The Iron Sheik recently passed away, with most outlets naming him as being 81 at his time of death.
However, that might not be strictly true.
The former WWE Champion was infamous in the business, due to his expletive-laden rants about Hulk Hogan, threatening to “break his back” and “make him humble”.
However, he also famously didn’t even know his own birthday. His date of birth was listed as Match 15th, 1942, although Dave Meltzer stated in The Iron Sheik’s obituary that a Texas database claimed he was born in 1939.
Even Sheik’s official biographer disagreed. He noted that he thought that The Iron Sheik was born on September 9th, 1942, making him 80 years old at the time of his death.
You can read the full quote from Dave Meltzer below, from the June 12th, 2023 edition of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter;
He was listed as being 81 years old, but given he didn’t know his own birthday and there are different years listed in different places at different times for his birth, it’s more safe to say he was probably 80, and may have been as old as 84.
He was listed as being born on March 15, 1942. In 1983 when I saw the Texas database with listed birthdays for pro wrestlers who were licensed in the state, his birthday at the time was listed in their records as March 15, 1939. His biographer, Keith Elliot Greenberg, who wrote what he once said was the best wrestling biography never published, said he was actually born September 9, 1942, which would have made him 80.