Gene Snitsky is retiring from wrestling.

The 48-year-old former WWE star announced last Friday that he plans to stop wrestling after working a few more shows. He wants to spend more time with his girlfriend and focus on weight training.

Snitsky wrote, "Only gonna do a few more shows!!!!! I've decided to move on and focus more on other things like @carianneb1 for instance.... And ofcourse weight training and appearances just no more in ring competition lol....."

"I've been losing the love over the last few yrs and honestly don't like the way wrestling is going..... Just wanna thank all my fans.... for without you there would never have been a SNITSKY!!!! I truly love my fans and always will...... Thx for taking the time to watch me perform it means the world to me!!!!!"

Snitsky  real name Eugene Alan Snisky  is best known for his time with WWE from 2004 through 2008. A fixture on Monday Night Raw, he faced many of WWE's top stars including John Cena, Triple H, Kane, Jeff Hardy and CM Punk.

After playing college football at the University of Missouri, Snitsky began his wrestling career in 1998 teaming with his cousin, A.J. Petrucci, on the independent circuit. Petrucci worked as an enhancement talent for the World Wrestling Federation from 1984 to 1986 and held the ECW World Tag Team Championship twice as part of a tag team called The Super Destroyers (in 1992 and 1993).

In 2001, Snitsky joined the Allentown, Pennsylvania-based World Xtreme Wrestling (WXW) under the name "Mean" Gene Snitsky and won the WXW Tag Team Championship with college friend Robb Harper. Doing a football gimmick, they called themselves The Twin Tackles, with Petrucci acting as their "coach." Snitsky eventually started wrestling on his own and captured the WXW Heavyweight Championship on October 19, 2003.

Snitsky trained under WWE Hall of Famer Afa at WXW, who secured him a tryout match at a Raw television event on October 20, 2003, in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. In a dark match before Raw aired live on Spike TV, Snitsky lost to Tommy Suede.

WWE offered Snitsky a developmental contract a few months later and he joined Ohio Valley Wrestling in Louisville, Kentucky in June 2004. As the brother of Mike Mondo, he began wrestling under the moniker of "Mean" Gene Mondo (a name inspired by WWE Hall of Famer "Mean" Gene Okerlund). Snitsky did not stay in OVW for long, however.

On September 13, 2004, Snitsky made his WWE debut on Raw in a No Disqualification Match against Kane. As Kane prepared to injure Snitsky, he was distracted by Lita, who was pregnant with Kane's child. Snitsky used the distraction to hit Kane from behind with the chair, causing Kane to fall on Lita. The blow caused Lita to miscarry her unborn baby.

This kicked off a lengthy feud between Snitsky and Kane, with Snitsky putting Kane on the shelf in October 2004 by using a steel chair to crush "The Big Red Machine"'s larynx. The angle was done to remove Kane from television, who was taking several weeks off from the road to film the WWE-produced movie, See No Evil.

Their feud resumed at the New Year's Revolution pay-per-view on January 9, 2005, with Kane returning to beat Snitsky. Three weeks later on Raw, Snitsky lost a Steel Cage Match against Kane to temporarily end the feud.

Lita forgave Snitsky in the summer of 2005 and he came to the aid of both her and her boyfriend, Edge, in their battles against Kane.

Snitsky's Raw run would continue uneventfully, save for a brief partnership with Tyson Tomko. They earned an opportunity to challenge Big Show and Kane for the World Tag Team Championship on Raw on November 28, 2005, but were unsuccessful. The team split in April 2006 when Tomko quit WWE.

Snitsky then turned face and formed a brief partnership with Goldust, defeating various tandems on WWE Heat. They earned an opportunity to challenge the Spirit Squad for the World Tag Team Championship on Raw on May 15, 2006, but were unsuccessful. The team broke up when WWE released Goldust the following month.

After being relegated to WWE Heat, vignettes began to air on ECW on Syfy in January 2007 hyping his arrival to the brand. Snitsky's character underwent an extreme overhaul as WWE began to portray him as a psychotic madman. He drastically changed his appearance for the role by shaving his hair and eyebrows and giving his teeth a darkish yellow color with the use of paint from a New York City stage makeup company.

The idea for this bizarre yet menacing character came from Vince McMahon.

"Mr. McMahon said, 'Snitsky, I want you to go home and shave all your hair off and go see the makeup lady to see what we can do to make your teeth look dirty or yellow,'" Snitsky recalled in a 2014 interview with WWE.com.

The reborn Snitsky terrorized the likes of CM Punk, Bobby Lashley, Rob Van Dam, Hardcore Holly and even Extreme Exposé.

After going undefeated on ECW on Syfy, WWE transferred Snitsky back to Raw in June 2007 in the WWE Draft. In his first match back, he quickly beat The Miz.

The monstrous wrestler continued his undefeated streak until it was put to an end by John Cena on Raw on August 20, 2007, albeit via disqualification.

After suffering a clean loss to Intercontinental Champion Jeff Hardy on Raw on December 3, 2007, Snitsky found himself competing less often on Monday nights.

On December 11, 2008, WWE announced the release of Snitsky from his contract, thus ending his association with the organization after four years.

Since leaving WWE a decade ago, Snitsky has mostly worked for various independent wrestling promotions in his home state of Pennsylvania. He had a brief stint with TNA in the summer of 2014 where he was aligned with president Dixie Carter until she fired him over losing a match.