Wrestling With Sin: 556

Brian Damage

This is the 556th 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.

What Can Brown Do For You?

Jerry Brown was a wrestler best known as one half of the original ‘Hollywood Blonds’ with Buddy Roberts. Brown was wrestling for Bill Watts’ Mid South territory, when they had a falling out over money. Brown allegedly became insulted over his pay and began no showing events. Watts in turn, fired Brown for being unreliable. According to Watts, that is when Brown became unhinged.

Watts claimed that Brown became a stalker, who often appeared on Watts’ property in Bixby, Oklahoma. Despite calls to the police, Brown was never charged with a crime because he never had a weapon on him. Around Christmastime, Brown allegedly left a package in his mailbox. It was a clock, Watts surmised that Brown wanted Watts to think it was a bomb to scare him and his family. Watts said he began paying off duty police officers to guard his home.

One evening, Watts was awakened by gunshots. One of the bullets went through his bedroom wall, narrowly missing his daughter who was sleeping in his bed. That is when Watts decided that enough was enough and sent word through his connections to tell Brown that he was willing to hire him back and to meet him at Watts’ home. When Brown showed up, Watts said he greeted the wrestler with a .357 magnum and placed it into the mouth of Brown. Watts and Jim Ross both claim that he had every intention of killing Brown that evening and then claim self defense, but Watts’ housekeeper/nanny showed up at the residence while Watts had his gun in Brown’s mouth and decided to let Brown go. Watts said he was never saw Jerry Brown again after that incident.

A Family Affair

George Wolfe was the son of notorious wrestling promoter Billy Wolfe. George was just a child when his father met and trained Mildred Burke to become a wrestler in his troupe. Billy Wolfe and Burke eventually married, but it was more of a business relationship than a true love affair. As we covered in a previous edition which you can read here…both Burke and Wolfe carried on some not so secret extramarital affairs. Burked remained married to Billy Wolfe to maintain her status as the top female wrestler in the world and Wolfe obliged, as long as he was making money off of her.

By the time Billy’s son George became a teenager, he was assigned to become a personal assistant to his stepmother. He would drive her to shows and take care of errands for his stepmother Mildred…who was just seven years older than George. During the time, George worked for Mildred, the two began having an affair. Billy found out about it and instead of being angry, laughed it off as he was sleeping with numerous women wrestlers in his troupe. The stepmother and stepson continued their relationship, until the two were involved in a car crash.

Mildred escaped the crash practically unscathed, while George suffered multiple broken bones and was hospitalized for several months. While George was laid up in recovery, Mildred returned to the road to wrestle and met other men to keep her company. So distraught was George, that he started drinking heavily and soon became an alcoholic battling his depression. Thankfully for George, he went to alcoholics anonymous and found religion to clean himself up.

Broadway…the Hard Way

‘The Grappler’ Len Denton recalled first entering the Southwest territory based in San Antonio, Texas. Denton said that the booker Tully Blanchard booked him to go to a 20 minute “Broadway” (time limit draw) with Mil Mascaras to help establish Denton as a top wrestler. After Tully gave instructions to both Denton and Mascaras, the Mexican star said, “No Broadway, I go over,” meaning Mascaras refused to wrestle to a draw and instead insisted he win the match. After several minutes of trying to convince Mascaras to do what was asked of him and Mascaras refusing…Tully finally yelled at Mascaras that he wasn’t going to change the match result.

Mascaras felt that he needed to protect his image in San Antonio and Mexico where he was considered wrestling royalty. Len Denton tried to reason with Mascaras one last time, but again Mascaras refused to cooperate. Denton then said that they were going to a time limit draw regardless if Mascaras wanted to or not. Denton said that once the bell rang, Mascaras immediately started throwing real punches at Denton. The two ended up in a legitimate brawl for the entire 20 minutes. Denton said he survived the match, with both wrestlers faces beaten to a bloody pulp, but was able to get the result he wanted.

Snow Shower

When Al Snow was a rookie back in 1982, he wrestled on an independent show somewhere in Indiana. Snow remembered that he severely injured his tailbone in the match and could barely stand or walk. After his match, Snow headed for the showers in the locker room. Snow said that while showering, he accidentally dropped his soap. When he bent down to pick up the soap, he was in agonizing pain from his previous injury.

Snow was in so much pain, he couldn’t get himself up. Other wrestlers saw Snow struggling to pick himself up and instead of helping him back to a standing position…they decided to haze the young wrestler. Snow said some wrestlers urinated on his feet, while others went as far as fingering Snow’s anus.

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