sum in the low six figure range…..or so they thought. After a few matches, it became apparent that he wasn’t even up to that and it was realised that they had made a mistake: he was sent home, told “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” and they basically ate the cost of the contract.
A little over a year later, it emerged that he was still getting paid and it was then that they realised that they had actually signed him to a one year ROLLING contract which had automatically renewed! They were on the hook for another year of paying him to stay at home and do nothing. The Iron Sheik was a much smarter man than many gave him credit for, and I suspect that he knew exactly what was going on and kept quiet