Last week at age 64.

Brief Bio

The Corp got a big push in 85-86 WWF as Sgt. Slaughter's replacement. His career highlight was a Wrestlemania II Flag Match win over arch-rival Nikolai Volkoff. Kirchner's big push ultimately fizzled out and he was already phased out by the time I started watching in '87. I actually don't remember seeing him on tv at all, but Cagematch does list two matches I should have seen. I only knew him for his LJN figure and later the WM 2 match with Volkoff. 

He would experience a successful second life in wrestling by working as Leatherface in Japanese death match promotions WING & FMW throughout the 90s.

Kirchner's real death reminds me of an odd story about 15 years ago when WWE.com and other wrestling media reported his false death. I remember this only because the deceased in question who was mistakenly believed to be Kirchner lived in the nearby community of White Marsh. Kirchner or somebody close to him contacted WWE with "I'm still alive, you idiots!" and they soon retracted the story.

On the surface Corporal Kirchner is just another footnote in wrestling history. It took almost a week for somebody to mention his passing on PW. But the dude beat his arch-rival in a gimmick match at Wrestlemania and was immortalized with a LJN figure. That's actually a whole lot more than many wrestlers ever accomplished. 

RIP Corporal Kirchner

During the WrestleMania WatchThru project I recall being caught totally off guard by how over Kirchner sad. Great look and could seemingly go. I'd only ever seen his name on paper before, but seeing him "live" for the first time instantly got me on board and has since had me wondering why he wasn't more of a thing.

The Leatherface run always seemed scary cool. Vaguely remember seeing a pic in a mag as a kid and thinking he was like a legit terrifying version of Mankind. Wonder what that feud would've looked like?

Not to shit on the man, but Cpl. Kirschner was one of the first babyfaces I rejected as a kid. Not sure why, don't remember a lot about him, but just remember thinking he sucked. This would have been on Colisuem Video compilations in 1989/1990, so he was already long gone. He was also of that "dark" era before WWF lit crowds, so maybe he just seemed liked a 1970s wrestler to me, I don't know. 

Anyway, researching what Coliseum Video tapes he was on because I felt like I saw him a lot, it was only 5 releases:

Wrestling Classic (WF014)
11/07/85 Adrian Adonis vs. Cpl. Kirschner

Wrestlemania II (WF021)
04/07/86 Cpl. Kirschner vs. Nikolai Volkoff (flag match)

Best of the WWF #9 (WF031)
07/26/86 Nikolai Volkoff vs. Cpl. Kirschner (boot camp match)

Villains of the Squared Circle (WF022)
04/22/86 The Iron Sheik vs. Cpl. Kirschner

Best of the WWF #9 (WF031)
07/26/86 Nikolai Volkoff vs. Cpl. Kirschner (boot camp match)

Maybe the matches just sucked looking at those opponents. Goddamn, Corp never had a chance at putting on a good match with those feuds.

Late 90s, discovering Japanese Hardcore Wrestling and finding out Cpl. Kirschner had a second career as Leatherface was one of the most mindblowing revelations of all time.

Dec 28, 2021 20:46:29 GMT Kilgore said:

Late 90s, discovering Japanese Hardcore Wrestling and finding out Cpl. Kirschner had a second career as Leatherface was one of the most mindblowing revelations of all time.

Same here. 80s WWF to Japanese death match wrestling is quite the transition.
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I actually watched some Kirchner matches over the past few days and also did some research on why he wasn't a bigger star. 

Pros: Had a good/great look and was over with crowds. Was even surprisingly decent on the mic, though I do think he came across as "heelish." There was something in his eyes and cadence....an intensity that could be called psychotic which just lent itself to heeldom. Think he would have been better served by being booked as a psychotic soldier gone rogue rather than a heroic babyface figure.

