6. Tony Atlas
As one of the most noted pioneers for black wrestlers, Tony Atlas is often celebrated by World Wrestling Entertainment during Black History Month every year. Atlas was an accomplished tag team wrestler, winning the WWE World Tag Team Championship in the early 1980s with Rocky Johnson, the father of a man you may know as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
Many years later, Tony Atlas returned to WWE to manage Mark Henry in WWE’s resurrected version of ECW, but his working relationship with the company has largely faded since then aside from a couple of appearances and his role on the WWE Network show Legends’ House.
Atlas has seen plenty of hard times throughout his life, even once having been homeless until Vince McMahon gave him a job. He seemed to get everything together but recently seemed to be desperate for wrestling related work and many assumed this meant he was once again in a rough financial situation.