Crash Holly: Rise and Tragic Fall of WWE’s “Super Heavyweight”

Michael Lockwood never looked the part. Too small, too mouthy, too unpredictable. By WWE’s standards, he had no business being a champion at all. And yet, under the name Crash Holly, he would rack up more than 25 championship reigns across the Hardcore, Tag Team, European, and Light Heavyweight divisions during the most competitive era in WWE history. John Cena considered him one of his very good friends. Bob Holly called him the funniest man he’d ever worked with. But behind the laughs and the title runs, something darker was unraveling. And by the age of 32, Crash Holly was gone.

From Michael Lockwood to Crash Holly: A Decade on the Indies

Long before he was Crash Holly, Michael John Lockwood made his wrestling debut in 1989 and would spend a decade working on the independent circuit.

He made his first appearance as ‘Johnny Pearson’ in Bay Area Wrestling and remained a mainstay of the company until 1994. He then began to work the independent circuit wrestling as "Irish" ‘Erin O’Grady’ before heading to Mexico and Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre where he wrestled as "Super Diablo."

In 1996, Lockwood joined All Pro Wrestling, where he continued to wrestle under the name ‘Erin O’Grady,’ albeit now as "The Leprechaun," a gimmick he had conceived himself.

In an interview given to RF Video in 2003, Lockwood explained, "I came up with the gimmick of the leprechaun. I had this thing in my head: it’s a babyface, you come out, you throw chocolate, do the Irish voice… I had the jacket, I had my pot of gold. I had the whole idea for the gimmick. I pitched it to Roland Alexander and they let me use it, and I had the leprechaun. That’s where Erin O’Grady fell into place."

In 1997, Lockwood received a more substantial break after wrestler Taz watched a match between O’Grady and Michael Modest and recommended him to Extreme Championship Wrestling’s owner, Paul Heyman. Lockwood would go on to join ECW but lost his four untelevised matches before returning to the indies.

The following year, O’Grady would wrestle long-time opponent Vic Grimes in a try-out match, and both were signed to deals with the World Wrestling Federation before he was sent to the developmental leagues to hone his craft in the WWE style.

Lockwood later reflected on how close he came to never getting that opportunity at all.

"I remember I was at the point where I’d been working a number of years and I wasn’t getting anywhere," he said in the same RF Video interview. "I’d send tapes out, but I wasn’t getting any response. I couldn’t make any good connections. I enjoyed where I was, but I was frustrated because I just wanted to get a deal, try out somewhere. I thought I had enough talent."

Speaking about the tryout match itself, Lockwood recalled, "I went to a tryout match in February of ‘98. A few weeks later, they offered me a developmental contract. I was totally surprised. I didn’t think they’d ever hire me… I thought the tryout was just for Vic Grimes. I never thought I’d get a job."

How Crash Holly’s WWE Debut Turned the Attitude Era Upside Down

Michael Lockwood had spent a lot of time on the independent circuit as Erin O’Grady; however, when he was called up to WWF television on August 16th, 1999, it was as ‘Crash Holly,’ a name that would become synonymous with Lockwood.

Recalling how the character came together, Lockwood revealed that the concept came from a phone call with WWE producer Bruce Prichard.

"He says, ‘We have this idea where we’d like to make you Hardcore Holly’s cousin.’ He goes, ‘We want to make you Bob’s cousin, and you think you’re a super heavyweight. Just dye your hair blonde and you’ve got the same last name. We’ll make you a tag team.’ That’s all they told me. That’s the only direction I got. Everything else, from the way I acted, how I interacted, what I should do to help get Bob over, that was all my idea."

His storyline cousin Bob ‘Hardcore’ Holly was becoming frustrated with how his career was going, and so looked to his family for help. He called out his cousin Crash, whom he dubbed a "Super Heavyweight."

As Lockwood later noted, Bob’s reaction to being assigned a storyline cousin was not entirely warm at first.

"Bob didn’t like me when we first met," Lockwood admitted. "Bob delivers things straight and he’ll tell you what’s on his mind, and I respect Bob for that. I felt bad in some ways because Bob was starting to get over with the super heavyweight thing and was finally starting to get some spots. I could see where he was coming from. But I’ll take it. That’s cool with me."

It soon became clear that Bob Holly’s description of the Super Heavyweight, Crash Holly, was a little off the mark, but what he lacked in height, he made up for in aggression.

