Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
This is the 397th 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.
Baba and the Banana
Rob Van Dam recalled a story that involved an unnamed gaijin (foreign wrestler) that was well known in the United States and an incident that nearly got the wrestler killed. While on tour of All Japan Pro Wrestling, this unnamed wrestler allegedly drugged a Japanese dancer. He had sex with the woman and afterwards, passed her off to a few friends and they too had sex with her.
When they were all done with the woman, they left her outside in the hotel hallway nude, with her face covered in marker and a banana shoved in her vagina. As it turned out, the woman was the girlfriend of a member of the Yakuza. The news got back to this member and a hit was ordered on the wrestler’s life. The Yakuza had a friendly relationship with All Japan owner Shohei ‘Giant’ Baba and out of respect to him…sent word to no longer advertise and book this wrestler on future cards.
Baba decided to stick his own neck on the line and have a sit down meeting with this Yakuza member and convinced him to rescind the hit on this very popular wrestler. An agreement was hashed out between Baba and the Yakuza and the wrestler’s life was spared.
Everything is Not O-KKK
Back in 1976, Norvell Austin and a young Sylvester Ritter (The Junkyard Dog) were booked for a show in a small town in Kentucky. Both men were black and were not greeted warmly when they showed up to the building to work. Members of the Ku Klux Klan were waiting for them at the door. The KKK were angry that two black men were wrestling in their town. Austin and Ritter had to fight their way into the building.
While they had their match, more members of the KKK were waiting for them to head to the dressing room. Again, Norvell and Sylvester had to fight their way to the back. Outside in the parking lot, were even more Klansmen. The wrestlers asked police in attendance to intervene but were refused. Allegedly, the cops were also members of the Klan or friends with many of the KKK that were there. Luckily for Norvell Austin and Sylvester Ritter, other wrestlers were able to join them in fighting their way out of the building and got them to safety.
Toothless Aggression
After failing to make the cut on season 4 of Tough Enough in 2004, Marty Wright was offered a developmental deal with the WWE and assigned to Ohio Valley Wrestling. According to the Shane twins (Gymini) who were down in OVW with Wright….they claim that Jim Cornette and Al Snow were not fans of his. They also claim that both Snow and Cornette made Wright’s life a living hell to try and get him to quit wrestling.
In a match against fellow trainee Danny Inferno, the Shane twins speculated that Inferno intentionally stiff kicked Wright in the face which caused several of his teeth to be knocked out. That night, Wright called up his buddies the Shane Twins and warned them not to show up to training the next day. Wright allegedly had a mental breakdown and allegedly told the brothers that he had a gun and was going to shoot and kill everyone inside the facility. It took his friends to talk him out of doing anything violent that would ruin his life in the long run. Marty Wright eventually got called up to the main roster as ‘The Boogeyman’ to some moderate success.
LeVay the Price
British independent wrestler ‘The Northern Uproar’ Dom Travis, also known under the alias of ‘Kastor LeVay’ was a promising, young grappler. Travis had wrestled all throughout the United Kingdom for seven years winning various titles and awards. In 2011, he decided to take a break from pro wrestling to focus on his mental health. On April 14, 2012…Dom Travis was found dead. The official ruling was suicide…he was just 30 years old at the time of his death.