In the thunderous world of professional wrestling, where giants clash and egos shatter under spotlights, Tyrus – the 6-foot-7 behemoth once feared as Brodus Clay – always seemed unbreakable. A former NWA World Heavyweight Champion, Fox News firebrand, and New York Times bestselling author, George “Tyrus” Murdoch built a legacy on raw power and unfiltered truth. But on August 27, 2023, at NWA 75, he stepped into the ring for a bullrope match against EC3 with everything on the line: his title, his pride, and a stipulation that would end it all. When the final pin fell, Tyrus didn’t rage or rage-quit. He hugged his family at ringside, thanked promoter Billy Corgan, and walked away – retired at 50, at the peak of his game.
The world assumed it was the grind, the years of body slams catching up. Age? Fading glory? Nah. In a raw, tear-streaked confession on The Sage Steele Show this month, Tyrus dropped the real reason: his six children. “I was having fun and feeling great,” he admitted, voice thick with the weight of what-ifs. “But I was missing the games, the horseback rides, the moments that matter. I asked my kids straight up: ‘Dad’s belt or Dad at your side?’ They said, ‘Games.’ That was it. I chose them.”
It wasn’t a fairy-tale exit. Tyrus’ path to fatherhood is a brutal tapestry of foster care shadows, impulsive youth, and a vow forged in absence. Growing up biracial in 1970s Boston – son of a 15-year-old white mother, Ann Anastasi, and a 19-year-old Black father, George Murdoch Sr. – Tyrus knew instability from the cradle. His dad’s abuse peaked in a violent rage that scarred his eye, shattering the fragile family. Mom fled to her parents’ home, but racism barred the door: “Two biracial kids? Not under our roof,” they said. At age 6, Tyrus and his brother were shipped to foster care, bouncing between homes for years.
“I was obsessed with changing my skin color to go back,” Tyrus recalled in his 2022 memoir Just Tyrus, choking up at the memory. “No dad. No stability. Just survival.” Reunited with his mom as a teen, he bolted at 15, chasing football dreams at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. A botched appendix surgery ended that, thrusting him into odd jobs – bodyguard, bouncer, civil rights investigator – before WWE scooped him up in 2006. Success came, but so did regrets: three children from three whirlwind relationships in his 30s, all born in 2011, amid the chaos of rising fame.
“I didn’t have parenting wisdom to fall back on,” Tyrus confessed recently. “I was impulsive. Made my own choices – no excuses.” Those choices left bonds strained, visits sporadic, goodbyes gut-wrenching. He calls his eldest son “Kakerot” on Instagram (a Dragon Ball nod to the boy’s fierce spirit), born August 24, 2011. The twins – a daughter in June, another in December – share birthdays that blur into a bittersweet joke now, at 14. “We laugh about it today,” he says. “But they’ll have questions, angers later. I’ll own it: I wasn’t there like I should’ve been.”
Enter Ingrid Rinck, the fitness entrepreneur who became his anchor. Married since 2015, they blended their worlds into a family of six: step-sons Rhett (now 22, a Mandeville High grad) and Rock (20), their shared daughter Georgie (11, a horseback-riding spitfire named after Tyrus himself), and Tyrus’ three from before. Georgie’s the light – selfies of her beaming beside her giant dad flood his feed, her equestrian events now his front-row obsession. “She’s my mini-me,” he grins. “Tough, sassy, unbreakable.”
Retirement flipped the script. No more 300-day road tours. Now, weekends are sacred: bleacher-side at Rhett’s pickup games, trailering horses for Georgie’s shows, grilling burgers while Rock blasts playlists. “I vowed to give them what I never had – presence,” Tyrus says. “Not belts or headlines. Me, showing up. Cheering louder than the crowd.” It’s redemption in real time. On Fox’s Gutfeld!, he’s the booming laugh track; at home, he’s the dad fumbling bedtime stories, teaching Kakerot arm-wrestling holds (safely, this time).
But even in this hard-won harmony, one chapter haunts him: an estrangement that cuts deepest. Tyrus won’t name names – “That’s their story to tell,” he insists, honoring his kids’ privacy like a code. Insiders whisper it’s one of the older three, a rift widened by those absent years, the impulsive dad who prioritized spotlights over sippy cups. “Saying goodbye after visits… it kills me every time,” he admitted on the podcast. “I see the hurt in their eyes, the questions they don’t ask. I’m working on it – letters, calls, no pressure. Just showing I’m here now. Healing ain’t linear, but quitting ain’t an option.”
It echoes his own foster ghosts. “I grew up without a stable father figure,” Tyrus reflects. “Bounced around, wondering why I wasn’t enough. I won’t let my kids feel that. Even if it means rebuilding from scratch.” Therapy’s in the mix now – “Big guys cry too,” he jokes – alongside Ingrid’s steady hand. Her Sensible Meals empire keeps the family grounded; their partnership, a quiet superpower. “She pushed me to be more,” he posted on X in September 2025, celebrating a business “win” with a cryptic nod: “Couldn’t have done it without her… or the kids who make it worth it.”
Critics snipe – online trolls call him a “bully dad,” twisting old jokes into venom. Tyrus shrugs it off: “Haters gonna hate. I’m too busy loving.” His books, Nuff Said (2023) and the upcoming comic What It Is: America, weave fatherhood threads without spilling kid secrets. “Their stories ain’t mine to sell,” he says firmly.
Two years post-retirement, Tyrus at 52 is thriving – hosting Maintaining with Tyrus on OutKick, sparring verbally on Fox, plotting a memoir sequel. But the ring’s echo lingers in family photos: him hoisting Georgie on shoulders, Rock’s shy grin at a game, Rhett’s proud nod. The older three? Progress is slow, but real. A recent visit ended not in tears, but tentative hugs. “One step,” Tyrus says. “That’s victory.”
In a life of suplexes and soundbites, this is Tyrus’ greatest match: against his past, for his future. “Wrestling gave me glory,” he muses. “But my kids? They give me grace.” The estrangement may haunt, but it doesn’t define. Not anymore. From foster kid to family colossus, Tyrus proves: the toughest pins are the ones you pull yourself up from.
As he posted last month on X, celebrating a quiet family milestone: “Ups and downs, mistakes and wins… but when it comes together? Unbelievable.” For Tyrus, the canvas he’s painting now isn’t sequined – it’s heartfelt, handprints and all.
