Wrestling With Sin: 586

Brian Damage

This is the 586th 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.

Door Stash

The late Sabu once talked about the drug culture in ECW. He said that the roster was split up in different cliques. Not so much for being close friends, but due to the wrestlers’ particular vices. Some hung out because they popped pills, others loved cocaine, some just drank etc, etc. Sabu recalled one evening after a show he went to a hotel where most of the wrestlers were staying.

He said he walked down the hallway of the hotel and saw a bunch of doors cracked open. Sabu walked into each room where the different cliques were hanging out and said he tried a little bit of everything. He drank beers with Terry Funk and Cactus Jack, took some pills with Axl Rotten, smoked weed with Rob Van Dam and did cocaine with the Sandman. All in one night.

Cooked

Carol Cook was a 2nd generation professional wrestler whose father Frank Cook competed in the 1920’s. Cook wrestled for the National Wrestling Alliance from 1950 until 1960. Cook competed in a tournament for the NWA world women’s championship in 1956. She lost in the first round of the tourney which was ultimately won by Fabulous Moolah. Cook would team with Ruth Boatcallie and win the NWA women’s tag team titles. 

Behind closed doors, Cook was a lesbian and maintained a long term relationship with her tag partner Boatcallie. The couple lived openly as lesbians when not inside the squared circle, but kept her love life a secret to all the promoters, fellow wrestlers and fans. The pressures of keeping her private life, private was immense and she turned to alcohol to cope with the stress. Cook battled alcoholism and it eventually cut her career short at the age of 27.

Carol and Ruth would split up as a couple, but remained close friends. Three years after her retirement, Cook died of cirrhosis of the liver. Ruth was at Carol’s bedside when she passed away. Carol Cook was just 30 years old at the time of her death.

Brian Christopher was a star for the WWF during the Attitude Era as a member of the team 2 Cool along with Scotty 2 Hotty Taylor and Rikishi. After being released by the company for trying to smuggle drugs from Canada, Brian wrestled for groups like TNA and various independent groups. In March of 2004, Brian appeared on an independent show in Memphis, Tennessee where he first got his start in the wrestling business.

Reportedly, that day Brian had an ego and throwing his weight around being a former WWF/WWE superstar to all the other talent on the card. Brian was apparently rude and acting somewhat of a bully feeling he was better than everyone else at the show. Allegedly, one of Brian’s targets was a wrestler named Johnny Dotson. Dotson was used primarily as enhancement talent on the Memphis wrestling scene for years.

According to reports, Brian had been picking on Dotson all day long and the usually reserved Dotson finally snapped and got involved in both a verbal then physical confrontation with Brian Christopher. From all accounts, Dotson roughed up Brian to the point that several wrestlers had to step in before Dotson did serious damage to him.

History Repeating Itself

A former independent pro wrestler named ‘Samson White’ real name Bryan Whittinghill was arrested and charged with seven counts of sexual battery by an authority figure. Whittinghill wrestled in places such as Indiana and Tennessee, he had since quit wrestling and became a history teacher in Tennessee. It was reported that Whittinghill sexually abused two victims between 2003 and January of 2026.

The victims are rumored to be his adopted daughters. No ages were released. The police reported that none of the alleged incidents happened on school property and is not a school related incident. Whittinghill has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation. Whittinghill will have no contact with any students moving forward.

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