WNS Home
WNS on X WNS on BlueSky WNS on Discord WNS on Facecbook WNS on Instagram WNS on Threads WNS on Google News WNS Stats Navigate up
RSS Feed

Balls Mahoney And Axl Rotten Officially Diagnosed With CTE

Posted By: Dustin Frisch on Oct 21, 2016

Johnathan "Balls Mahoney" Rechner and Brian "Axl Rotten" Knighton suffered from CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) when they were alive. CTE is the new name for dementia pugilistica, which is brain damage caused by concussions and shots to the head. 

This is the first time since 2009 that wrestlers who passed away have been diagnosed with the condition. The details were found in a postmortem examination. The condition was in the "early stages" in Axl Rotten's brain.

Chris Benoit had also been diagnosed with it many months after the "incident".  Andrew "Test" Martin was diagnosed back in 2009 after he passed away, though no other wrestler has been diagnosed with it since then. Balls and Axl Rotten were well known for taking chair shots to the head. 

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Presbyterian neuropathologist, Dr. Julia K. Kofler, has discovered the condition in both of them prior to Dr. Bennet Omalu confirming the news to the Globe. 

WWE has refused to acknowledge these results, due to a missing chain of custody records which would prove Benoit's samples had actually come from his brain. They have not commented on this report yet, since they want to review the results themselves first.

A link to the article can be found here. Another person who has been publicly diagnosed with CTE in recent times is Dave Mirra who was a former X Games BMX biker.


If you reference any quotes from this piece, please attribute them to the original source, and kindly credit WrestlingNewsSource.com (h/t) for the transcription.



↠ FOLLOW WNS ON INSTA ↞

⚡ Have Your Say...

Your Rating –/10
Average: 0.0 / 10
Total votes: 0

⚡ Explore WNS

Load Popular Hashtags
Popular Tags

Popular Articles
Discord
Join WNS Discord

⚡ Events

WWE NXT

Orlando, Florida

Apr. 28th 2026

#nxt

AEW Dynamite

Fairfax, Virginia

Apr. 29th 2026

#dynamite

WWE Friday Night SmackDown

Tulsa, Oklahoma

May. 1st 2026

#smackdown

AEW Collision

Peoria, Illinois

May. 2nd 2026

#collision

WWE Monday Night RAW

Omaha, Nebraska

May. 4th 2026

#raw

AEW Dynamite

North Charleston, South Carolina

May. 6th 2026

#dynamite

AEW Collision

North Charleston, South Carolina

May. 6th 2026

#collision