Sorry if this is how you find out, but on 27th September 2026 Benjamin Satterley, better known by his ring names Pac (often styled PAC) and Adrian Neville, passed away. The cause of death remains unknown. This is a post about that, about wrestling, about art, and about what it means to to be excellent.
I’m not going to talk about the man’s personal life, except where strictly relevant. I didn’t know him, and he was a private man in life, and I wish to respect that by not digging for dirt after his death. This is a piece about wrestling. Now, on with the article:
“Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.” – Booker T. Washington
Somewhere, lost in the annals of ancient history (2002), a much younger version of me is becoming a lifelong pro wrestling fan. I already know it’s fake, everyone except very young kids know. I’m watching a story unfold between Jeff Hardy and The Undertaker, and I’m so glued to it that I’m going to spend at least the next 24 years of my life chasing that feeling. One match—two performances—and that’s me for life. That isn’t why they call fans “marks”, but it’s another layer. Watching that match marked me.
Maybe you’re a pro wrestling fan too (if you’re not, you’re welcome to keep reading but I don’t know how much you’ll get out of this post). Maybe you’re a bit older than me, and for you it was seeing Bret and Owen Hart wrestle. Or Shawn Micheals. “Macho Man” Randy Savage. Or maybe you’re younger than me, and for you it was someone like Pac.
By 2004, when Pac was making his debut in northeast England’s Independent Wrestling Federation (IWF), the world was already changing. Wrestlers had been travelling internationally for decades at this point, and what were once regional styles (European catch wrestling, Japanese strong style, Mexican lucha tumbling, to name but three) were coming together in melting pot feds where stars from around the world trained together, learned from each other, and came up with ever more elaborate and daring ways to get a pop (that’s a big cheer, I’m using the lingo again). Soon enough, everyone did some kind of plancha or tope suicida. The superkick, once Shawn Micheals’ devastating match-ender, became punctuation. Half of any given roster were doing backflips.
Let’s think about that Booker T. Washington quote. A common thing in an uncommon way. If a backflip is common, then to be great, to excel, one must perform a backflip in an uncommon way.
Enter Pac.
Wrestlers call it ‘getting over’, the process of getting the fans to cheer (or boo) a gimmick. It can apply to your moves, your catchphrase, or simply you yourself. I’m trying to get over as a columnist right here in this blog post, brrrrother. Like all other kinds of showbiz, it helps if you’re from the right place, if you know the right people, if you’ve Got The Look.
2004 Tyneside was not the right place. England has produced a few iconic wrestlers and Wembley shows have drawn big numbers in recent years, but at the start of the century the UK was known to the wrestling world primarily as an occasional host for WWE pay-per-views, rarely as a hotbed of talent.
‘The look’ for wrestlers varies between promotions—CMLL’s idea of a conquering badass hero might be NJPW’s idea of a solid midcard heel, for example—but the thing to remember is that in 2004, there was no Monday Night War, no AEW to challenge their dominance, WWE was the very obvious top of the mountain for wrestlers, the pinnacle everyone was aiming for. WWE had a look just like everywhere else, and part of their look is being over six feet tall.
But who, in their artform, is not striving for the pinnacle?
You may have figured out what I’ve been working myself up to say: nothing on paper would say that Newcastle’s Ben Satterly, who stood all of 5’8 in his socks, would make it to the promised land. But make it he did. How, you may ask? Excellence is how.
For every Roman Reigns, Batista, Lex Luger. For every ex-football player, famous guy’s kid, fuckass celebrity elevated by the whims of a maniacal boss, there’s a Mick Foley. There’s a Kevin Owens. A Finn Bálor. Talented wrestlers that don’t have The Look, and so for them the process of getting over starts with trying to get noticed on the indie circuit. Grassroots, DIY, independent wrestling. Travelling the world at a loss, wrestling your heart out to a half-full bingo hall, a backyard full of broken glass and bloodthirsty punters, a modest YouTube audience. Risking your neck in exchange for nothing more the chance to do it again with more people looking. Do that long enough, be good enough, and you might make it into some of the better known indies. From there, start the process again and repeat until even bigger ones call and… you get the picture. Every indie guy (or gal) who makes it has years of paid dues in the rearview. They also likely have a slew of unappreciated heaters for you to check out by the time you’ve heard of them—check out your favourite indie vet’s back catalogue today!
I first became aware of Pac when he went to America. Not very Grassroots Britwres of me, but it was 2006 and I was still learning how deep it went. His first match that I saw was in PWG, against AJ Styles (himself one of the best cruiserweights of all time, in the process of forging his own path up the mountain). From that point on, people were paying attention to The Man That Gravity Forgot (still a terrible nickname man, I’m sorry), myself included. He settled in a Japanese promotion called Dragongate, where he went on to further hone his style.
