Wrestling With Sin: 542

Brian Damage

This is the 542nd 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.

Setting the Bar

In October of 1976, while wrestling for the NWA Mid America territory…two of the area’s top attractions ‘Superstar ‘ Bill Dundee and ‘Wildfire’ Tommy Rich were arrested. At the time, Dundee was 32 and Rich was all but 20 years old. They were arrested in the parking lot of a Memphis bar.

Apparently, both wrestlers got extremely drunk and ran their mouths off to several other bar patrons and the situation escalated outside in the parking lot. That is where both Dundee and Rich got into a number of fist fights. The local police were called and the wrestlers were arrested and briefly fired by promoter Nick Gulas.

Shocker to the System

Former AAA and CMLL star Shocker was arrested in Oaxaca, Mexico on March 31, 2024 after causing a disturbance at a hotel. Five police officers were needed to subdue the wrestler, who was handcuffed and brought out of the establishment partially nude and bloodied. His wife Gisela Domínguez, said that Shocker gets extremely paranoid while taking substances…although she did not mention what substance Shocker took on the day of his arrest.

She said he feels that people are coming after him to kill him and this time, threatened to commit suicide. The wife said he has been in and out of rehab several times, but nothing has worked for him. She stated that in recent months, Shocker has talked more and more about ending his life even though she says he has never attempted it as far as she knows. This is not the first time Shocker has been arrested. He has been detained several times over his career including this time which we covered <a href=”https://ringthedamnbell.wordpress.com/2019/01/14/wrestling-with-sin-207/”>here</a>.

Holy Mat-rimony

Billy Sandow was a successful professional wrestler, manager and promoter. Sandow managed the careers of wrestlers like Ed ‘The Strangler’ Lewis, Billy Jenkins, Marin Plestina, Jumping Joe Savoldi and Everett Marshall. He was also a member of the famed ‘Gold Dust Trio’ that consisted of himself, Lewis and Joseph ‘Toots’ Mondt. Together they formed a very powerful coalition that controlled pro wrestling in the 1920’s.

In Sandow’s personal life, he married a woman named Ethelyn May Busby in 1915. Together they had a son named William Jr, who was born in 1920. The Sandows would eventually be involved in a very bitter and contentious divorce. Sandow claimed that his wife had mental issues and a drinking problem who would constantly berate him in front of his friends, family and business colleagues.

It was supposedly so bad, that Billy Sandow claimed his own mental and physical health was deteriorating. Sandow argued that his 8 year old son should not be around in Ethelyn’s presence. The courts agreed and Sandow won his case against his wife and was awarded sole custody of his son. Ethelyn would remarry a month after her divorce to Sandow. She would die just a few years later at the young age of 41. No details on the cause of her death.

Deaton Do It

Journeyman wrestler ‘Outlaw’ Joel Deaton was arrested in Toronto, Canada on July 4, 1983. According to reports, Deaton was in downtown Toronto at two in the morning and allegedly solicited a male prostitute. As it turned out, the prostitute was actually an undercover police officer. Deaton had been in Canada to wrestle for Maple Leaf Wrestling. He stated that he was going to fight the charges against him. Maple Leaf Wrestling took a hit due to the publicity the arrest garnered, as it made all the local newspapers and news channels in the area.