Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
This is the 347th 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.
El Saint’s Day
Ham Lee was a former bodybuilder turned wrestler in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s. He was trained by the legendary NWA world champion Lou Thesz and wrestled for various territories across the country. Ham Lee had some of his greatest success wrestling in Mexico. Lee was born of Korean descent, but was often mistaken as being Chinese. His nickname was ‘the Chinese Prince.’
In 1973, Lee and a contingent of luchadors traveled to Japan for a tour. Unfortunately, the promoter who booked them all, decided to run off and not pay them for their work. This left the wrestlers stranded in Japan with no money and no way of returning to Mexico. New Japan Pro Wrestling offered to pay for all of the wrestlers expenses return to Mexico, if one of the luchadors wrestled as the extremely popular El Santo for a show.
Ham Lee who worked with Santo in Mexico, agreed to wear a mask and impersonate El Santo to get him and his crew back home. He did this while risking his reputation and career if fans or El Santo ever found out about it. Lee wrestled a sold out show as the famous luchador and was able to fly everybody back home.
Ort’s Section
While on a plane flying from Taiwan to Detroit, Michigan in 1988….’Cowboy’ Bob Orton caused quite the disturbance. Orton began drinking once the plane took off and continued drinking on the 15 1/2 hour flight. According to reports, Orton became drunk and belligerent towards other passengers and the flight staff. He was subsequently arrested once the plane landed.
To make matters worse for Orton, he was seated next to a sports columnist from Detroit. The writer would document Orton’s behavior on the flight and write about it for his newspaper.
Catfight for Your Life!
Former ECW valet Francine Fournier recalled a catfight between her and Beulah McGillicutty that got completely out of control. According to Francine, the two women were having a scripted catfight, when they decided to go over the safety railing and into the crowd. Francine said that some fans decided to take it upon themselves to start groping the women and taking articles of their clothing.
It took a few seconds for security to get through the fans and protect them. Francine said her and Beulah tried their best to keep kayfabe, but realized that they were being seriously violated and were in danger. Luckily, ECW’s security team got to them and rushed them to the backstage area. Francine said she would never do that spot ever again and lost a lot of respect for some of ECW’s fanbase for a time.
Model of A Tragedy
‘The Male Model’ Tommy White was an independent wrestler based out of England. White started his career at 17 years old and wrestled for approximately 2 years. His career and life came to a screeching halt in 2008, when his body was discovered at his home. White’s death was ruled a suicide…he was just 19 years old.