Mr. Adamle, as a professional wrestling fan: I am sorry.

Mention Mike Adamle to most professional wrestling fans, especially WWE in the late 2000's, and you'll get laughs, at least before today.

Mike Adamle was brought in to give some real-world name recognition to the product.  He was an announcer and was placed into the character of General Manager of Monday Night RAW.

To say it went badly is one of the largest understatements in professional wrestling.

He didn't follow the action, botched names, just looked like he didn't know what he was doing or, often, where he even was.

They played it into an angle to at least get something out of Adamle, but what we know today changes all of this.

We all know Mike Adamle as an announcer -- standard sports announcer for many years, the original host of American Gladiators (the first version), etc.

What most of us probably didn't know is, before this, Mike Adamle played football.  He played at Northwestern and actually was in the NFL with three different teams in six NFL seasons as a running back (Kansas City, the Jets, and Chicago -- thank you Pro Football Reference).

He's got dementia, epilepsy, seizures, and CTE, by his own admission.  Interview with Chicago NBC 5 News today -- the SB Nation pro wrestling blog Cageside Seats picked it up.

All the telltale signs:  Memory loss, mood swings, rage, seizures, etc. and so forth.  Has been seeing the conditions worsen for two decades now, which would allow it to fall well within the WWE tenure that most of us probably had a good laugh or two at Adamle's expense.

Mr. Adamle, I am sorry.  As a pro wrestling fan, I was almost assuredly one of them.  Now we know why it all happened.

It was football.  Again.