One of the four men behind “Dirty Sanchez,” the Welsh stunt show whose pranks went further than “Jackass,” has died.
Michael Richard Locke, the skater and stunt man known to MTV viewers as Mike “Pancho” Locke, has died at 47. Friends and family announced his death on Friday, Nov. 6, 2026, in a statement posted on the Facebook and Instagram pages of San Portablo, the Port Talbot clothing brand and shop he co-founded with former steelworker Nigel Hunt. Locke, a father of two, was from Port Talbot, Wales. Neither a date nor a cause of death has been released.
“It is with profound sadness that San Portablo and the Locke family write of the passing of the father, son, brother, uncle, friend, skater, stuntman and all-round goodfella Michael Richard Locke,” the family wrote.
The statement called him “an absolute Welsh Treasure and San Portablo King” and closed: “Rest In Peace brother, your legend will never cease, it will only gain momentum.” The shop would be closed that day, it said.
Devastated on the Way to Everest
Mathew Pritchard, his co-star on the show and a friend of more than 30 years, posted a video recorded on a trek to Everest base camp. “I’m devastated, I love you Panch, until we meet again rest in power,” Pritchard posted.
Welsh comedian Sandro Ford, also from Port Talbot, said Locke and Hunt had backed him from his earliest stand-up days, telling people to turn up to the shows he ran at the Surge, the Red Lion and Afan Ales, and expecting nothing back for it.
“People might know him from the TV stuff, but he was much more than that; he was a clever, hilarious, and loyal person,” Ford wrote. Locke would travel to open mics with him just to watch him fail on stage, Ford said, then laugh about it on the way home.
Three Welshmen and an Englishman
“Dirty Sanchez” ran on MTV from 2003 to 2007 and built its episodes around a group harming themselves and each other: Locke, Pritchard, fellow Welshman Lee Dainton and the Englishman Dan Joyce. It started out in Newport, with later episodes filmed elsewhere in the U.K. and internationally.
The show went out on MTV in the United Kingdom and Ireland and on MTV2 in the United States, where it was called “Sanchez Boys” and “Team Sanchez.” Its first series was broadcast in more than 64 countries, reaching about 400 million people.
The crew carried the format into “Dirty Sanchez: The Movie” in 2006, and Locke and Pritchard went on to appear as the Pain Men on Channel 4’s “Balls of Steel.” A sequel film reuniting the original four-man cast was announced as in development for 2027.
Dainton confirmed that project on a podcast earlier in 2026, saying it would likely be “more wholesome,” because the cast are now sober.
From the Steelworks to Aberafan
Locke’s involvement with San Portablo grew out of someone else’s crisis. About 10 years ago, Hunt was made redundant from the Port Talbot steelworks and started the brand.
The name was the joke with a point. Port Talbot had spent decades absorbing derogatory remarks about its industrial landscape, and San Portablo handed the town a glamorous, Californian-sounding twist instead. Locke came aboard as an official business partner, bringing his stunt-skater fame and creative energy to the brand’s frontline.
What began as pop-up stalls became a permanent flagship store inside the Aberafan Shopping Centre, and the shop grew into a South Wales cultural hub rather than simply a clothing retailer. On the day his death was announced, its doors stayed shut, and fans filled the comments under the tribute post and on Locke’s Instagram account.
Pritchard, still on the mountain, said he would dedicate the base camp trip to Locke’s memory.