Wrestling with Sin: 603

Brian Damage

This is the 603rd 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.

Black and Blue

Former adult film star Jasmin St. Claire and ‘The Blue Meanie’ aka Brian Heffron dated each other back in 1999 and remained a couple until 2005. Initially, after they split up, both St. Claire and Heffron maintained that the break up was mostly amicable. Over 20 years later, details emerged from St. Claire which paints a much different and darker picture. St. Claire stated that there was a domestic violence incident later in their relationship which required St. Claire to get multiple stitches on the top of her head.

St. Claire stated that former ECW alum Francine noticed her stitches at an independent show and asked Jasmine what happened and she confessed to the incident. St. Claire believed that Heffron abused her at the time due to professional jealousy. Jasmin was getting booked more for wrestling events and Heffron started to resent her for it. 

Years later, St. Claire said that Heffron and his current girlfriend have tried to block her from attending the same events that he is booked on. St. Claire showed the texts between her and the wrestling event promoters where they admitted to removing her from the show at Heffron’s request. St. Claire then warned Heffron if he continued to take money out of her pocket, she would post the police report from when Heffron was accused of beating her on her social media accounts.

B. Ware of Flair

Both Superstar Bill Dundee and Koko B. Ware told a story of how when Ric Flair was the traveling NWA Worlds champion, he was scheduled to defend his title in the Memphis territory against Dundee. At the last minute, Dundee decided to book Koko Ware to challenge Flair instead. 

Dundee said that before they could inform Flair of the switch, a taxi driver picking Flair up at the airport inadvertently mentioned the match with Koko happening at the Mid South Coliseum that night. Flair allegedly stormed into the Coliseum that night and screamed at Dundee and Jerry Jarrett refusing to wrestle a “nigger” in Koko Ware that night. The situation was eventually diffused and Flair was able to calm down before their match.

The Sandman Goes to Sleep

In 2003, the Sandman was brought into TNA. The Sandman had his own corner in the backstage Gorilla position for his cooler full of beers. Before his matches, Sandman would drink multiple beers and by the time it was time for him to go to the ring, he was already completely drunk. While TNA management use to sweat it out hoping that he wouldn’t miss his cues or hurt a fan or his opponent in the ring…they tolerated his behavior because he was a brand name.

Despite TNA management looking the other way to Sandman’s drunken behavior, an incident occurred that they couldn’t ignore. Before a match, Sandman came out drunk and decided to ad lib his entrance by climbing a platform and entering the dance cage above. In the early days of TNA, they had female dancers inside cages to add to the entertainment.

Sandman climbed inside the cage where a dancer named Lollipop was. Sandman grabbed her hair spun her around and kissed her on the lips without any warning. To her credit, Lollipop “no sold” the interaction and continued dancing as if nothing happened. When Sandman returned backstage, he was met by fellow wrestler Brian Meier. Meier was dating another TNA cage dancer and took offense to what Sandman did.

The two got into an argument which led Meier (a legitimate kick boxer) knocking out the Sandman with a kick. The incident led TNA management to no longer allow Sandman to drink before his matches.

Diss-Penzer

Former WCW ring announcer David Penzer made it on a nationally syndicated news program, but not for any positive reasons. Penzer was the victim of a nasty rib from his fellow WCW co-worker Chris Jericho in the lobby of the hotel they were staying at. The incident happened around 3am and Jericho, who had been drinking heavily, decided to mess with Penzer. 

Jericho forcibly stripped Penzer of all of his clothes and left the ring announcer stark naked in the middle of the hotel lobby for everyone to see. That included the crew of a national syndicated news program called ‘Hard Copy’ who were there to film something completely separate from the wrestlers of WCW. 

The incident was filmed by the crew and was featured on an episode of the program. At the time, David Penzer had the reputation of being a company stooge or ass kisser to upper management. Whether that played any type of role in the incident is unclear, but Penzer and Jericho did make up and became close friends after the fact.

To read other articles in the Wrestling with Sin series…Please Click Here.