Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
This is the 160th 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.
Battle Rat
Brady Boone got his big break with the WWF, when he was selected to portray the gimmick of Battle Kat in 1990. The gimmick was sort of an “Americanized” version of a Mexican luchador. One evening, Brady Boone was at a bar with a group of other wrestlers like Curt Hennig. Brady Boone was allegedly getting comfortable with a woman he met there when another bar patron, who also had his eyes set on the same woman, confronted him.
Brady Boone and the other man got into an arguement and like most situations that involve a bar, women and pro wrestlers, it did not end well. A fight soon broke out with Boone and this other man that spilled all over the bar. During the course of the fight, a bar stool was used as a weapon and hit Boone over the head knocking him out. Brady Boone ended up in the hospital missing some WWF dates as Battle Kat. Ultimately, Boone was fired and replaced by another wrestler named Bob Bradley as Battle Kat.
Robin Yourself of Happiness
Long before Kurt Angle was praised as the first ever Olympic gold medal winner to become a pro wrestler, there was a man named Robin Reed. Reed won a gold medal in amateur wrestling at the 1924 Olympics in Paris, France. Reed has been considered by many one of the greatest amateur wrestlers of all time. After his amateur career ended, Reed turned to professional wrestling in the 1930’s.
While his pro career was not as successful as his amateur one, Reed was still somewhat of a celebrity in his home state of Oregon. On December 22nd, 1936, Reed went into the basement of his home, stood up on a box, tied a noose around his neck and attempted to hang himself. To ensure that he did not make himself suffer from hanging himself, he had a pistol in his hand and shot himself in the chest. The sound of the gun shot alerted his maid who alerted neighbors and cut down the noose he was hanging from.
Robin Reed would be near death in the hospital but would survive his suicide attempt. He would later admit the reason he tried to take his own life was because he was going through a bitter divorce and his ex wife refused to let him spend Christmas with their young daughter. Robin Reed would never return to pro wrestling again after the suicide attempt. He lived until 1978, when he died of natural causes at 79 years old.
Macho, Macho Man…I want to be with the Macho Man!
During the early stages of Randy Savage’s wrestling career, Savage was competing for his father Angelo Poffo’s ICW promotion. It is there where he met and fell in love with a female wrestler named Debbie Combs. Combs like Savage, was a second generation wrestler (Her mother was Cora Combs) The two dated each other for the next 5 years and were seriously talking about marriage.
One day, Savage showed up at a local gym in Kentucky and instantly became attracted to one of the female’s there named Elizabeth Hulette. Before long, the two became an item and allegedly carried on affair for weeks. Savage got Elizabeth a job at a local TV station that carried ICW’s TV show. Debbie Combs apparently found out about the affair and split up with Savage. The rest became wrestling history.
Heel Turn
Tiger Jeet Singh, a legendary wrestler from Canada whose biggest success came in Japan, was arrested back in 1994 on criminal fraud charges. Tiger Jeet Singh and two other investors bought a condominium complex in Canada for around 7 million dollars. They then allegedly defrauded other investors of money in some sort of ponzi scheme.
Tiger Jeet Singh was offered a plea deal and in turn would have to testify against his two other business partners. Singh apparently agreed to the deal and testified against his partners allowing himself to be released.