Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
This is the 455th 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.
Down and Out
Chris Kanyon recalled working for Vince McMahon and WWE and feeling miserable most of the time. He wrote in his book, how he approached Vince about doing a gay character and being the first openly gay wrestler in history. Kanyon claimed that not only was his idea shot down, but was punished both mentally and physically because of it.
He was approached to do a segment where he would come out of a big closet dressed as Boy George and was allegedly told to “sing like a faggot.” Kanyon refused to do it and then was later booked to face the Undertaker in a match on Smackdown. Kanyon claimed that the Undertaker hit him with a couple of stiff chair shots which resulted in Kanyon suffering a concussion. While off the road with WWE recuperating, Kanyon said he fell into a very deep depression and started thinking about different ways to kill himself.
Kanyon was ready to take about 50 pain pills to commit suicide, but decided against it. He would retire from wrestling a year later. Sadly, Kanyon’s personal demons were too much to overcome and Kanyon committed suicide in 2010 by overdosing on pills. He left a note apologizing to his family and friends. Chris was just 40 years old at the time of his death.
Crash and Coburn
Joseph Coburn was a boxer turned professional wrestler in the 19th century. Coburn’s wrestling career was just getting started when an incident occurred that derailed everything. In February of 1877, Coburn was working at a saloon he owned in Manhattan. A police officer named William Tobias entered the saloon looking for a patron that Officer Tobias had previous issues with. Coburn demanded that the police officer leave his establishment and escorted him out of the bar.
It was then that Coburn and Officer Tobias engaged in a heated argument. Coburn claimed he was walking away from the cop when Tobias allegedly struck Coburn with his nightstick twice. That is when Coburn allegedly pulled out his gun and shot the officer. William Tobias survived being shot and Coburn was arrested and tried in court on the charges of assault with intent to kill.
The trial was very high profile considering Joe Coburn was somewhat of a celebrity from his boxing days. He was ultimately found guilty and sentenced to ten years in prison. Coburn ended up serving six years before being released. He would return to boxing and also became a referee for wrestling matches. Coburn would be arrested twice more in his lifetime…both for assault, but served no real jail time.
Joe Coburn died of pneumonia at the age of 55. He left behind a wife and two year old son, It was reported that he died penniless from bad investments and excessive spending habits.
The Promoter Demoter
A wrestling promoter named Tor Berg founded the Ladies Professional Wrestling Association (LPWA) in 1989. It was an off shoot promotion to GLOW with the difference being while GLOW was more over the top entertainment, LPWA focused more on actual wrestling. Berg had somewhat of a bad reputation in the wrestling business.
Berg once reached out and convinced Japanese women’s wrestler Noriyo Tateno to leave Japan and come work for him full time. Tateno would have a huge retirement ceremony in March of 1991 as she would embark on a new gig working for the LPWA in the United States. Immediately after the farewell show ended, Tateno received a phone call from Berg who decided he was no longer going to use her. The news left Tateno incredibly upset, who just had a farewell ceremony and felt humiliated.
Sherri Martel, who was at the farewell show consoled Tateno and was livid at Berg’s treatment of Tateno. When Martel returned to the states, she went public with how horribly Tor Berg treated Noriyo Tateno. Martel made it her business to badmouth Berg and urged other talents to not work for him. According to Tateno, Sherri then found work for her wherever she could.
This wasn’t the only incident involving Berg, back in 1986, he put together an all women’s show in Houston, Texas. Berg made a lot of promises to the wrestlers and staff and never delivered on his word. One instance had the bus driver refusing to drive the talent to the arena without being paid upfront. Berg sent his bodyguard who was carrying a knife, to go to all the talent on the bus and “make a donation” to pay the bus company. The bodyguard intimidated all the women with just his facial expressions.
In the end, they garnered enough money to pay the driver and get to the arena. The show went on as planned, but most of the talent and staff were never paid for their work.
Snow Wight
In the 1990’s, World Championship Wrestling held TV tapings at Disney/MGM studios in Orlando, Florida. One of the rules by both Disney and WCW management, was relationships between wrestlers and Disney talent was forbidden. This, despite having both sides interact with each other in the commissary during WCW TV tapings. On one day of tapings, a woman portraying ‘Snow White’ went down to the cafeteria where the wrestlers were on break having dinner.
Many of the wrestlers took a liking to the woman, but stayed away from her due to the strict rules implemented. Paul Wight aka ‘The Giant’ who was recently married to his first wife, decided to approach Snow White anyway. The two began talking and according to Wight, ended up in a boiler room and had sex.