USWA & Portland Wrestling Veteran Bart Sawyer Passes Away

Bart Sawyer, who was a staple of the Portland Wrestling scene, has passed away. The family of Roddy Pipper announced via their Twitter account that Sawyer, real name Steve Stewart, passed away yesterday. No word on the details of his passing. He was 57 years old.

Sawyer was a regular for Portland Wrestling during the early 1990s before he went to the USWA. He got his star in the business training under Bob Giegel in the Kansas City area and had his first match as a student against Curtis Hughes. He worked for the World Wrestling Alliance in Kansas City and then made some appearances for the USWA and WCCW before beginning to work for Pacific Northwest Wrestling.

PNW was where he took on the name Bart Sawyer, playing a young teen based on Bart Simpson. He was known as “The Bartman” and became a regular for the territory for a couple of years before he joined the USWA again, a promotion he would go back to several times in his career. Sawyer would work for a number of other promotions in the Pacific Northwest including Championship Wrestling USA, where he was a four-time Television Champion. He had a run in WCW in 1995 and 1996 and was a semi-regular performer on WCW Worldwide and WCW Saturday night.

Sawyer also had the distinction of teaming with Flex Kavana — aka The Rock — in the USWA in 1996. The two held the USWA Tag Team Championships twice during their run together.

Sawyer found success in various NWA promotions in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and worked two early NWA TNA PPVs in 2004. He was forced to retire in November of that year after suffering a stroke that left him in a coma for several days and partially paralyzed his left side. He would eventually recover but called it quits in the ring.

On behalf of 411, our condolences to the family, friends, and fans of Bart Sawyer.