In his debut, Crash Holly immediately stole the microphone from Hardcore and proceeded to call out The Undertaker and The Big Show. Not content with angering two of the giants of the company, Crash quickly began talking down to his cousin and was rewarded with a punch from the man who had introduced him to the audience only moments earlier. The pair would clash inside the ring before brawling into the crowd.

In a 2014 interview with Kayfabe Commentaries, Bob Holly admitted about Crash Holly, “He was a nutball. The guy was funny, and he kept me entertained. He would do stuff you wouldn’t even know. Like, we talked about what we were going to do, and he’d just do something totally different. I’m totally different, you know, whereas he was off-the-cuff and funny. He made me laugh, and a lot of times, I’d cover up where people couldn’t see me laughing under my breath. I enjoyed being around him, he was really fun to work with.”

In the storyline, this would be typical of the dysfunctional relationship between these two cousins. Crash became infamous during this time for bringing out a large set of weighing scales to the ring and claiming he weighed in at over 400 pounds.

Crash and Hardcore made their pay-per-view tag team debut at SummerSlam in August 1999, where they competed in a Tag Team Turmoil Match, which the Acolytes Protection Agency (APA) won.

Over the preceding months, the TV cousins would compete against the likes of Edge and Christian and The New Age Outlaws before earning a shot at the WWF Tag Team Championship, in large part remaining in the mid-tier or lower-tier of the red-hot tag team division.

Their biggest moment as a tag team came against The Rock and Mankind, known then as the Rock ‘n’ Sock Connection. Miraculously, the Hollys would win this bout and become the WWF Tag Team Champions, keeping their reign going until November 4th, 1999, when they lost the tag team championships back to Mankind and his new partner, Al Snow, on SmackDown!

Crash Holly’s 22 WWE Hardcore Championship Reigns and the 24/7 Rule

As the new millennium began, Crash Holly turned his attention to the hardcore division, and in February of 2000, he defeated Test to begin the first of his 22 Hardcore Championship reigns.

Crash was on the smaller side for wrestlers at the time, but was portrayed with a ‘Scrappy Doo’ mentality. He would never run from a challenge, and with the title around his waist, he vowed to defend the Hardcore Championship for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. This later became known as the “24/7 Rule.”

In his 2003 RF Video shoot interview, Lockwood explained how the 24/7 concept was first pitched to him.

"One of the writers comes up and says, ‘I’ve got this idea: we want to put the Hardcore belt on you, but we want to do a thing where the rule is it’s defended 24/7. We just have ideas. It could be defended here, defended there, it’s a lot of pre-tape stuff.’ He asked, ‘Do you want to do it?’ I said, ‘Oh yeah!’ I thought it could be good because it could be sarcastic stuff. It was something that was never done before."

This unique take on a WWE title meant that the belt was permanently contested, not just in sanctioned matches, but could change hands anywhere. If someone could find a way to pin the champion, so long as a WWF referee counted the fall, they would become the new Hardcore Champion. This saw Crash Holly defending his title in the most unlikely of locations, including an airport, a funhouse, a circus, and even his hotel room.

The element of surprise often meant that Holly was frequently pinned, but his scrappy nature also meant that he would soon regain the title, often sneaking a pin when an opponent had been attacked by someone else.

This reign brought about a newfound popularity for Crash Holly and made him a firm fan-favourite, earning him the nickname "The Houdini of Hardcore."

Looking back, Lockwood reflected on what the concept truly meant to him.

"It’s something so hard in wrestling to get something different over," he said. "You’ve seen a million moves. But doing something like the 24/7, where a title’s on the line and the skits and the pre-tapes, it was so different. And the aspect was, I’m helping get a belt over in an angle that’s never been done before, but I’m also helping all these people get over because they’re getting over by beating me. And I’m getting over because of the one theory that always works for a babyface: you have to sell. I think that’s what worked about the 24/7. It was a believable concept. I’m really proud of that."

It wasn’t just hardcore success that defined Crash Holly, however, and he would also go on to defeat William Regal to win the now-defunct European Championship as well, continuing to add to the Crash character.

Molly Holly, the Dudley Boyz Feud, and the Unraveling of the Holly Family

In late 2000, the Holly family expanded again when another of their storyline cousins, Molly Holly, was introduced to television audiences.

