Steve "Mongo" McMichael, the Pro Football Hall of Famer who also had a run in WCW during the late 1990s, has been posthumously diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the Concussion & CTE Foundation announced Tuesday.
McMichael passed away last year at the age of 67 after a five-year battle with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Before his death, he donated his brain to research, specifically to study a potential link between ALS and CTE.
Too many NFL players are developing ALS during life and diagnosed with CTE after death," his wife Misty McMichael said in a statement. "I donated Steve's brain to inspire new research into the link between them.
CTE is a degenerative brain disease associated with repetitive head trauma. It can only be confirmed after death and has been found in athletes across contact sports as well as military veterans.
Chris Nowinski, co-founder and CEO of the Concussion & CTE Foundation, praised McMichael's decision to pledge his brain to science.
Steve McMichael was known for his strength, toughness, and larger-than-life presence, but his final act was to give a piece of himself back to the sports community so that we might have a chance to save ourselves," Nowinski said.
McMichael spent 13 seasons with the Chicago Bears and was a cornerstone of the team's dominant 1985 defense. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2024 after his ALS diagnosis prompted a long-overdue push for his enshrinement.
Wrestling fans will remember McMichael from his WCW tenure, where he was a member of the Four Horsemen alongside his close friend Ric Flair. He was laid to rest in April 2025 in a private ceremony attended by former Bears teammates and fellow Hall of Famers.
His CTE diagnosis adds to a growing body of research connecting football careers to long-term neurological damage.
