Brian Damage
This is the 584th installment of the ‘Wrestling with Sin‘ series. A group of stories that delves into the darker, underbelly of pro wrestling. Many of the stories involve such subjects as sex, drugs, greed and in some cases even murder! As with every single story in the Sin series, I do not condone or condemn the alleged participants. We simply retell their stories by researching interviews, newspapers, magazines and various other sources of media.
Flair-y Tale
Shane Douglas recalled an incident that took place in WCW during his days of teaming with Johnny ‘Ace’ Laurinaitis as the Dynamic Dudes. Douglas said that he was hanging out at the hotel bar with several wrestlers and their girlfriends/wives. Johnny Ace hadn’t arrived yet, but his then girlfriend Marti was waiting for him at the bar. Douglas remembered Ric Flair walking over to Marti and tried to forcibly kiss her on the lips several times.
Marti reacted by turning her head each time indicating she didn’t feel comfortable. From there, things only got worse, as Douglas said Flair was able to stand on top of Marti and proceeded to take out his penis and “helicopter” it. Douglas looked at Marti and said she was stiff with fear. Douglas said he decided to do something about it and said he knocked Flair off of her and told him that what he was doing was not cool.
Years later, Flair addressed the incident by flatly denying it ever happened. Shane told the story a number of times in different interviews throughout the years.
NOAH Way of Finding Out
Ryu Nakata joined All Japan Pro Wrestling right out of high school. He was small to become a wrestler but ended up becoming an important cog in both All Japan and Pro Wrestling NOAH. He started out as Shohei Baba’s assistant and personal driver. Nakata was eventually promoted to ring announcer and office employee. Nakata developed a close friendship with Mitsuharu Misawa which led Nakata to follow Misawa and several wrestlers and front office employees to form NOAH.
Nakata was named general manager of NOAH and did some ring announcing for the new group as well. When Misawa suddenly and tragically died in 2009, Akira Taue was named as the new president of NOAH. Taue and Nakata were not as friendly with one another. It was an open secret that Nakata had ties to organized crime and the Yakuza…something that the conservative Taue frowned upon.
While acting as NOAH President, Taue discovers a large amount of money missing from the company. The promotion was over 200,000,000 yen in debt and that some of that money was embezzled by office employees after Misawa’s untimely death. While Taue never mentioned any specific names, Ryu Nakata and another office employee named Haruka Eigen were suspected of stealing the funds.
To prevent any bad publicity to the company, Taue announced to all employees that NOAH could no longer afford its staff and would be making a large number of cuts to staff. Taue said that miraculously, the missing money returned to NOAH’s coffers. Nakata and Eigen were ultimately demoted in their executive positions.
Unlucky Thirteen
An Australian promoter and wrestler nicknamed ‘Thirteen’ was arrested in October of 2025 on suspicion of rape. Thirteen real name Elliott Stacey was the owner of the Australian independent promotion called United Pro Wrestling (UPW) and also was one of the company’s star wrestlers. He was accused of multiple rapes throughout the region and was charged with three counts of rape and three counts of assault occasioning bodily harm.
Elliott Stacey has been jailed since his arrest and has yet to give a plea of any kind. Since news of this scandal broke, multiple wrestling talents have quit UPW and the promotion was put up for sale. All the events booked for UPW in the area were subsequently canceled.
Into the Abyss
While working for TNA back in 2004, Kid Kash allegedly got into an argument with the tag team of ‘The Naturals’ Chase Stevens and Andy Douglas. Kash began berating them for looking “scrawny” and “unprofessional looking.” Kash supposedly got into the face of Stevens and had to be separated by both Monty Brown and Konnan. Kash and the Naturals were still jawing back and forth with Kash saying that they had no place in wrestling and if he wanted to, could join WWE any time he felt like it.
Abyss walked into the locker room and tried to calm things down and that is when Kash allegedly began to get in Abyss’ face. Abyss reportedly threw Kash to the ground and placed him in a chokehold until Kash calmed down. It was rumored that Kid Kash had been frustrated with his time in TNA and the payoffs being so low, he finally snapped.
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James
Akira Taue did the right thing. Ryu Nakata and Haruka Eigen got what they deserved for embezzling money for the Yakuza.
dunnwell 77
You know, I believe the first part of the Douglas story. Flair hit on his girlfriend. But how did he get her to the ground? A wrestler’s weight (even Ric Flair would have gone 230+ in those days), standing on a woman would have done some damage, even enough for a hospital visit (which if she had, he would surely have told in the story), a lot bigger stars than Ric Flair have been charged for getting their bits out in public and made pretty big news (think back to the stories of Flair wearing only his robe and walking down the aisle on aircraft to harrass the flight attendants, always a private jet or flight chartered by the company he was working for, where it could be hushed up and people paid off, if need be), it was a hotel bar, there were bound to be some nonwrestling fans there who would take offense and report it, and finally, there were ‘several’ other wrestlers there, they delight in telling Flair off his head stories, so why has no one else told this story?
David Fullam
Thirteen needs to be in general pop in prison. They love dealing with rapists. Ric Flair being a sexual harasser? Not surprised. Taue-Going to have to let you go, we have no money in the bank. Nakata-Hey, boss, look. The money just reappeared!