Wrestling With Sin: 560

Brian Damage

This is the 560th 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.

Marquez Out

Pablo Marquez is a former ECW and WWF wrestler turned trainer. In 1999, Marquez was detained at Newark Airport by federal agents after not having proper paperwork to reside in the United States. Upon further investigation, it was revealed that Marquez had committed a crime in his native Ecuador back in 1991. Marquez was arrested at the airport and eventually transferred down to Louisiana for extradition back to Ecuador. While awaiting to be sent back to Ecuador, Marquez called the WWF offices where he was employed under the gimmick of Babu the man servant for Tiger Ali Singh. Marquez said he spoke to the head of talent relations in Jim Ross, who assured him that the WWF was behind him and would help him out of his legal mess. After a few days, WWF lawyers were able to get Marquez released from custody and out of danger from being deported.

Fast forward to June of 2020, Marquez had become the head trainer at a wrestling school in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. A former trainee of his named Chelsea Durden accused Marquez of sexually abusing her for 4 1/2 years. According to Durden, the sexual abuse began just a month into her training. Marquez invited her out for dinner after training. While the two were out, Marquez allegedly threw her against his car, shoved his hand down her pants and started kissing her. Durden said she begged Marquez to stop and that is when he allegedly threatened to kick her out of his school unless they had sex. Durden admits she slept with him that night out of fear, but claimed she got violently ill afterwards, sickened by what happened.

Durden went on to say that Marquez used the incident to blackmail her to keep her quiet and she remained silent out of fear. Marquez behavior allegedly got worse over time, with him screaming at her and humiliating her in front of the rest of the students at the school. That led to Marquez physically abusing her during training sessions by being extra stiff on her. Marquez allegedly went as far as to threaten to kill her parents if she ever left him and spoke of what was going on behind closed doors. He bragged about being a former gangbanger and served time in prison back in his native country and had the balls to do it. She said other students witnessed his behavior, but out of fear themselves…ignored it.

After Durden’s confession, several other female students came forward with similar horror stories about Marquez. David ‘Gangrel’ Heath was working at that same school and when he heard about what Marquez allegedly did, quit and started up his training center with a number of students that were training with Marquez leaving and joining Gangrel’s school instead. No formal charges were brought up against Marquez.

Girlfriend For Hire

Buggsy McGraw remembered when his career was on he rise and decided to join promoter Jim Barnett’s territory in Australia. At the time, the territory was struggling financially and Buggsy wanted to leave Australia and return to wrestling in the United States. When Buggsy told Barnett he was leaving, Barnett told him he couldn’t leave and he would not allow it.

McGraw told Barnett that he already made plans and had an agreement in place with another promoter and that his word was as good as anything else. Barnett still refused and threatened Buggsy with blackballing him throughout the NWA. McGraw knew Barnett wasn’t bluffing and had the political power within the NWA to ensure that would happen, so McGraw remained in Australia.

After his argument with Barnett, Buggsy went to a bar in Sydney and met a woman. McGraw said the two really hit it off and became a couple soon after. They remained an item for a few months, until the relationship fizzled out. McGraw said he noticed his ex girlfriend almost immediately started interacting with other wrestlers which he found both insulting and strange. He later found out from one of the announcers that the woman who he was dating for months, was actually a prostitute hired by Barnett. It was his way of trying to keep Buggsy McGraw happy while working down under.

Devine Intervention

Jim Cornette recalled while working for TNA wrestling in December of 2007, he got out of the hotel elevator and saw TNA booker Dutch Mantell speaking to a couple of uniformed police officers. As it turned out, a wrestler named Johnny Devine was involved in an incident at another hotel. Devine was accused of sexually harassing a female hotel desk clerk. The officers told Dutch that the incident could get the wrestlers and TNA staff kicked out of the hotel. Mantell was able to convince the officers that he would handle the situation internally.

During a staff meeting with everybody in the company, Devine voluntarily spoke about the incident in front of owner Dixie Carter, who was not made aware of it. Not long after, Devine was gone from TNA. Cornette and others could not believe why Devine would “stooge” on himself, when Mantell was able to sweep the incident under the rug. According to Devine, the front desk girl falsely accused him of sexual harassment and it nearly got him fired.

Devine said that while he had another year left on his contract, he decided to quit the company himself and was not fired. The reason he gave, was that he was no longer having fun and ended up returning back home in Canada and going back to college to learn TV production. Johnny Devine never wrestled in any big promotions again. A few wrestlers who have claimed to have worked with Devine said that he had a very short temper and had something called a ‘Napoleon Complex.’ Basically someone who had an attitude to make up for his short stature. They claim he was a notorious liar and believe he did sexually harass that woman despite his emphatic denials.

Not Oki Dokey

Morio ‘Oki’ Shikina was a Japanese professional wrestler from the 1930’s until the 1950’s. He was a star wrestling in Japan, the Hawaiian islands and elsewhere. After retiring from the business as an active wrestler, Shikina became the head referee for the Japanese Wrestling Association (JWA). In 1966, he was stopped by police and a search discovered he was carrying an illegal firearm. Shikina’s arrest made headlines all over Japan and he was removed as head referee and fired by the JWA.

You can read all previous ‘Wrestling with Sin’ pieces here.