Duane Gill, the enhancement talent who later went on to play the comedic gimmick of Gillberg, suffered a heart attack this week.
Gill, now 61, retired from wrestling earlier this year after 30 years in the business.
His friend and fellow former WWE Superstar James Ellsworth announced Gill’s hospitalization and on Thursday gave an update saying that he is now out of intensive care and resting in hospital.
“I just got off the phone with the wife of Duane Gill…also known as Gillberg…she wanted to let everyone know what’s going on with Duane. He had a heart attack yesterday, but he is doing good now and just got out of ICU,” Ellsworth said in a video.
Gill wrestled for WWE between 1991 and 1994 as an enhancement talent, or jobber as it was called back then, and then in 1998 he signed a short-term deal and joined the J.O.B. Squad. He won the Light Heavyweight title in 1998 before transitioning to his Gillberg gimmick.
Gillberg came following the popularity of Bill Goldberg in WCW and WWE saw it as a way to mock Goldberg.
Gill made sporadic appearances on WWE television since he left the company in 2000, the most recent one in a February 2017 episode of Raw when he came out as Gillberg and was attacked by Kevin Owens.