Now, this is where it starts to get dark. Remember what Booker T. Washington said about excellence? Think about what that means when the field you’re trying to stand out in is full of highly capable athletes. That was ’00s Dragongate. The promotion is known for a “lucharesu” style, a high octane blend of lucha acrobatics with puroresu fighting spirit and submission moves. What this means in practice is these wrestlers were expected to do it all, and do it convincingly hard—puroresu is the root from which strong style grew, after all—for matches that could go for a half hour. Lucha libre is generally a safe “snug” style of wrestling, which is how you get guys like Chavo Guerrero becoming the oldest ever WWE cruiserweight champ in 2004. Puroresu demands its practitioners beat the piss out of each other in order to make the matches appear as real as possible, but doesn’t require much extreme risk taking beyond that. Combining the two styles removes both elements of safety. But you have to, because if you want to make it in wrestling, be it as a promotion or an individual wrestler, you must excel.
Pac was obviously doing everything within his power to be the guy. He stayed jacked and shredded in a way that, somewhat ironically, only a short guy can be without chemical assistance. When it became apparent that he looked a bit like a goblin, he embraced the BASTARD PAC persona and became one of the rare flippy guys who made a convincing(ly scary) heel. Already an impressive wrestler, Dragongate further honed his skills, and when he returned to the west, it was clear. Pac was ready for the big time.
Indie darlings have never done especially well in the WWE. Due to former owner and pound-for-pound worst person in showbiz contender Vince McMahon’s predilection for big sweaty men (with emphasis on the big), Pac was always going to have his work cut out in the land of the giants. Yes, the guys I mentioned a few paragraphs ago got over, yes the Smackdown Six were pioneers, but these were exceptionally talented wrestlers who still, by and large, remain(ed) in the midcard. Sorry kid, you gotta be 6 foot or over to see the top of the mountain.
But that did not stop our guy. Now working as Adrian Neville for some reason (“some reason” is Vince again… if you don’t know, just understand Vince is a deeply fucked up guy who made his weirdness everyone else’s problem, unpacking why he sucks is a whole other task), Pac continued to forge his legend, having impressive matches across NXT, Raw, and Smackdown. WWE’s house style is safer than Dragongate’s by orders of magnitude, but it is still pro wrestling. Running speed is still running speed, a fall must still end in an impact, the ring is still wood and canvas and steel. Physics and anatomy are still real, even if the ‘competition’ part of ‘athletic competition’ is a lie. The diehard perfectionist attitude needed to make it on the indies was on full display any time Pac wrestled. His moves were crisp, precise, high impact. Nobody had a bad match with Pac, and he was so committed to his performances that, in 2016, he finished a match against Chris Jericho despite having broken his ankle and tibia in a botched move.
In hindsight, maybe that should have been a warning sign.
Now, I’m many things. An author, singer, amateur fashion designer, hiker, but there’s only one of these things I do to the detriment of my health and that’s the writing. For as long as I’ve held full time employment, I’ve been running a sleep deficit each work week. I wasn’t born rich and my stories aren’t milquetoast Netflix bait, so it’s the only way anything’s getting written unless I somehow get lucky and there’s an untapped market full of people dying for grimy spirit of ’84 cyberpunk somewhere. A purely rational person would say write less, write slower, prioritise your health, and while rationally I understand that, I’m not going to. This is my passion, if you want me to engage with it healthily, buy enough books that I can quit my job, fucker.
Now imagine my passion was getting hit by a car at 15-25 mph. That’s the closest thing to taking a back bump, according to those who’ve done both. The average wrestling match, even in the safest, snuggest promotions in the world, will require performers to take multiple bumps. That might sound like an insane thing to do, but remember that this is someone’s art. Their passion. Caravaggio poisoned himself with lead paint. Kurt Cobain continued touring and recording in the grip of active heroin addiction. Pac finished a match on a broken ankle. I’m not saying it’s smart. I’m saying I get it, history is littered with people like that. Most of the artists we think of as great put themselves through hell to get there.
Because why wouldn’t you? Imagine getting to be the best there is at the thing you love. Hell, imagine just being above average at it. Above average, with people wanting to see your art? Wouldn’t you do it as often as you can?
How many times can you be hit by a car before you can’t get up again?
It’s easy to have these thoughts at age 37, downstream of a bike crash that left me laid up over Christmas ’21 with a broken wrist and ribs. It’s easy to have these thoughts and still neglect my health for my passion. Was I writing through the pain in my wrist? You bet your ass I was. Why would a wrestler feel differently about his passion? And who among us is going to tell a young artist to turn back from the gruelling road to the top of the mountain? How on earth do you plan to get them to listen?
And who among us would want to, if we’re really being honest with ourselves? Ah, fuck, it’s time to talk about the marks again. Okay, so the broken shin/ankle combo? You must figure that finishing a wrestling match (instead of calling for injury stoppage — totally fucking valid even if it’s technically off script) on a broken leg is a bad idea, right? Well, remember that 12 year old kid getting enthralled by Jeff Hardy? The one that grew up to be me?
It’s not comfortable to admit it, but I’ve played my part in feeding the demand for ever more elaborate and dangerous stunts in wrestling. I love strong style, I’ve tuned in to more Tournaments of Death than a completely healthy person would, and like many of my peers, when I heard that Neville had finished his match in spite of such a serious injury, my first thought was, “wow, that guy’s hardcore” rather than “holy shit he could have lost his foot.” Imagine what that first response, multiplied by a few hundred thousand smarks (that’s a smart mark. If you have to ask, you’re not one) on Twitter, coupled with the aforementioned pride, would do to a psyche.
