Wrestling with Sin: 567

Brian Damage

This is the 567th 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.

A Pizza the Action

Nicola “Nick” Zappetti was a United States Marine who served in World War II. After the war ended, Zappetti decided to remain in Japan, where he opened the country’s very first pizzeria called Nicola’s Pizza Restaurant in 1950 in Roppongi. The restaurant became extremely popular and had celebrities and politicians from all over the world frequent the establishment. Stars like Frank Sinatra and Elizabeth Taylor ate there when they were visiting Japan. Locally, pro wrestler Rikidozan became a regular customer of Nicola’s. He visited so much, that he and Nick became very good friends. Because of the immense popularity of Rikidozan, the restaurant attracted a who’s who of famous Japanese customers ranging from the Sumo world, actors, politicians and even criminals from the underworld.

The friendship led Nick to try his hand at professional wrestling briefly. While his wrestling career never took off, Zappetti helped bankroll Japanese wrestling in its early years. When a rival restaurant began selling pizza and trying to pass it off as Nicola’s brand, Nick got Rikidozan and the crime boss of Tokyo…Ginza Machii pay the restaurant a visit. All three men entered the rival restaurant and began breaking dishes, turning over tables and attacking both employees and customers. The owner of the rival restaurant paid Zappetti a visit the next day and threatened Nick, so he sent Rikidozan’s associates to trash the rival establishment for a second time. This time, the rival restaurant closed up shop and the owner moved far away.

Another incident involving Zappetti and Rikidozan took place, when a beautiful woman started fliting with Nick and the two decided to go back to his place to make love. Rikidozan saw the two hit it off and demanded that he tag along and watch them have sex. Rikidozan was persistent and after repeated refusals, Zappetti agreed to bring the wrestler with him back to his home. While Zappetti was driving home with the woman and Rikidozan in the middle and passenger seats, Rikidozan physically assaulted the woman. Rikidozan punched the girl in the face and then dragged her out of the car by her hair. He then kicked her so hard she flipped over the car on to the other side. Zappetti got between Riki and the woman and questioned why he was attacking her? It turned out that the woman was actually Rikidozan’s fiancé and he was testing her to see how far she would go with Zappetti.

According to Zappetti, Riki ended up breaking the engagement and soon married the Tokyo police chief’s daughter instead.

Bum Steer

Early in Buddy Colt’s wrestling career, he competed under the gimmick of ‘Cowboy’ Ron Reed. He competed for promoter Nick Gulas’ Mid America territory in Nashville, Tennessee. According to Reed, Gulas was a notorious cheapskate with payouts to wrestlers. Reed stated that for a week’s worth of wrestling, he would only receive 15 bucks for his troubles. At first, Reed accepted the low pay despite selling out shows due to being new to the business. After a while, however, Reed became increasingly frustrated by it.

Gulas apparently kept promising Reed that he would make him a lot of money, but it seemed that the only one making the money was Gulas himself. Reed decided to look elsewhere for work and found that Vince McMahon Sr. in Washington DC was very interested in bringing him to his territory. After wrestling for a couple of more weeks in Nashville, Reed told Gulas his intentions of leaving and never returning to his territory. That did not sit well with Gulas, and decided to stiff Reed out of his final pay of 30 dollars.

While the money wasn’t much, Reed had every intention of taking that money and using it for gas to drive from Nashville to D.C.. Reed went to Gulas’ office to collect and his secretary refused to allow Reed in. Reed demanded that he was owed money and tell Gulas he was getting paid one way or the other. Gulas allegedly shouted to his secretary to “Tell that prick to get outta here, he is getting paid a fucking dime!” When Reed heard that, he stormed into Gulas’ office and was met with the promoter pointing a .38 caliber at Reed’s head. Gulas always kept a gun in his desk drawer, for occasions just like this.

In the office with both Reed and Gulas was wrestler Luke Graham. Gulas shouted at Reed to leave or get shot, to which Reed replied that “you better shoot me then, because I’m not going anywhere until I get paid.” Gulas then ordered Graham to throw him out and Graham replied…”Do it yourself.” The phone rang and after Gulas answered it, Reed began screaming, “Pay me my money!” Whoever was on the other end of that line was important enough for Gulas to put down his gun, took out two envelopes from his desk drawer and handed it to Reed. When Reed met with Vince Sr, he told the promoter about the incident and McMahon asked him why he didn’t beat Gulas’ ass after he put the gun down? Reed said he was afraid of being blackballed and McMahon answered…”Nobody likes Nick Gulas anyway.”

Debbie’s Downer

Debbie Johnson was a second generation wrestler, the daughter of wrestler Dottie Downs. Both mother and daughter were trained and wrestled for the Fabulous Moolah. Debbie’s career lasted from 1970 until 1975 before retiring from the business. Johnson revealed that she became pregnant in 1973, much to the chagrin of Moolah and her own mother Dottie.

According to Johnson, her friend and fellow wrestler Jan Sheridan drugged her and drove her to Ashville, North Carolina to get an abortion without her consent. Years later, Debbie called Jan Sheridan “an evil bitch!” and stated, “they killed my child!!!!!!” More on that story and her career here.

It Seems Like He’s Always Benedick

In July of 2024, Darren Benedick who worked as a play by play announcer for the Massachusetts based Chaotic Wrestling under the name of ‘Reginald Kensington III’ was arrested after an undercover sex sting. Benedick went on a “Teens Only” chat site and sexually propositioned someone who he thought was a 14 year old girl. In reality the teenager was actually an undercover cop. Benedick who was 42 years old at the time, expressed to the cop his desire to meet up for sex and what sexual activities he was interested in engaging in with “her.” Benedick also sent lewd photos of himself to the undercover cop.

Aside from his work with Chaotic Wrestling, Benedick also served as a gym teacher at the Salem Academy Charter School. According to police, there has been no allegations or evidence of misconduct from Benedick from the school. He has since been placed on administrative leave. He was fired from Chaotic Wrestling and the promotion immediately released a statement…

Today we received word that Chaotic commentator Darren Benedick was arrested on charges of child enticement and dissemination of matter harmful to minors. Chaotic has a strict Zero Tolerance Policy and terminated all dealings with him immediately.

It is an unfortunate reality that this type of behavior has been prevalent in the history of the industry. Chaotic Wrestling stands resolute in the effort to cultivate a safe environment and will continue to take active steps to steer the business into a better future.

Darren Benedick was charged with multiple felonies, including enticement of a child under 16, possession of child pornography, distribution of obscene matter to a minor, and three counts of sharing visual material of a child in a sexual act. His bail was set at $5,000 and was placed on home confinement with a ankle bracelet and absolutely no contact with children.

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