Lockwood welcomed the addition. "They came to me and said, ‘We have an idea. We want to give you a cousin, Molly Holly.’ I didn’t know her work, but people were saying she’s a really good worker. She was receptive to the stuff. I had ideas, and we balanced ideas – how she should act, what she should do. I thought it was something good because they came to me and thought to put her with me because I could help her, and she could help me get something over. Anytime they keep throwing you something, it means somebody likes you. I wasn’t going to turn it down."

The following year, the Hollys would begin their most memorable feud with The Dudley Boyz after Molly began a romantic relationship with Spike Dudley, leading to internal disputes within each family. A Romeo and Juliet-style angle would follow, with both sides disapproving of the relationship.

Around this time, on March 19th, 2001, Crash defeated Dean Malenko to win the Light Heavyweight Championship. He would hold the championship for just over five weeks before dropping it to the debuting Jerry Lynn on April 29th, 2001.

In his book “The Hardcore Truth”, Bob Holly discusses this period and how it ultimately led to the end of the Holly Family.

“Molly went off to be a workhorse in the women’s division, and Crash floundered. He got a quick run as the Light Heavyweight Champion, but that wasn’t anything to write home about. Over the next few years, Crash began to struggle and complained a lot backstage. He was having a bad time outside of work. He wasn’t a [substance] guy, but he drank like alcohol was going out of style. He became his own worst enemy.”

When the WWF was renamed World Wrestling Entertainment and divided into two Raw and SmackDown! brands, Crash Holly was assigned to the Raw roster, but had little success. In 2002, he would make the jump to SmackDown!

Later in the year, he would join Matt Hardy and Shannon Moore in the Mattitude Followers (abbreviated “MF’er”) stable. Crash would gain more TV time with this new group, but the losses began to rack up, and he would be released from WWE on June 30, 2003.

His release came amid reports he had been vocal about his unhappiness with the creative direction. He passed away just 129 days later on November 6, 2003.

Despite his struggles toward the end of his WWE run, Bob Holly expressed, “I just hated that they ended up letting him go, but I thought, and I had told him plenty of times, you know, ’cause he was very vocal about a lot of things – and I’d tell him a lot of times, ‘Just keep your mouth shut, you know, just don’t say a word,’ and it was really hard for him. So, unfortunately, WWE ended up letting him go, but I just thought he was a blast to be around.”

With hundreds of amazing Pro Wrestling Stories to dive into, where do you start? Get the inside scoop – join our exclusive community of wrestling fans! Receive 10 hand-picked stories curated just for YOU, exclusive weekly content, and an instant welcome gift when you sign up today!

After WWE: Crash Holly Reinvents Himself as Mad Mikey in NWA TNA

Following his WWE release, Michael Lockwood signed a contract to compete with NWA: Total Nonstop Action in July 2003, debuting as “Mad Mikey.”

NWA: TNA was fast becoming an alternative to the WWE and employed various ex-WWE superstars. The newly-dubbed Mad Mikey made his debut by accepting an open challenge from Elix Skipper but subsequently lost his first match.

Mad Mikey’s gimmick mainly consisted of him being angry about various things, a gimmick Lockwood joked fit him well, given the way he took his WWE release.

In his shoot interview given shortly before his passing, Lockwood offered a candid assessment of his WWE departure: "I’m very happy they did it. It was a mutual thing. I knew it was coming. I know where I got my start. I know Vince put the TV time into me and that’s why people know me today when I go work places. I respect the McMahons. They let me go, and that’s cool with me. I don’t hold any ill feelings towards them. I would never rule out working there again."

Lockwood would go on to wrestle on a total of only nine NWA: TNA weekly pay-per-views, with his last appearance on October 1, 2023, before moving to work predominantly on the independent scene.

Despite the brief run, Lockwood remained optimistic about what he still had to offer the wrestling business.

"I think I have something to offer," he said in the same interview. "I think I was lucky enough to create something where, when people think of me and the WWF and that company over the last five years, they smile. They think, ‘Man, that guy’s an idiot; you never know what he’s going to do!’ I think that’s an element you can add to any show or any promotion. I can be that comic idiot. It works for the most part, because people like to laugh."

The Death of Crash Holly: What Happened to Michael Lockwood in 2003

Michael Lockwood was found unresponsive on November 6, 2003, at his friend and fellow wrestler Stevie Richards’ house in Florida.

The former Crash Holly was found partially clothed with a pool of vomit around his face. Empty bottles of the prescription muscle relaxant carisoprodol and a partially consumed bottle of alcohol were found nearby. Lockwood was 32 years old. The circumstances of his death were ruled a suicide.

