Dennis Stamp, a 1965 Brainerd High School graduate and the Warriors' first state wrestling champion, died of lymphoma March 13 according to Wikipedia.
Stamp, who was inducted into the Brainerd Warriors Hall of Fame in 1996, won the 189-pound Minnesota State High School League championship in 1965. He finished his senior season with a 22-2-1 mark and his Warrior career with a 37-11-3 record.
Stamp went on to play football at Concordia College in Moorhead where he earned All-MIAC and NAIA All-American honors in football. He also was a 3-time MIAC wrestling champion for the Cobbers and finished sixth in the NAIA national tournament in 1968.
Stamp went on to become a professional wrestler and referee and lived in Amarillo, Texas.
According to Wikipedia, Stamp was best known for wrestling during the 1970s and 1980s for the American Wrestling Association and for the National Wrestling Alliance territories.
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After entering professional wrestling and having his first match Aug. 9, 1971, in Thunder Bay Ont., Stamp joined Verne Gagne's AWA in the Twin Cities where he became their 1971 Rookie of the Year.
Shortly thereafter, he joined Tri-State territory and in 1973 he and Bull Bullinski won the NWA Tri-State Tag Team Championship. After losing the titles seven days later, he regained the title with a new partner, Dewey Robertson, in May of 1973.
In 1974, Stamp moved to the NWA's Los Angeles territory where he was a 2-time Television Champion, defeating Man Mountain Mike and Greg Valentine. By the fall of 1975, he had joined Vancouver All-Star Wrestling, and with Tiger Jeet Singh won the Canadian Tag Team Championship.
By 1976, Stamp had joined the NWA's Western States promotion. Wrestling primarily as a heel (villain), he became a 2-time Western States Tag Team Champion and four-time Brass Knuckles Champion.
In 1978, Stamp appeared with other professional wrestlers in the Sylvester Stallone movie "Paradise Alley."
In the 1980s, Stamp began hiring out as a jobber (a wrestler who routinely loses). He also appeared occasionally in the WWF during the mid-1980s, including a December 1986 match shown on "WWF Wrestling Challenge" TV program where he teamed with fellow jobber Mike Luca against the Fabulous Rougeau Brothers.
Stamp later returned to the AWA, which was in decline due to competition from the WWF and World Championship Wrestling. He was used primarily by the AWA to help boost the careers of stars and veterans like Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, Colonel DeBeers, Jerry Lawler and The Midnight Rockers.
Stamp wrestled about 2,000 matches in his pro career.
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During his wrestling career, Stamp began working at a pest control company, where he remained for more than 30 years. In 2011, he was diagnosed with Stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which he successfully beat at the time.
In 2014, Stamp published a book about his wrestling days entitled "The Stamp Collection: A Collection of Short Stories from the World's Most Famous Unknown Wrestler."
In 2016, Stamp announced that his cancer had returned.