And that’s not to say wrestling is safe even when nothing goes wrong. 15-25 mph. Multiple times a night. In your shortest, simplest performance. Now imagine how fast it feels like the car’s going when you hit Pac’s signature move, the Red Black Arrow.
Pac’s longest match went 30:01 minutes, by the way. It’s an absolute barn burner, and a showcase of two of the very best professional wrestlers in the world with the time to weave an intricate and gripping story. By 2020 he’d been released from WWE for the unforgivable crime of not making Vince’s dick hard enough (citation withheld, get fucked), and he was snapped up quickly by upstart competitor promotion, All Elite Wrestling (AEW).
Pac really seemed to find a home in AEW. He put on multiple clinics with Kenny Omega, including the aforementioned ironman match, and a 2019 classic that’s widely considered to be his crowing achievement. He formed the tag team Death Triangle with two of my longtime favourites, brothers Pentagón Jr. and Rey Fénix. He was a Death Rider, which uh…
Ah, fuck it. Time to stop circling the reason I’ve puked 2.5k words over the guy already. Pac, Ben Satterly, Adrian Neville, The Man that Gravity Forgot, however you know him best, was found unresponsive in a vehicle in Des Plaines, Illinois, on Sunday September 27th. He was pronounced dead at 16:08, local time. Just one day after he wrestled Andrade El Idolo at AEW’s All Out pay-per-view. His death remains under investigation at the time of writing. He was forty years old. 40. Four zero.
I know I said I wouldn’t dig into his personal life, and I’m still not going to dig, but I will say this: some wrestlers are known to be druggy. Many more, especially in the previous century, nursed private addictions to painkillers or other substances. Pac, to the best of my or anyone’s knowledge, was not one of them. Besides, if there was even a whiff of scandal, the papers would have been all over it like the shameless ghouls they are.
Legacy is a topic that comes up fairly often when one considers mortality. Some people believe that the dead live on in the impact of their deeds in life. On one level, obviously, that’s a slick little cope we have to make surviving our loved ones easier. Dead is dead is dead, and my ability to make a banger enchilada does not mean my mother lives on somehow. But maybe I’m just letting my hurt make me cynical—while my ma is long gone in a material sense, I’m still here and using the knowledge she gave me. I treat people the way she taught me I should, so on another level, I guess all of the people I meet also meet her.
Even for skeptics like myself, Pac’s legacy is immediate and obvious. British wrestling has always been around, the “British Bulldog” Davey Boy Smith himself made it damn near to the top of the mountain in the 80s, and Stephen (née William, again, Vince…) Regal is rightly regarded as one of the funniest wrestlers of all time, but in the years after Pac began to gain momentum on the indies, something unprecedented happened. People from other countries gave a fuck about Britwres suddenly. A couple of native promotions, Scotland’s fantastic ICW (a long standing, rambunctiously bloody institution which has been instrumental in the rise of, among others, WWE’s Drew McIntyre), and a slick young (at the time – 2011 founded) promotion called PROGRESS both popped off on the world stage. Ireland’s Feargal “Prince” Devitt (better known as Finn Bálor) got a documentary about him made on the BBC. Is Pac’s ascendancy solely responsible for all this? Obviously not, but there’s absolutely no way this Geordie madman doing his triple pike backflip splash didn’t get at least a couple of bookers to start looking at these rainy Isles as a potential source of fresh talent. Will Ospreay, himself a jaw dropping bell-to-bell talent, credits Pac as an inspiration who “opened the door” for British talent on a global stage.
As I sit here, now a few weeks into writing this obit as I try and work through all my feelings about these people I don’t know, this sport I’ve never participated in, there’s a question I want to pre-empt: Why this guy? Wrestlers die young with depressing regularity. Just a couple of weeks prior, Every Time I Die guitarist turned pro wrestler Andy “the Butcher” Williams passed away at a mere 48. This is going to keep happening. I guess it’s because I watched Pac for twenty years, is why I feel so moved by it. Not just that, I watched him climb steadily for so much of that time. So many trips around the world, reaching a little further up every time. No swift spark into an inferno, Pac’s journey is one that anyone with great talent but the wrong Look will understand. And he fucking made it, man. He did that. And maybe, we all privately think, if he did it, I could make it at my thing too.
And that matters.
But there’s the bleakness to all this. It’s going to happen more and more. At this point, there’s a whole crop of wrestling talent I’ve watched come up from the bingo hall circuit. I plan to live a long time. Sleeplessness doesn’t feel anything like getting hit by a car. How many more stars will I watch go supernova, only to burn out too young? How many will you?
Farewell, then, to the BASTARD PAC, a man so un-bastardly that every single person lucky enough to work with him will stress how caring, genuine, and dedicated he was behind the scenes. A man whose ascendancy helped put British wrestling on the map in ways we haven’t seen since the 1980s. A man who gave literally everything he had in the pursuit of excellence.
RIP.
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