Hamilton Tiger-Cats legend Angelo Mosca has died at age 84.
Helen Mosca announced the death of her husband in a Facebook post Saturday.
“It is with great sadness that the family of Angelo Mosca announce his passing on November 6, 2021, after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer’s.”
“Angelo was a loving husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather as well as friend to so many. Angelo was 84 years old. We ask that you respect the family’s privacy at this time. More details will be shared when arrangements have been made.”
Mosca played in a record nine Grey Cup games, tied with longtime Ticats teammate John Barrow for the most in Canadian Football League history.
He won five Grey Cup championships, four with Hamilton and one with the Ottawa Rough Riders.
The two-time CFL All-Star attended the University of Notre Dame and was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in the 30th and last round, 350th overall, in the 1959 National Football League draft.
But Mosca, like many others of his generation, decided to play in the CFL because players were paid more money at that time.
The native of Waltham, Massachusetts played the 1958 and 1959 seasons with the Ticats in which the team played in the Grey Cup but lost to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers each time.
Mosca was traded to the Ottawa Rough Riders in the summer of 1960 for guard/linebacker Hardiman Cureton and helped Ottawa win their first championship in nine years.
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Mosca spent two seasons in the nation’s capital before he joined the Montreal Alouettes in 1962 where he played just five game before returning to Hamilton.
Over the next decade, Mosca was named an East All-Star four times (1963, ’65, ’66, ’70) and starred in five Grey Cup championships for Hamilton.
Mosca’s final CFL game was the 1972 Grey Cup final at old Ivor Wynne Stadium in which he led the Tiger-Cats to a 13-10 victory over the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
The defensive tackle was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Hamilton Sports Hall of Fame in 2012.
Hamilton retired Mosca’s No. 68 jersey in 2015.
The hulking football player also made a name for himself as a professional wrestler under the name ‘King Kong Mosca’ from 1960 until he retired in 1986.
Billed as six-foot-four and 310 pounds, ‘King Kong’ starred with the World Wrestling Federation during football’s offseason and became a full-time grappler after retiring from football in 1972.
In February 2015, Mosca revealed that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
Mosca first met his wife Helen, a real estate agent, at a Tiger-Cats game in 1996 and they married two years later and had been living in St. Catharines, Ont.
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