On Monday morning, Freelance Wrestling announced that Illinois-based wrestler Markus Crane had passed away.
Crane was a deathmatch wrestler that performed regularly for Game Changer Wrestling over the past several and went to Japan to work dates for Big Japan and FREEDOMS.
In December 2019, he was being treated for a head injury when emergency surgery was needed. It was discovered that that Crane had an infection eroding his skull and leaking into his brain. A portion of his skull was removed to allow the treatment to work.
Crane was left with significant medical bills and a GoFundMe was launched, which raised over $22,000 with Mick Foley tweeting out the link to assist Crane.
Crane’s Cagematch profile lists Chris Hero as his trainer with Crane’s first recorded match taking place in November 2009.
Crane wrestled for many groups in Illinois and became a regular with IWA: Mid-South. He was part of their King of the Death Matches tournament in 2011, losing to Devon Moore in a ‘Hardcore Aerial Assault’ match.
While wrestling for SCW (Scott County Wrestling) in Iowa, he teamed with Tyler Priegel where the tandem became its tag champions. Crane would team with Alex Castle as Helter Skelter for the DREAMWAVE promotion, based in LaSalle.
Crane was also a regular with AAW out of Illinois for many years including as a member of The Wet Bandits team with Dan Lawrence. The two became the promotion’s tag champions in October 2014 winning the vacant belts in a match against Athena (Ember Moon) & Heidi Lovelace (Ruby Soho).
In 2016, he began wrestling for GCW when he participated in Zandig’s Tournament of Survival and became a staple of the promotion’s deathmatches during this period.
In May 2018, he challenged Nick Gage for the GCW championship in Villa Park, Illinois. Later that year, he went to the finals of the Nick Gage Invitational in a four-way match that was won by Masashi Takeda and included Gage and Isami Kodaka.
Crane was part of the GCW crew that traveled to Japan in August 2019 for a pair of shows at Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. On the first night, he teamed with partner SHLAK and Eric Ryan losing to Jun Kasai, Takashi Sasaki & Toshiyuki Sakurda. On the second night, Crane & SHLAK lost to Ciclope & Miedo Extremo for the GCW tag titles. During this trip, Crane wrestled a Fluorescent Light tubes four-way deathmatch for Big Japan as well as a Glass Board & Fluorescent Light tubes match for FREEDOMS at Korakuen Hall the same week.
After the surgery on his brain, Crane did not wrestle in 2020 but did return for a match with Kit Osbourne this past April at GCW’s Planet Death in Ybor City over WrestleMania weekend.
There are few details regarding his passing.
