Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
This is the 517th 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.
Apollo Landing…Punches
In 1991, during a wrestling match between Minoru Suzuki and Apollo Sugawara…Suzuki slapped Sugawara, in which Sugawara felt it was too stiff. Feeling disrespected, Apollo Sugawara began shooting on Suzuki out of pure anger.
Once Suzuki realized that Apollo had gone into business for himself, Suzuki went on the offensive and used a flurry of stiff kicks that hurt Apollo and forced him to walk out of the ring and the match. While Minoru Suzuki looked like a tough shooter in this incident, in reality he admitted he was fearful that his actions could have got him blacklisted in Japan. Incidentally, this awkward shoot happened the exact same show where Koji Kitao shot on John Tenta.
Powers Outage
Former WWF and WCW wrestler Jim Powers talked about how it was like being a pro wrestler in the 1980’s and 90’s. He confessed to living the life of a rock star with plenty of sex and drugs at his disposal. Just simply walking into the wrestlers dressing room, he could find any kind of drug he could ever need or want including steroids, marijuana, cocaine and pills. Powers talked about his wild nights out after shows and how ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper took him out on an all night bender once in Nova Scotia in the 80’s.
Powers said his drug and alcohol dependency became worse after his full time career as a wrestler ended. He said he became bored sitting around his house with nothing to do…yet still had the mentality of a wrestler living that rock star lifestyle. Powers started hearing many of his fellow wrestlers dying from their addictions. That is when Powers decided to move away from drugs and alcohol and get clean and sober. Thankfully for Jim Powers, he was able to kick his bad habits and live to tell about it.
Leigh Down the Law
Independent wrestler Killian McMurphy came forward in March of 2024, that he was a victim of domestic abuse from his ex girlfriend. His ex is also a fellow professional wrestler by the name of Erica Leigh. She was competed in various indie promotions as well as Ring of Honor and AEW.
Killian detailed specific incidents where this alleged abuse took place. He talked about being slapped, shoved to the side and pushed up against a wall in different scenarios. At times, McMurphy claimed that Leigh was wasted after smoking weed and drinking and forgave her in those instances. While Killian acknowledged that they were both bad for each other, he also stated that he didn’t deserve the abuse. He stated that he was fine physically, but mentally has been a wreck from her alleged actions.
Ex-terminator
A former professional wrestler named James Emerson who wrestled in the Ohio territory, was arrested in September of 1956 and charged with murder. Emerson went to the home of his ex wife Evelyn and shot and killed her and her boyfriend Emmit Cutlip with a .25 caliber gun. All this happened, while the Emersons son Ricky played in the backyard.
Police were able to tack down and question James Emerson about the deaths of his ex wife and her boyfriend. James Emerson confessed to the double homicide citing that he felt that it was too soon for his ex wife Evelyn to be involved in another relationship. The couple were divorced for approximately a year and a half. The murders happened after James was released from a mental hospital in which he was committed for two months. Evelyn was just 27 years old and Emmit Cutlip was just 28 years old at the time of their deaths.