According to a number of his close friends and family members, Adam Dykes, who wrestled for a decade around the Northwest as the masked El Antorcha and later Adam Firestorm, passed away last night.
Adam was friend of mine dating back over 15 years, to when I was doing backyard wrestling shows at Leading Edge Gymnastics in Everett and he would come down from Canada to work as a referee. I ended up in ICW with Tim Flowers and he worked mostly for Michelle Starr's ECCW, and despite being friends and wrestlers in the same part of the country for years we actually only had one match together, on a Portland Wrestling TV taping. Adam was an incredibly nice friendly guy, and while I realize this if often said I honestly cannot remember anyone ever saying a bad word about him.
Several months ago he was nearly killed in an auto accident when a vehicle he was traveling in after a show ran into a elk. In his own words: I was in the front passenger seat. That hole in the windshield was from a 600 lb elk smashing me in the face after it ran into us going 100 km/h coming home from a show last night. These hunter dudes came along and had the temerity to be incredibly pissed off at us. They said They'd been hunting all weekend and got nothing. Now they were staring at a huge dead elk that they couldn't eat (something about roadkill releasing some sort of glandular mumbo jumbo that spoils them). As far as whether or not it landed in my lap... it hit the front of the fan, flew up into the windshield and hit me in the face, sending glass directly into me, then flipped right over the roof. i am still picking glass out of my skin, and swallowed some as well. It was even in my socks somehow. Oh yeah, it hit me with it's butt. A butt to the face. Kind of like a elk whoopie cushion. Everyone in the van was 100% positive I was dead. Apparently, I said some funny things that I don't remember saying. I also neatly removed my glasses, folded them up, and put them away.
Adam had an awesome sense of humor and was always laughing. Of late he had been living in Victoria, BC where he ran a video production company. He was also the co-host of Ringside Live with Ian Hamilton.
Adam had been a subscriber to the Figure Four since issue number one, I think the only person in the entire world who was, and he would often tease me by putting photos of the horrendous first issue on the board and threatening to release it to the public someday. Adam himself got his start in the business as a writer for Northwest Wrestling Magazine and went on to write programs for West Coast Championship Wrestling. He was trained by Michelle Starr and for a period Velvet McIntyre, and won several local titles over the course of the next decade. His career had wound down after suffering a serious arm injury several years back. He came on our radio show a few times over the years and they were always fun, and I will try to post some on the front page in the next few days for everyone to listen to. You can also hear his work on Ringside Live at theringsidelive.com.
I am so sad for his friends and his family and I waited a long time to put this up because I did not want to believe that it was true. Adam was a great guy and will be dearly missed by everyone who knew him.
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