Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
This is the 471st 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.
Decay Into Darkness
Impact Wrestling’s Rosemary opened up about her serious battle with depression that lasted over four years of her life. It all began in 2018, when Rosemary suffered a knee injury during an independent wrestling match against Jessicka Havok. The injury was so severe, her career at one point was in jeopardy. While sidelined and sitting at home, Rosemary fell into a deep depression which she said was called “athletic depression.”
Not knowing if she would ever wrestle again, Rosemary admitted to contemplating taking her own life at various points in her recovery. Rosemary credited her friend and fellow wrestler Gail Kim with helping her deal with her bouts of depression and helping motivate her to work hard and focus on her rehabilitation to get back to wrestling.
Fukuman
Jason Harrison was a British wrestler who competed under the moniker of ‘The Dirt Bike Kid.’ In the mid to late 1990’s, The Dirt Bike Kid became somewhat of an underground tape trading sensation wrestling in places like Europe and the United States. Harrison even had a few brief runs with ECW. Aside from wrestling, Harrison also became a promoter running his own promotion called the European Wrestling Association.
That popularity, led him to be booked in the Fukumen World League tournament in Japan for Michinoku Pro Wrestling in 1999. The tournament consisted of all masked wrestlers. The Dirt Bike Kid was not a traditionally masked wrestler and had issues with wrestling with one on….which defeated the purpose of the tournament. He initially refused to wear a mask in the match, but eventually agreed.He then was told how the match would go with Dirt Bike Kid starting with some offense and then his opponent The Great Sasuke making a comeback and getting the victory.
Apparently, the Dirt Bike Kid had issues with the match layout as well and that created some other headaches. Finally, after getting on the same page, the match went on as scheduled. Before the match began, Dirt Bike Kid ripped off his mask which was a big no no. That led The Great Sasuke to go into business for himself and deliver a flurry of stiff kicks to the Dirt Bike Kid. The impact of the kicks reportedly ripped cartilage from his rib cage. Sasuke then placed Dirt Bike Kid in legitimate guillotine maneuver and choked out the British youngster. The match helped make Dirt Bike Kid into more of a tape trading celebrity…but for all the wrong reasons. He eventually had one more match before calling it a career in 2000.
A Savage Threat
Leonard Sage was a taxi driver working in the Reno, Nevada area. Before becoming a taxi driver, Sage worked as a professional wrestler, who competed under the ring name of ‘Johnny Savage.’ In August of 1960, Sage told a stewardess at the Reno airport that he planted a bomb on then Vice President Richard Nixon’s airplane and then sped off. The stewardess reported the threat and the FBI shut down the entire airport for several hours to inspect the plane in question. No explosives were found.
The FBI were able to track down Sage and placed him under arrest The judge in the case placed his bail at 52,000 dollars…which Sage could not afford. His boss at the cab company later stated that Sage was “doing a lot of wrong things” before his bomb threat and that he had a very short temper.
Don’t Judge Me
In 1981, Keith Hart went on a fishing trip with his sister in law Maria (Smith’s wife) in Montana. While on the trip, Keith spotted a police officer giving his car a parking ticket. Hart rushed over to the officer and began arguing about the ticket. Maria allegedly escalated the incident by calling the police officers “pigs.” Before too long, the situation became more hostile, with Hart shouting and allegedly shoving an officer.
That led Keith to be handcuffed with him trying to resist arrest. Hart was sent to jail until his court hearing. It was at that time, that the judge noticed who Keith Hart was due to the fact he was a wrestling fan. The judge began asking Keith about his father Stu Hart and other wrestlers in Stampede Wrestling. The judge then turned to the arresting officers and chastised them for not realizing who Keith Hart was and to do a better job. Keith was released from custody and his arrest was wiped clean from the records.