Heartbroken doesn’t cover it.

The news that PAC had passed away hit me like a sledgehammer. When opening my phone on Monday morning to put on some music as I got ready for work, the last thing I expected to find was a Google news notification that Benjamin Satterley had died at age 40.

It didn’t feel real. Maybe I’d read it wrong in those hazy first minutes after waking up or got the name mixed up with someone else. It was only when reading through the floods of memorial posts on social media that the awful news was confirmed.

I didn’t know Ben Satterley. He wasn’t a friend or a colleague. I never exchanged words with him, shook his hand or had any interaction with him in the slightest. I didn’t eve know that the man I knew as PAC was known to his loved ones and peers as Ben until very recently.

Though he was someone I never *actually* knew, his death is truly heartbreaking.

Any time a person passes at 40 years of age, it is truly saddening especially when it is someone who was clearly in the prime of their life. It is no age.

There have been two particular words that have been used by his peers and fans alike since the news broke in the early hours of Monday morning (UK), and those are pioneer and trailblazer.

When we eulogise and commemorate those that pass, we are often prone to hyperbole and only remembering the good stuff. There is no doubt that PAC was a pioneer and a trailblazer.

His actions and achievements laid the foundations for the wrestling scene that we love today. Your favourite wrestler likely counts PAC as one of their personal favourite wrestlers of all time.

PAC came from the North East of England, like me. There are some stereotypes about the North East. People say that it’s rough. It’s cold. It’s harsh.

They’d be right. Growing up in the North East isn’t easy. There is a reason that so many of our local areas are top of league tables for deprivation, crime rates, unemployment and shortened life expectancy.

Growing up in the North East can be extremely difficult. The recent tragedies in the Cleveland area are testament to that. People can feel trapped, locked into their lot in life.

PAC represented some of that. When he got his hands on an opponent, he could be incredibly rough and harsh. He could grind you down and make you feel like there was no hope.

PAC also represented the other side of the North East. He was magical. He defied the odds. From the backyards all the way to WrestleMania and All In.

He started his professional career in IWF and 3CW, performing in venues in West Denton, Consett, Billingham and my hometown of Middlesbrough.

His tenth recorded match was on a 3CW event at the Tower Club, a former dance hall and church that has also acted as a food bank. The Tower Club closed a few years ago and sits unused, fifteen minutes from my doorstep.

The Geordie daredevil won his first singles title, the 3CW Young Lions title, in Billingham. I was in the town on Sunday, talking about his match with Andrade over a beer with a friend.

Despite those geographical connections, I didn’t follow every step of PAC’s in-ring career in real time, but I know exactly when he first made an impression on me.

As an 11/12 year old in the mid 2000s, I would go into town every other Sunday with my Grandma to spend some pocket money and carry her bags. We would always finish with a trip to HMV to look through the DVD section.

We’ve always shared a collective interest in wrestling and she always told stories of how my late Grandad (an amateur grappler in his day) would take her to the wrestling, where she would get to meet stars like Jackie Pallo and Masambula.

My Mum had passed away when I made the move to secondary school so I spent a lot of time with my Grandma in the ensuing months, with those stories filling in the silence that often accompanies death.

HMV would do a deal on “sports” DVDS – I believe it was 2 for £10 – so I would always come away with the latest WWE Pay-Per-View they had available and something else.

When my head wasn’t turned by something football related, I’d often find myself drawn to something called 1PW and it was on a copy of 1PW Invincible that I first heard about PAC.

More appropriately, that was when I first heard Stevie Aaron refer to “The Man That Gravity Forgot” on commentary. He wasn’t even on the show but I was hooked. To an 11 year old, that was the coolest thing I’d ever heard, leading to me spending the coming months hoping and praying to find a DVD with PAC on.

When a “HMV Sunday” finally resulted in being able to buy a copy of 1PW Will Not Die, where PAC wrestled Kid Kash, I nearly ripped the case apart to get it into my PS2.

Seeing “The Man That Gravity Forgot” was what I can only imagine it was like when a caveman saw fire for the first time or if you were able to time travel and show Henry VIII the Deliveroo App.

For a kid that grew up on Rey Mysterio, this PAC guy was doing moves that I’d never seen Mysterio even attempt. He did moves that, despite Stevie Aaron and Dean Ayass stating their names, I couldn’t comprehend. What even was a corkscrew moonsault splash?

Finding out that this magician was from up the road in Newcastle was mind blowing. I didn’t know anybody who could even do a backflip nevermind all of the things that this lad with curly black hair was doing on my TV screen.

In my naive kid mind, this guy was my secret. When you’re that age, you live in a bubble. If none of my friends in school knew about him, surely nobody else did.

Unbeknownst to me, PAC was already a worldwide phenomenon by this point.

Jaw-dropping efforts in 1PW and FWA had opened doors to tours of America and Japan with PWG and Dragongate. This is where he truly earned the moniker of being a trailblazer.

PAC saw the glass ceiling that had been placed on British wrestlers in the 90s and early-2000s, and thought “aye, I can moonsault through that, nee bother”.

At a time when you needed to be six foot five, crafted from stone, and absolutely drop dead gorgeous to be considered a “star” by international companies, PAC was paving the way for Zack Sabre Jr., Will Ospreay, Pete Dunne and Callum Newman.

He was the first of the modern generation to truly crack Japan, being an integral part of the Dragongate roster, where his 447 day reign as Open The Brave Gate Champion is still the longest in the title’s history.

