By the time the pink boas and mascara started flying, Keith Adonis Franke had already gone from Buffalo bruiser to brawling biker to wrestling’s resident Liberace in a mumu. And though his final act ended not with a piledriver but with a van plummeting off a bridge into an unforgiving Canadian creek, Adrian Adonis remains one of wrestling’s strangest success stories—a cautionary tale powdered in rouge and drenched in baby oil.
From Rust Belt to Ring General
Born in 1953 in Buffalo, New York, Keith Franke was everything his “Adorable” persona wasn’t: a rugged, tough-as-nails amateur wrestler who could deadlift your uncle and headbutt drywall for fun. After dropping out of high school and dabbling in CFL football, he joined the squared circle in 1974. Within a few years, he ditched his government name for the more flamboyant Adrian Adonis, a ring moniker so ironic it might as well have been tattooed across a barbed wire bicep.
The early Adonis was no laughing matter. A leather-jacketed, sneering street fighter, he tore through the Pacific Northwest circuit, even tag-teaming with a pre-hot rod Roddy Piper. Then came a stint with Jesse Ventura in the AWA as the East-West Connection, a gimmick that was half geography lesson, half bloodbath. They captured the AWA Tag Team Championships, mugged babyfaces for fun, and looked like they wandered out of a bar fight on Venice Beach.
The WWF Calls, and So Does the Buffet
When Adonis landed in Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation in the early ’80s, he looked the part: fast hands, quick feet, and a gut that barely spilled over his tights. But time—and catering—waits for no man. By the time he joined forces with Dick Murdoch in 1983 as the North-South Connection, Adonis had traded crunches for crullers, morphing from a stocky brawler into a walking advertisement for saturated fats. Together they won the WWF Tag Team Championships, proving that cardio is optional when you can knock someone out with a forearm the size of a hickory log.
But the real metamorphosis came in 1985, when Adonis—no longer just pudgy but downright rotund—was handed the most flamboyant gimmick in a decade that had George Michael and Boy George competing in eye shadow. The “Adorable” era had begun.
He Was Adorable, Dammit
In the great pantheon of wrestling weirdos, Adonis’ transformation into a peroxide-blond, eye-shadowed, tutu-wearing glam queen stands alone. Picture a rhinestone couch cushion with a microphone, insulting crowds from his talk segment The Flower Shop. He replaced biceps with boas, traded bodyslams for blush, and turned homophobia into heat—Vince McMahon’s favorite currency.
The “Adorable” gimmick was equal parts gold and grotesque. Adonis still had the timing, ring savvy, and mic work to sell out arenas. But his appearance—soft, powdered, and 100 pounds heavier—invited mockery, not menace. He looked like a parody of a parody, a drag show on a bad acid trip.
But even wrapped in lace and shame, Adonis could work. He bumped like a cruiserweight, sold like a master, and still laid in his shots harder than most main-eventers. His feud with Piper was fire, culminating in the legendary Hair vs. Hair match at WrestleMania III, where Piper scalped him like a 1980s beauty school dropout. Brutus Beefcake swooped in for the shears, but the humiliation was all Adonis’. It was the most humiliating moment of his career—and arguably his last good one.
Out of Style, Out of Work
By 1987, Vince McMahon had grown tired of the act—and perhaps the man beneath it. Adonis, ballooning past 350 pounds, was fired for “dress code violations,” which in 1980s WWF probably means he stopped shaving his armpits or forgot his tutu.
He returned to the AWA, now a fading echo of its former self, where he was managed by a young Paul Heyman and still clung to the remnants of the “Adorable” gimmick like a deflated birthday balloon. In truth, Adonis was losing more than matches. He was losing time. He had plans to return to the WWF. He was dropping weight. He had one foot in the ring and another in the grave—and neither wore heels.
Death in the Maritimes
In July 1988, Adonis was touring Newfoundland, working for Dave McKigney, a fellow carny from the era when ring rats and moose sightings were equally likely. Along for the ride were the Kelly twins and McKigney himself. On July 4, their van swerved to avoid an actual moose—because of course it did—and plunged off a bridge into a shallow creek.
Adonis died on impact. He was 34.
The wrestling world barely paused. The 1980s were a coke-fueled circus, and wrestlers were dropping like flies at a Raid convention. A short obituary here, a funeral there. No tribute. No ten-bell salute. Just a quiet burial in Bakersfield, California, and a legacy that faded like lipstick in the rain.
A Cautionary Flair
In 2023, Dark Side of the Ring finally gave Adonis his due, peeling back the glitter to reveal the gory details: the injuries, the food, the isolation, the humiliation. He was a man trapped in a gimmick, desperate for redemption but doomed by the excesses of a business that chews up talent and spits out corpses.
To some, Adonis was a joke—a cautionary tale in pink tulle. But to real wrestling fans, he was a master of psychology, a rare big man who could fly, bump, and draw heat like a goddamn volcano in drag. He lived fast, died weird, and remains one of wrestling’s most unforgettable—and underappreciated—acts.
He was Adorable, dammit. Just ask the moose.
