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The Good Spirit of PAC Will Live Forever

Honoring the life and legacy of Benjamin Satterley.
Blake Lovell|
PAC
PAC | Lee South - All Elite Wrestling

I couldn't find the words.

All creative people have been there. You so desperately want to express something, but can't find the right way to do it. A writer can spend hours pouring over every word, every sentence, hoping that tiny spark of magic will show up long enough to get you to the next paragraph.

Emotions were flowing as I watched the closing video on this week's AEW Dynamite, featuring a look at the life and legacy of Benjamin Satterley (aka PAC).

The song choice, "I Know How To Speak" by Manchester Orchestra, was perfect. The photos, consisting of PAC with his family, his dog, his friends, and his co-workers, captured the image of a man who was loved by everyone. The entire AEW production, from the touching video tributes to the wrestler interactions, was a cathartic experience.

I didn't want it to end.

That may sound like a strange thing to say about a television show dedicated to someone's passing. But through all the tears and sadness, for a moment in time, the world felt right.

People being there for one another with the hope that someone out there could breathe a little easier knowing they are not alone in their grief. A community coming together to honor the life of one of its own.

It was a snapshot of what it means to be human.

In that moment, I didn't want things to go back to normal. No rushing to the phone to scroll through the social media drama of the hour. No worrying about whether AEW or WWE was winning the replies in the latest online tribalism war.

I just wanted that good spirit to stick around forever and ever.

Luckily, Tony Khan and AEW helped create a host of memories that ensure the good spirit of Benjamin Satterley will not be forgotten.

PAC's final on-screen appearance

Something that will stick with me is a four-minute, 18-second video featuring Jox Moxley and The Death Riders following AEW All Out last Saturday.

Moxley, the leader of an AEW locker room still reeling from the passing of Andy Williams (aka The Butcher) less than a month ago, had just lost to Will Ospreay in the main event.

And Moxley expressed, in storyline and in life, what he learned from that.

"You're gonna lose in wrestling. You're gonna lose in life. You're gonna lose people. You're gonna lose opportunities. You're not gonna get what you deserve. You're not gonna get what you earned. Things aren't gonna go your way. What are you gonna do? You gotta just smile, get up tomorrow, and do it again and give it your best every single day, because every single day is a gift."

He continued.

"There are two kinds of eulogies at funerals. One of them is "this is what this guy did." The other one is "this is who this guy was."

He wasn't finished.

"Right now, we have the future of pro wrestling in the palm of our hands. Whatever pro wrestling is gonna be, it's gonna be what we make it. (Pointing at The Death Riders) Me, you, you, you. Will Ospreay. Anybody else who has the guts to do what it takes to be great, to really be great, to really grab life by the balls, to take this opportunity, to take this gift and do something with it."

One by one, Wheeler Yuta, Daniel Garcia, and Marina Shafir walked away. PAC watched them, and then for a few seconds, stood alone on the screen, staring into the darkness.

It is an image that I will never forget.

Wrestling with life and death

There is an early point in one's professional wrestling fandom where your brain hasn't yet registered the idea that someone can be on your screen one day and gone the next.

I wrestled with that experience in a 411Mania column I wrote in 2020 after Brodie Lee's passing.

"The kid inside me still wants to believe in the power of invincibility for my favorite superheroes. For so many around the world, both young and old, pro wrestlers are indeed superheroes. There are attributes of certain characters that people can identify with, whether it be their beliefs, their look, or anything else that makes fans gravitate to them."

PAC had an aura of invincibility to him, and his unique style and skill set made it easy to gravitate to the bastard that gravity forgot.

For two decades, he navigated a road that included stops at AEW, WWE, Dragon Gate, NJPW, ROH, PWG, Chikara, and many more. He was a shining presence everywhere he went, showcasing his extraordinary talent to millions of fans around the world.

In so many ways, PAC was the epitome of Moxley's post-All Out message. He was a man who had the guts to do what it took to be great, really great, and use his opportunities and gifts to shape the future of pro wrestling.

And how incredible it is to know that someone achieved all of that without ever losing sight of who he was as a human being.

Marina Shafir's words at a Warrior Wrestling Event on Sunday spoke to that.

"He was the best. He was the f------ best. You know why? Because he knew himself. He was just so modest about how fascinating he was. He was the light of us."

Drew McIntyre expanded on that in a video post on social media.

"There's not a bad word you can say about him over two decades in this industry," he said. "After all that time and things not going your way, you can get pretty jaded. He never did. He kept his passion, and he kept being a good person.

"In the end, you can achieve everything you want to achieve in the ring, have all these highlight reels that people will watch back one day. But they'll Google your name eventually, and if you were a piece of crap, they're gonna know you were a piece of crap. That's now how you should want to be remembered. You should want to be remembered like someone like Ben."

The legacy of PAC lives on

So, in one of the most haunting ways imaginable, it takes us back to September 26 in an undisclosed location in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. There stood PAC, a pro wrestling star who did what very few could do inside the ring, on his way to winning numerous championships and entertaining countless fans across his 20-plus years in the industry.

And there stood Benjamin Satterley, a son, a husband, a friend, a peer, who was by all accounts everything that humanity should strive to be.

Here one day, gone the next.

I still can't find the words to explain that.

But who he was, not just what he did, will allow the good spirit of "The Bastard" to live forever.

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Published
Blake Lovell
BLAKE LOVELL

Blake Lovell has worked in the sports media industry for nearly two decades, including covering WWE and professional wrestling for various digital outlets since 2019. He is a former editor/columnist for 411Mania and ClutchPoints. As a wrestling journalist, he has interviewed legends such as The Hardy Boyz, written numerous columns, and more. You can follow him on X at @wrestleblake for more discussion on wrestling's past, present, and future.

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