Jax Dane Dead, Former NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion Unexpectedly Dies At Age 48

Thursday afternoon, the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) announced the death of Jeremy Laymon, known by fans as Jax Dane. The former NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion and multi-time NWA National Heavyweight champion passed away at 48 years old on Wednesday, December 25. According to NWA, Dane passed due to complications from a heart attack that occurred in late November 2024.

Dane first broke into the professional wrestling world in 2012 as part of NWA Houston, teaming with Raymond Rowe — known in modern WWE as Erik of The War Raiders — under the name The Path of Resistance. He began to make appearances in NJPW in 2013, and shared the ring with talent such as KUSHIDA, Shelton Benjamin, and Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson. In 2015, he claimed both the NWA National Heavyweight Championship and the NWA World Heavyweight title, the latter by defeating former IWGP Heavyweight Champion Hiroyoshi Tenzan.

Dane carried the title for a whopping 419 days (one of the longest reigns in modern NWA history) holding the gold well into 2016 before dropping it to Tim Storm, after which he began to break into other high-profile independent promotions, such as Ring of Honor, IMPACT (as Wilcox), and Ohio Valley Wrestling. He returned to NWA in 2020, where he became a two-time NWA National Heavyweight Champion and was seen wrestling as recently as October 2024, when he and Storm defeated Jake Dumas and Zyon on the October 26 episode of "NWA Powerrr."

"Very few people have been as influential to my wrestling career as Jax," Storm said via press release. "He was completely unselfish. That is no more evident than in our current tag team. He put me squarely on his shoulders and made it happen."

Wrestling Inc. extends our condolences to Jeremy Laymon's friends and family.