Former WWE Star Matt Cappotelli Dies After Battle with Cancer: He 'Went Home to Be with Jesus'

Former WWE star Matt Cappotelli has died after a year-long battle with cancer. He was 38.

Cappotelli was diagnosed with a brain tumor on June 27, 2017, according to a blog post written by his wife Lindsey Cappotelli.

Lindsey shared the news of her husband’s death on Friday in a Facebook group dedicated to him.

“Hey Team Capp…I’ve been struggling with what to say and how to say this, and I’ll probably end up rambling, but here goes,” she wrote.

“Today my love-my strong, sweet, beautiful love-took his last breath at 3:30 a.m. and went Home to be with Jesus…exactly one year after his brain surgery,” she continued. “You think you can be prepared for this when you know it’s coming, but you just can’t. The only person whose comfort I want right now is the one who can’t give it to me.”

“I miss him so much,” she added. “I know where he is now is so much better, but it doesn’t change how much I miss him.”

Matt, who also starred on the third season of WWE’s Tough Enough reality show, previously had a brain tumor about 11 years ago and was regularly screened every year, Lindsey wrote in her blog.

The former wrestler had undergone an MRI in February 2017, but in June of that year he began to suffer from headaches and “seizure activity,” she wrote.

When the two went into the doctor’s office together, they were heartbroken by Matt’s diagnosis.

“Dr. Yao, the brain surgeon, came to our room to discuss things more with us and give us our options,” Lindsey wrote. “He explained that the tumor was of significant size and that he was shocked at how fast it had grown in the 4 months since Matt’s February MRI.”

The couple was told that without surgery it would not be clear what type of tumor Matt had, although Glioblastoma was a possibility.

“That was the first time I had ever heard that word. In his words, that was the “worst case” scenario,” Lindsey wrote. “If it was GBM, and Matt chose not to have surgery or chemotherapy, he would only have about a month to live. Then he said that even with surgery and treatment, it’s usually about 6 months.”

Matt underwent the surgery on June 29, 2017, and while his surgeon was able to remove 90 percent of the tumor, results confirmed he had grade 4 Glioblastoma.

“That was an extremely emotional day for us. As is to be expected when you hear something like this, we had our moment of crying with each other,” Lindsey wrote. “I remember standing in the kitchen, in his arms, me crying and him crying, and me saying that I couldn’t lose him, I couldn’t live without him.”

He began oral chemotherapy, but his symptoms grew worse. After getting the flu in December, he was hospitalized and “really never walked again.”

“Throughout all of this, Matt and I really never discussed death,” Lindsey wrote. “A part of me wishes that we had, but I just never wanted to make him think that I didn’t think he would make it. Because I still had hope, and I didn’t want him to give up hope.”

“I just love this man so freaking much. He’s my “person”. He’s the one I wanted to be with forever,” she continued. “He’s the one I wanted to grow old with. I wanted him to be my whole life, not just a part of my life.”

“So many times I’ve wished that it were me going through this. I would trade places with him in an instant,” she added. “I always told him that I wanted to die before him because I just didn’t think I could survive without him, but I knew that he’d be okay without me. If you would’ve asked what my worst nightmare was, it would be losing him. So many times I’ve asked myself, how can this be happening? I can’t believe this is really happening. But it is. And this is part of life. People get cancer and people die. We can’t do anything about that, but we can control how we respond to these circumstances and how we allow God to work in us and through us. I can already see the growth and change in me.”

She concluded, “It sucks to go through something like this, but I know God is working and moving. All the both of us want is for Him to be glorified. As Jesus said in John 12: 28, Father, bring glory to Your name.”