Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
This is the 479th 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.
Rocker Shocker
In 1987, the Rockers (Marty Jannetty and Shawn Michaels) were fired from the WWF for excessive partying. After being let go by the company, the Rockers found work in the Alabama territory of Continental Championship Wrestling run by the Fuller family. Their stay down there was also very brief after an incident involving the Rockers Shawn Michaels.
According to both Marty Jannetty and Tracy Smothers, Michaels was asked to autograph a fan’s T shirt. Instead of simply signing his name, Michaels allegedly wrote an offensive message on the back of the shirt that called the fan a “Queer.” As it turned out, the fan in question, was the son of one of the sponsors to Continental Wrestling. The father of the fan went directly to Robert Fuller and demanded that the Rockers be fired or they would pull advertising from their show. Fuller sent his new booker veteran wrestler ‘Bullet’ Bob Armstrong to question the Rockers about the incident.
When Armstrong confronted the duo, Jannetty swore he had no knowledge of the incident. Shawn Michaels confessed to the “joke” and Armstrong subsequently fired the team, to which Michaels allegedly told Armstrong to “Fuck off.” After the Rockers were fired, Bob Armstrong brought in the team of the ‘Wild Eyed Southern Boys’ of Tracy Smothers and Bob’s son Steve Armstrong to replace the Rockers.
A few years later in 1996, Tracy Smothers was brought into the WWF as “Freddie Joe Floyd.” By that time, Michaels became a big singles star for the company. According to Smothers, Shawn Michaels held agrudge against Smothers for being fired from Continental years prior and made sure to bury Smothers to Vince McMahon. Smothers tried to explain to Michaels that he had nothing to do with getting the Rockers fired, but Michaels refused to talk to Smothers and ensured that Smothers would not get a fair shot in the WWF.
Whiskey A No Go
Irish born wrestler turned promoter and founder of Celtic Championship Wrestling Lee Cahalane was accused by female wrestler Raven Creed of an attempted sexual assault in 2018. Creed alleged that Cahalane attempted to rape her on two separate occasions. The last time, she alleged that Calahane spiked her drink and she was barely conscious.
When news broke about this incident, others came forward claiming that Calahane was among other things such as a misogynistic, homophobic and a serial abuser. The entire Celtic Championship Wrestling roster walked out and quit his promotion in protest forcing Calhane to shut CCW down.
Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’
Bruiser Brody certainly had a reputation for being a tough guy and someone who played by his own set of rules. Early in his career, Brody was known to allegedly “rough up” some of the smaller talent when wrestling them. It was said, that Bruiser Brody use to, at times mock the smaller wrestlers for their lack of size. He allegedly called them names and flex his biceps at them as a way to prove his superiority over them.
Veteran grappler Danny Hodge got word of this and approached Brody in front of an entire dressing room of wrestlers and challenged Brody to a match inside an empty gymnasium. With no other choice but to save face, Brody accepted Hodge’s challenge and the two squared up inside the ring. Hodge immediately took down the much larger Brody and began stretching him. While Hodge held down Brody in a painful submission hold, he called the entire locker room of wrestlers to enter the ring. Hodge invited all of the wrestlers to start mocking Brody to teach him a valuable lesson in respect.
Bucking the Bronco
Starlin Jaquez was a very well known professional wrestler from the Dominican Republic known as ‘El Bronco del Cibao.’ He was trained and worked for the legendary Dominican wrestler Jack Veneno. In November of 2022, Jaquez was headed to his gym in San Francisco de Macoris in the Domincan. As he exited his vehicle, Jaquez was shot five times at point blank range.
The police labeled the murder as an assassination. No one was identified as the shooter or shooters in the case. Starlin’s mother Severiana Jaquez would reveal that her son owed some people over 300,000 dollars…but did not know who these people were. Starlin had received death threats in the weeks leading up to his murder. As of this writing, no suspects or arrests were made and the case is still unsolved.