Before he became known to WWE fans as “The Lethal Weapon,” Steve Blackman came dangerously close to never stepping into a WWE ring at all. In a recent interview, Blackman revealed that a severe illness he contracted in Africa nearly killed him and put his wrestling career on hold for over five years, just as he was about to sign with WWE in 1989.

Blackman had just completed a successful run with Stu Hart’s Stampede Wrestling, working alongside the likes of Brian Pillman and Chris Benoit, and was preparing to join WWE. However, he first chose to honor a prior commitment to wrestle in Africa for three weeks, a choice that nearly ended in tragedy.

Speaking with Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Blackman described the terrifying ordeal. “They said I probably had dysentery and malaria. It was so bad. When I landed in Africa on Thursday, I weighed 267; the next Thursday, when I left the hospital… I weighed 232. I was 35 pounds lighter in six days,” he said. “I thought I was gonna die from just complete dehydration, which is pretty much where you die from with dysentery.”

After his condition worsened, Blackman’s friend Gary Albright helped him leave the hospital and return home. But the journey was far from easy. He endured a nine-hour layover on a scorching 120-degree runway in Kenya, followed by a 12-hour delay in Amsterdam where doctors initially refused to let him board. “I said, ‘Look, dude, I don’t have anything contagious. If I’m going to die, I’m going to die in the States. I’m not going to make my family come halfway around the world to retrieve me,’” he recalled.

Blackman’s return home was just the beginning of a long battle. “I was two and a half years on my deathbed, another two and a half years on medicine,” he said. “If I tried to do push-ups one day… I would literally stand up, crawl over, lay down, and sleep till the next day. It was so debilitating.”

Eventually, he regained his health and reached out to Vince McMahon, who gave him a second chance. Blackman finally debuted in WWE in 1997 and went on to become a popular mid-card performer known for his martial arts-based offense and no-nonsense persona.

Now retired from the ring, Steve Blackman has found success running his own bail bonds business in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a venture he has operated for the past 17 years.

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