Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
This is the 496th 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.
Dancake
Dan Dubiel was a pro wrestler that was trained by the late ‘Iron’ Mike Sharpe and began his career in 1991. He wrestled for Jim Cornette’s Smoky Mountain promotion, but was mostly known as an enhancement talent in the World Wrestling Federation. Dan wrestled the likes of Crush, the Undertaker and IRS “doing the job” every time in the process. His most famous WWF match, however, was against the 500 plus pound Yokozuna.
Their infamous match took place at a Monday Night Raw TV taping in December of 1993 at the Mid Hudson Civic Center in Upstate, New York. The reason for the match being infamous was the level of brutality Yokozuna dished out on Dubiel during that squash match. Yokozuna delivered some stiff kicks and chops to Dubiel who showed no fight. The ending saw Yokozuna ascend to the second rope and deliver his finisher…’The Bonsai Drop’ where Yoko basically drops his butt on the chest of his opponent to score a pinfall victory.
This time, however, Yokozuna who was known for being a very careful wrestler by many…used his full bodyweight to drop on Dubiel. After scoring the pin, Yoko just sat on top of Dubiel which according to friends meant that he was sending a message to you that he did not like you. Why did Yokozuna have a seemingly vendetta against Dan Dubiel? According to reports, Dubiel got into a little backstage skirmish with Yoko’s manager Mr. Fuji and reportedly was seen as being disrespectful towards him. The super stiff Bonsai Drop was allegedly Dubiel’s receipt. Luckily, Dubiel escaped serious injury and actually wrestled the very next night for the company.
The Fire Within
Frankie Talaber was a second generation wrestler, who competed all over the country from 1936 until 1967. He wrestled the likes of ‘Gorgeous George’, Angelo Savoldi and ‘Thunderbolt’ Patterson. Talaber was also a two time world light heavyweight champion during his career.
In August of 1946, while Talaber was sleeping by his young son in his trailer in Columbus, Ohio…his wife Rita walked outside of the trailer park. She poured gasoline all over herself and lit a match…setting herself on fire. Frankie Talaber awoke to screams and called police. When police arrived, Rita Talaber was barely conscious, but admitted to setting herself on fire. When asked why she did it, Rita lost consciousness and died. No charges were made against the wrestler in the incident due to his wife’s suicide confession. Rita Talaber was only 31 years old at the time of her death.
Oh My Josh!
During a tag team match at a RevPro show in the United Kingdom in 2019 where Aussie Open faced the team of Sha Samuels and Josh Bodom…an unplanned finish led to the real life assault of the referee in that match. The referee named Aaren Wilde accidentally made a three count when Bodom did not raise up his shoulder in time. The match was booked to have Samuels and Bodom eventually lose via a count out. The botched ending led Samuels to grab and bodyslam Wilde to mat. After Wilde rolled out of the ring…Bodom legitimately assaulted the unsuspecting referee hitting him with a flurry of punches and kicks.
The unprovoked attack caused injuries to Aaren Wilde’s neck and shoulder and forced Wilde to retire as a referee. In addition, Wilde could physically no longer work as a football referee (Which was his prime source of income) Sha Samuels swore that even though the bodyslam was unplanned, he did it in the context of his heel persona and made sure to protect Wilde in doing so. Josh Bodom on the other hand was initially extremely defiant and put the blame on Wilde. RevPro made the decision to sever its ties with Bodom and caused many other promotions to follow suit. Bodom would delete all his social media accounts and quit pro wrestling.
Bodom seemed to lay low for a bit and it looked as if he might possibly make a return to wrestling…when accusations arose from a female wrestler named Lucy Sky. She stated that when she was just twelve years old, Bodom allegedly attempted to solicit sex from her by sending her “dick pics.” Bodom hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
The Bear of Bad News
Tennessee promoter Nick Gulas used to have a trained bear wrestle on many of his cards in the late 1960’s/early 1970’s. One wrestler who was not a fan of this side show attraction was wrestler Tojo Yamamato. Tojo would allegedly abuse the bear while it was locked up in its cage. Getting fed up by Yamamoto’s unnecessary taunting and abuse of the otherwise tame animal….wrestlers Ed Sullivan and Rip Tyler decided to teach Tojo a lesson in animal cruelty.
While Rip Tyler waited by the door to see when Tojo was coming in…he signaled to Sullivan when Tojo arrived. Ed Sullivan then unlocked the bear’s cage and opened the cage door allowing the bear to roam free. The bear saw his agitator in Tojo and proceeded to chase after the wrestler to maul him. Tojo escaped a potentially fatal attack by the bear by running out of the building. Tojo would later complain to Gulas who removed the bear from further shows.