In America, he was locking horns with opponents that would soon become his peers, other pioneers who shaped the western wrestling landscape. Look at his first handful of opponents in PWG; AJ Styles, El Generico, Kevin Steen.

He would team up with Roderick Strong to capture the PWG Tag Team titles by defeating the Briscoe Brothers.

He was the first of the “smaller” guys to sign with WWE. Whatever your thoughts on the promotion or their handling of the man that they christened “Neville”, he held belts on WWE television. That means something.

There will be hundreds, if not thousands, of children from the North East who were able to grow up and look up to the caped crusader from their area and know they could achieve more than what had been set out for them.

We’ve had our share of genuine TV superstars in the UK from the days of Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks, to the nineties hysteria of the British Bulldog, all the way to the likes of Drew McIntyre and Ospreay today but he was OURS. From our neck of the woods.

Though he was one of ours and you could relate to him, PAC managed to achieve something that few wrestlers in the modern day can. We barely knew anything about him, except his love for Newcastle United and football.

He was always in his wrestling gear. Even at the launch event of AEW, where everybody else was in a suit, PAC was in his trunks because that’s what PAC wore. Anything else would be an insight into the mind of Benjamin Satterley but when he stepped into the limelight, he was only ever PAC.

He was as professional as a professional wrestler can be. Despite his astonishing acrobatics, everything felt and looked like PAC was fighting his opponent. He didn’t corkscrew off the top rope or leap out of the ring to show off, he did it because that was the best way for him to inflict damage on his opponent and ultimately win the match.

He was able to get booed, legitimately booed, in an era where many fans support wrestling talent over traditional hero/villain roles. Whether in America with AEW, in his second Dragongate run or in his return to the UK, PAC made crowds do what he wanted.

He could scythe down an opponent with the kind of cutting disdain and lethal humour that you only find in the North East. Where others had smoothed down their own regional accent to improve their chances at screen time over the years, his Geordie bark would rally defiantly.

Pick a day from any point in the last twenty years and PAC was one of the best wrestlers on the planet.

The awestruck feeling that I had as a child watching him for the first time never left when I became an adult. If anything, the admiration grew.

The pace, poise and the body control were impressive in 2007. They genuinely defied the laws of gravity as he began to transform his body.

When he walked out from the stands at Wembley Arena, flanked by his Death Rider comrades to face Luke Jacobs, I simply uttered “fucking hell” under my breath. PAC looked like he’d walk straight out of a toy box with his action figure physique.

This was originally going to be titled “The Man That British Wrestling Will Never Forget”.

If the British Wrestling community opened an official Hall Of Fame tomorrow, PAC would be a first-ballot entry. No questions asked. No debates.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that William Regal stated that PAC was, in his opinion, the best wrestler to come out of the UK since the heyday of the 1980s. You might meet someone with a different opinion but nobody was going to get into a heated argument about that claim.

His stardust and longevity in the sport meant that he was a presence across three distinct generations of British wrestling.

He was a peer to Jody Fleisch, Jonny Storm and Spud as British wrestling scratched and clawed for relevance and a way back to the top.

He was an inspiration to those that carried the torch during the “boom” period of the 2010s like Will Ospreay and Mark Andrews amongst others before becoming the gold standard for a new generation led by Michael Oku, Luke Jacobs and Connor Mills.

To solely focus on his connections to his homeland would be a disservice to his memory, though. As seen by the outpouring of love from across the globe, PAC touched the lives of wrestlers and fans alike worldwide.

He transcended individual scenes and promotions. To say he belonged to one specific place or time would be impossible, even if you have your favourite era.

He shared the ring with a who’s who of 21st Century wrestling in America, Japan and Europe.

Jushin Liger, Bryan Danielson, AJ Styles, Amazing Red, Chris Hero, Generico, Steen, Claudio Castagnoli, Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks, The Briscoes, CIMA, BxB Hulk, Naruki Doi, Dragon Kid, Jody Fleisch, Seth Rollins, Mox, WALTER, Zack Sabre Jr., Chris Jericho, John Cena, Prince Devitt, Low Ki, FTR, Orange Cassidy, The Lucha Brothers, Kazuchika Okada, Richochet and Will Ospreay all stepped between the ropes either opposite or alongside him.

Those final two, Ospreay and Ricochet, will wrestle on Dynamite in a tribute to PAC and there aren’t two men more suited to that. Many have called PAC a trailblazer over the past couple of days and perhaps no two men have benefited from following in his footsteps than them.

PAC setting Dragongate alight blew the doors wide open for Ricochet to do the same. Showing British wrestlers that there was a way to the top, through talent and gritty determination, paved the way for Will Ospreay.

Their viral encounter in the Best of the Super Juniors was a direct result of the style that evolved through the electric performances of performers like PAC.

Though he was born in the United Kingdom, the impact that a man who started his wrestling dream on fields and school playgrounds has had is felt across the globe.

There will never be another PAC but there are countless wrestlers who pursued this career because of him or decide to wrestle in the way they do because of him, either consciously or subconsciously.

Wrestling will never forget him because the very landscape of the industry is partly carved out in his image.

There’s something more important than that, though. I never knew Ben Satterley but those that did will never let wrestling forget him. He sounded like an absolute diamond of human being and I hope that everyone that was lucky enough to count the man behind the magic as a friend, loved one or a peer can hold onto the good times.

Gravity might have forgotten him, but we never will.

Thank you for everything, PAC. Rest easy.

Image Credits: AEW/Ricky Havik, Beyond Gorilla, AEW/Lee South, Revolution Pro Wrestling