![Canadian wrestling legend Leo Burke dead at 76: ‘He was like a rock star’](https://globalnews.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/burke-hart.jpg?quality=85&strip=all&w=720&h=379&crop=1)
Canadian wrestling legend Leo Burke dead at 76: ‘He was like a rock star’
Global News
Leo Burke, one of the major stars of wrestling in Atlantic Canada and Alberta in the 1970s and 1980s, died this week at the age of 76.
Leo Burke, one of the major stars of wrestling in Atlantic Canada and Alberta in the 1970s and 1980s, died on Wednesday afternoon at the age of 76.
Burke, whose real name was Léonce Cormier, was surrounded by family when he died at a nursing home in Calgary, his son Travis Cormier told Global News.
A native of Dorchester, N.B., Burke began wrestling in 1966 alongside three of his brothers.
As was often the case with French Canadians in wrestling at the time, none of the brothers wrestled under the Cormier name. Yvon Cormier wrestled as The Beast while Jean-Louis and Romeo were Rudy Kay and Bobby Kay.
But the youngest brother, Léonce, had the longest and most storied career of the four brothers who wrestled as Leo Burke.
“The promoters actually selected the name and that name actually stuck,” Travis Cormier said.
Burke travelled the globe, with stints wrestling in Puerto Rico and Japan as well as across the U.S. and Canada, but his star shone brightest while wrestling in Atlantic Canada and Alberta.