Cause of death confirmed in Illinois
The medical examiner's office in Cook County, Illinois, confirmed on Friday that Benjamin Satterley died of bronchial asthma, and classified the manner of death as natural. Satterley, who performed internationally under the name Pac, was 40. The New York Post was first to report the finding. Authorities had said earlier that he was discovered in Des Plaines, a community roughly two miles north of Chicago O'Hare International Airport.[S1][S2][S3][S4][S5][S6][S7][S8]
His death came on Sept. 27, only a day after he had appeared on All Elite Wrestling's All Out pay-per-view. News of the loss prompted an outpouring of shock and mourning throughout the professional wrestling business, and the confirmation of the cause now answers the question that had lingered since late September.[S1][S3]
A career that crossed continents
Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, Satterley built his early reputation on the British independent circuit before moving to Japan and then the United States. He became a widely admired figure for a style that combined punishing strikes with spectacular aerial work, and he competed for many of the industry's leading promotions, among them AEW, World Wrestling Entertainment, where he was billed as Adrian Neville, New Japan Pro-Wrestling and Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre.[S1]
In AEW he took on the nickname The Bastard, winning over audiences and fellow performers with the speed, elegance, accuracy and strength of his in-ring movement. His promos carried a blunt intensity that held viewers just as firmly. At a moment when the boundary between performer and audience had largely dissolved, he seldom stepped out of character, yet the response to his death made plain the warmth and modesty of the man behind it.[S1]
Tributes from colleagues and family
Marina Shafir, a fellow member of the Death Riders stable that included Satterley, spoke about him at an independent show within hours of his death, describing how understated he was about the qualities others found remarkable and crediting their shared time for her own presence in the business. AEW later devoted an episode of its weekly Dynamite program to remembering him, invoking the nickname The Man That Gravity Forgot.[S1]
During that broadcast, a statement from the Satterley family was read aloud. It noted that while he would be remembered as one of the finest wrestlers Britain had produced, the family had taken comfort from tributes that recognized the person he was, describing a principled and honorable man devoted to his relatives and to his sausage dog, Wolfie. His wife, Natalie, posted on Instagram that she was grateful for the life they shared, promised to care for the family through what she called a nightmare, and wrote that he would be missed constantly.[S1]
