# @wrestlingnewsco on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DbfIcXUg2xg
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/68500240-wrestlingnewsco-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/64a15ee2cf.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-08-01T05:53:54.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Wrestling News - WWE, AEW (@wrestlingnewsco) — https://gondola.cc/wrestlingnewsco

## Caption

On this day in 2019, Harley Race died at 76 in St. Charles, Missouri, from complications of lung cancer. He had been diagnosed earlier that year.

Race was born in Quitman, Missouri in 1943 and overcame polio as a child. He won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship eight times and was the first NWA United States Heavyweight Champion. He also held the AWA World Tag Team Championship with Larry Hennig and won championships in All Japan Pro Wrestling.

He joined the WWF in 1986 and won the first King of the Ring tournament that year, wrestling as “King” Harley Race with Bobby Heenan as his manager. He faced Junkyard Dog at WrestleMania III. In WCW he managed Big Van Vader and Lex Luger, taking both to the WCW World Championship.

Race was inducted into the WCW Hall of Fame in 1994 and the WWE Hall of Fame in 2004 by Ric Flair. He is one of a small group of wrestlers inducted into the WWE, NWA, Wrestling Observer and Professional Wrestling halls of fame.

He also ran his own promotion and training school, World League Wrestling, in Missouri.

#HarleyRace #NWA #WWE #WrestlingHistory #OnThisDay

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## Tags

harleyrace, wrestlinghistory, nwa, onthisday, wwe

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