Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
This is the 342nd 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.
Kobra Cry
Early in Thunder Rosa’s wrestling career, she joined Lucha Underground as the masked character known as ‘Kobra Moon.’ While Rosa was grateful for the opportunity, she described her time with LU as “awful.” Her debut match for the show was against a veteran luchador named Ricky Marvin. Thunder Rosa said that her Kobra Moon outfit didn’t fit properly and she was very uneasy about wearing a lucha mask to wrestle.
Despite wardrobe issues, Thunder Rosa had to deal with the ego and attitude of the veteran in Marvin. According to Rosa, she made it known to Marvin upfront that she wasn’t trained in the lucha libre style of wrestling. That seemed to agitate Ricky Marvin, who instead of adapting to a different style to accommodate Rosa…he started calling for complex lucha maneuvers during their match.
Thunder Rosa said that despite the inexperience, she attempted everything Ricky Marvin called for with mixed results. She did admit that the ending of their match was completely botched and it was her fault. Marvin made it known to her by yelling at her and calling her names. She said the verbal confrontation left her feeling useless and began to question her future in pro wrestling.
Luckily for her, other wrestlers within Lucha Underground showed her support and encouraged her to continue her career. Thunder Rosa vowed to never put down “green” wrestlers when she got in the ring with them. Instead, she said she would be there to offer encouragement and support and help teach.
Detroit Crock City
During the late 1970’s, ‘The Sheik’ Ed Farhat’s Big Time Wrestling promotion based in Detroit, Michigan was seeing a severe downturn in business. With his territory losing money….Farhat reached out to some of his friends in wrestling to help boost business. Farhat booked a tag team main event that featured he and Abdullah the Butcher take on the Funk Brothers ( Dory and Terry). The matches between the two teams were violent and bloody and saw sell out crowds through out his Sheik’s territory.
The Sheik was always a promoter with a good reputation to be generous with pay offs to wrestlers. Seeing all the packed houses, the Funks were expecting a nice, sizable payment. While they sat and waited backstage for the Sheik to pay them their money…the Sheik’s son Ed Farhat Jr ran into the locker room out of breath. He told the Funks that someone robbed him and that all the money was gone.
The Funk brothers laughed a little, because they knew that was all BS. They could have easily roughed up the Sheik’s son, but out of respect to his father and how well they were treated by him in the past…they let the incident go and left without getting paid. They knew that his territory was all but dead.
Managing Booze
After his legendary active wrestling career ended, Harley Race found a job in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) as a manager. Race would manage guys like Lex Luger and Big Van Vader to world titles. During this time, however, Race’s alcohol consumption was steadily increasing. All the drinking led Harley’s weight to balloon to over 300 pounds and found himself in trouble with the law a few times.
In January of 1995, Race’s managerial career in WCW abruptly ended when he drove home drunk one night in Kansas City, Missouri. Race crashed his vehicle into a concrete barrier. Race suffered a fractured forearm and a crushed hip. Harley Race required hip replacement surgery that put him out of pro wrestling as a full time character for the remainder of his life. Instead, Race focused his attention on running his wrestling school and promotion.
Final Prayer
‘The Role Model’ Eric Chapel was a veteran wrestler on the independent circuit. According to friend and former WWE creative writer Kevin Eck….Chapel battled bouts of deep depression. On April 29, 2019….Chapel was found dead in his Pennsylvania home. His death was ruled a suicide. Eric Chapel left behind a wife and three children. He was just 33 years old at the time of his death.