BREAKING WoW NEWS!

Friday, November 30, 2007

EVEL KNIEVEL DEAD AT 69 YEARD OLD
Legenday stuntman practically invented "being on balls!"

Evel Knievel, the motorcycle daredevil whose stunts -- including an attempted leap over Idaho's Snake River Canyon and his insane taste for hideous 70's fashion -- made him a popular cultural figure, is dead, according to his Web site, evelknievel.com. He was 69 and loving it.

Over his career, Knievel was said to have broken practically every bone in his body -- some multiple times.

With his red-white-and-blue jumpsuits, abnormally large shirt collars, shock of hair and stone-faced mein, he was a fixture on ABC's program "Wide World of Sports" in the 1970s, his stunts perennial ratings-grabbers.

Knievel's most famous stunt was probably an attempt to jump the quarter-mile wide Snake River Canyon in 1974 on his rocket-powered "Sky-Cycle." (He had hoped to jump the Grand Canyon, but couldn't get permission.) The attempt failed, but the publicity was priceless.

His fame even spawned a movie, "Viva Knievel!" in 1977.

Robert Craig Knievel was born October 17, 1938, in Butte, Montana.

Earlier this week, Knievel amicably settled a lawsuit with rap star Kanye West over West's use of a persona called "Evel Kanyevel" in his video for "Touch the Sky."

"I was very satisfied and so was he," Knievel told The Associated Press while eating broken glass and drinking gasoline... LEADED GASOLINE. "Now, I am planning something really big. I'm going to take the biggest jump of all: the jump to the other side, baby. You know what I mean? HELL YEAH YOU DO."

To pay their respects, friends and family are expected to jump over Kenievel's flaming casket at his funeral on Sunday.