New faces are easy to pick out in a small town like Helena.

It’s reasonable to believe the locals had little trouble spotting Steve Sybert when he arrived 10 years ago with long black hair, a beard and a big Rottweiler named Dorfman for his sole companion. If the imposing look wasn’t enough, news quickly spread that Mr. Sybert was a retired professional wrestler, once known as “The Assassin.”

But any apprehension the neighbors had went away the first time they met Big Steve. One day he would push a stuck car out of the snow (by hand), and the next he might help knock out an unwanted sidewalk with a sledgehammer (in two swings).

Steve was the topic of conversation for members of the Lions Club on Wednesday night. He died Feb. 27, and this was the group’s first meeting without their designated pie-cutter.

Steve also was a member of the Helena United Methodist Church, where he met his wife, Deborah.

The couple met 10 years ago when Steve started attending church, but seven years passed before they exchanged vows.

“I was scared to go out with him at first because I knew about his profession, and he had this long hair and a beard,” she said. “I had only dated clean-cut guys.”

Deborah remembers when Steve showed up at her door with a fresh, short haircut and asked for a date. Unfortunately, he still had the beard.

“I told him his hair looked nice and we could be good friends,” Deborah said.

Steve shaved the beard and he and Deborah began dating soon after, which led to their marriage on March 31, 2006.

Russ Hayden, one of Steve’s neighbors, remembers watching The Assassin wrestle in the 1970s and ’80s, though the two did not know each other at the time.

Steve told Russ plenty of stories about his 20-year career in the ring as a black-and-gold-clad masked man. Most nights were spent with too-big men crammed into a too-small van on the way to do battle for $15 a match, sometimes with three or four matches in one night. The money may have been small, but the opponents were not.

His fourth match was against wrestling legend Andre the Giant. Later matches pitted him against champions like Harley Race and Dusty Rhodes. His career took him across the country, even to Japan, Canada and Mexico.

“He always played the bad guy, but the bad guys made more money,” Russ said. “If he wrestled today, he’d probably be in a mansion somewhere.”

Deborah does not have any photographs of Steve from his wrestling days, but a Sunday morning surprise gave her a glimpse. The couple was watching a classic wrestling show on television when a famous bout involving comedian Andy Kaufman and Jerry Lawler came on. Kaufman and Lawler had set aside their feud for a tag team match, under the condition that Kaufman would never wrestle again. The opponents were Jimmy Hart and “The Masked Assassin.”

“That’s me!” Deborah remembers her husband yelling from the next room.

“I only saw him for 20 seconds, but you could tell it was him by the nose,” she said.

In recent years, Steve traded a wrestler’s top ropes for a retiree’s fishing line.

Deborah says she can still see him pulling out of the driveway with his chocolate lab, Memphis, in the front seat.

“He was a good man with a big heart. I’m going to miss him,” she said.

Clinton Thomas can be reached

at clintonthomas@npgco.com.