At 32, Michael Lockwood had been carrying a great deal. Years of physical wear had led to increased use of prescription medication, and by the time of his death, he was separated and in the midst of divorce proceedings.

The transition away from WWE had been difficult, and despite his best efforts in NWA: TNA and on the independent circuit, he struggled to regain the momentum of his WWE run. What was going through his mind in those final days, we will never know.

Following Crash’s passing, his storyline cousin Bob Holly offered a simple but heartfelt tribute. In WWF Magazine, Bob Holly poignantly said, “It’s just a shame. He was a good guy. Just a shame, that’s all.”

John Cena, who had worked alongside Lockwood during his early WWE days, spoke with equal warmth in the same WWF Magazine tribute.

“Crash was my boy,” Cena would say. “I met him in 2000. He came to Ultimate Pro Wrestling to work with me when I was still no good. I mean, I was absolutely horrible. We hit it off right away, because I appreciated him and he wanted to get in the ring with me.”

Cena continued, “When I first started doing house shows with WWE, I worked with him probably the first eight weeks in a row. We shared similar attitudes and similar beliefs. He was never afraid to make an *** of himself, in or out of the ring. At a time when everyone else was just stone-faced serious, he brought comfortable comedy into the ring. I tried to learn from that. That’s what I remember about him, his ability to just make everybody laugh. He was awesome. I was speechless when I heard what happened; he was one of my very good friends. His memory will definitely live on.”

 Crash Holly’s WWE Legacy: Why Michael Lockwood’s Impact Still Endures

Michael Lockwood will always be remembered by wrestling fans as Crash Holly, the scrappy underdog with a larger-than-life personality who made every appearance memorable. Standing smaller than most of his peers, he more than made up for it with determination, quick wit, and a fearless in-ring style.

Throughout his WWE career, his legendary Hardcore Championship reigns, marked by the innovative "24/7 Rule," cemented his legacy. But in his own words, recorded just weeks before his passing, Lockwood had a clear-eyed understanding of what he had meant to the people watching.

"I think wrestling serves an important purpose,” He reflected. “Someone like myself – I serve an important purpose to society, because I entertain you when you have a lousy day or a terrible job, or you’re angry. Here’s a wrestling show on TV where you come and pay your money, and you’re going to laugh. I might not be the kind of character you like. I may not be the high-flying cruiserweight. But at least I’m not boring, and at least you’ll laugh at something out there with me. I bust my *** out there, just like anyone else, because I want to entertain people and make them laugh.

“The world can be such a rough place, but if I can make you laugh, and more importantly, if I can pop the boys in the back, I’ve done my job."

He did his job. He always did.

Away from the ring, Lockwood was survived by his wife, Christeena Wheeler Lockwood, and their young daughter, Patricia. In August 2005, Nora Greenwald (Molly Holly, his on-screen cousin in WWE) released her autobiographical DVD, Nora Greenwald: Shootin’ the Shi… Crap, and directed a portion of the profits to Patricia’s education fund, a quiet nod to the bond they shared and the impact he had on those around him.

Michael Lockwood worked his entire adult life to prove that someone his size had a place in professional wrestling. He earned that place (and then some). He just, sadly, didn’t get nearly enough time in it.

These stories may also interest you:

• Bob Holly Reveals Unexpected Invitation From Chris Benoit
• WWE Attitude Era Match Type With a Controversial History
• Sean O’Haire: Wrestling’s Tragic Cautionary Tale

Can’t get enough pro wrestling history in your life? Sign up to unlock ten pro wrestling stories curated uniquely for YOU, plus subscriber-exclusive content. A special gift from us awaits after signing up!

Want More? Choose another story!

Be sure to follow us on Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, and Flipboard!

Pro Wrestling Stories is committed to accurate, unbiased wrestling content rigorously fact-checked and verified by our team of researchers and editors. Any inaccuracies are quickly corrected, with updates timestamped in the article's byline header.

Got a correction, tip, or story idea for Pro Wrestling Stories? Contact us! Learn about our editorial standards here. Ever wanted to learn more about the people behind Pro Wrestling Stories? Meet our authors! Want to write for us? Learn how to join the team.

ProWrestlingStories.com participates in affiliate marketing programs. This post may contain affiliate links, meaning we may earn commissions at no extra cost to our readers. This supports our mission to deliver free content for you to enjoy!