Cons: Bad in the ring. Granted, the matches I watched were squashes, and bouts with all time load Nikolai Volkoff, but all he really did was punch, and those punches sucked. Oh, but it gets worse. His stuff looked like crap while allegedly being very stiff. One of my takeaways from Foley's first book was this combination being the kiss of death for any wrestler. He also had a reputation for being a real life loose cannon. Lots of rumors and innuendo about him being "difficult" in WWF, though I could find no concrete evidence of this. There was also this grizzly incident in one of those Japanese death match feds- "Kirchner broke kayfabe after the match and ripped off a piece of the bed of nails, placed it on Ono's throat and then executed a leg drop onto the patch of nails. He then powerbombed Ono onto the bed of nails"

Also discovered he worked one ECW show(!) in 1999 Florida as Super Leather which saw him score a win over Rhino who was still a noob at the time. 

He also had a brief run in dying days Stampede. At first I thought it was kind of a big deal since a WWF/LJN guy was coming to Calgary but that novelty wore off in about a week. Underwhelming in every sense of the word but his LJN variant figures that are bearded are one of the more sought after figures on the market.

Dec 29, 2021 17:49:52 GMT Shootist said:

his LJN variant figures that are bearded are one of the more sought after figures on the market.

I just learned about his bearded LJN figure the other day. Turns out Cpl. Kirchner had three LJN figures! Clean-shaven, stubble, and bearded. I had the clean-shaven one. The Corp having 3 LJN figures seems to confirm the long-held theory that WWF had major plans for him once upon a time.
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Also realized I neglected to mention the consensus reason for why he never made it big. The story for as long as I've been online is "fans rejected him because they realized he was a blatant Sgt. Slaughter ripoff/replacement." Chances are I forgot to mention it yesterday because I reject this narrative. Was Corp as over as 1984 Sgt. Slaughter? No. He was not the 2nd or 3rd most over babyface in the company. BUT he was over as a babyface in the handful of matches I've watched over the years. Point is I have yet to find a match where fans flat out reject Corporal Kirchner. 

Dec 30, 2021 0:08:01 GMT Baker said:

Dec 29, 2021 17:49:52 GMT Shootist said:

his LJN variant figures that are bearded are one of the more sought after figures on the market.

I just learned about his bearded LJN figure the other day. Turns out Cpl. Kirchner had three LJN figures! Clean-shaven, stubble, and bearded. I had the clean-shaven one. The Corp having 3 LJN figures seems to confirm the long-held theory that WWF had major plans for him once upon a time.
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Also realized I neglected to mention the consensus reason for why he never made it big. The story for as long as I've been online is "fans rejected him because they realized he was a blatant Sgt. Slaughter ripoff/replacement." Chances are I forgot to mention it yesterday because I reject this narrative. Was Corp as over as 1984 Sgt. Slaughter? No. He was not the 2nd or 3rd most over babyface in the company. BUT he was over as a babyface in the handful of matches I've watched over the years. Point is I have yet to find a match where fans flat out reject Corporal Kirchner. 

This got me doing quick skims of house shows from 1986/1987 (which are becoming harder to find on the internet) just to see the reactions to the Cpl., and I'm rejecting this, too. Closest I got to see a "rejection" was a very small scattering of boos at Maple Leaf Garden against King Kong Bundy in June 1987. Fans kinda pop for Bundy when he betters the Cpl.

Everything in 1986, Cpl. is getting cheered. 

I suspected, perhaps, MSG would be a little mixed as a stronghold of Sgt. Slaughter during his heyday (they also booed Backlund when he was the ace), but in a match against Orndorff in the summer of 1986, Cpl. is still well received. Then Orndorff comes out to Hogan's music, gets nuclear heat, and Cpl. is only going to get cheered after that.

Even in 1987, Cpl. is getting jobbed out to Adrian Adonis on Wrestling Challenge, and he's still getting all cheers.

The only thing I'm seeing is he isn't ever super over. He's not getting great pops, fans kinda going through the motions. So maybe that's what they mean by rejection. They expected fans going apeshit, they didn't, they knew he wasn't much, so they had no problems pulling the plug, like, well, we tried, oh well. 

Great line from Bobby the Brain in one of the commentaries: "All those years in the military ... still only a Corporal"