Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
This is the 450th 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.
Gunning For Trouble
William Vaughan aka ‘Lance Von Erich’ during his days wrestling for World Class Championship Wrestling, recalled living in South Africa after leaving WCCW. As a way to make money for himself, Vaughan decided transport hand guns from Dallas, Texas to Johannesburg, South Africa and sell them. He got the guns through a Brigadier General he met through one of the gyms he owned.
Vaughan made several trips back and forth from Dallas to Johannesburg, bringing with with him 50 handguns each time and selling them for about a thousand dollars each. He recalled making the trip a total of 10 times over the years. While he was in England transporting the firearms, he was detained and arrested for travelling with “Weapons of War.” A charge that could have brought him 20 years in prison.
His lawyers were able to convince authorities that he needed to transport the guns because he was opening up a firing range in South Africa. Vaughan was released from jail and was able to ship off the guns. Narrowly escaping serious jail time, Vaughan decided to quit selling firearms after that ordeal.
The Krays-Z World of Professional Wrestling
Ronnie and Reggie Kray were identical twins who ruled the British criminal underworld in the 1950’s and 60’s. The Kray brothers were involved in gambling, arson, protection rackets, armed robbery and even murder. The twins fell in love with professional wrestling, citing wrestlers like the Borg Twins (Julius and Ignatious) as their personal favorites.
It was heavily rumored that initially, the Krays wanted to become pro wrestlers themselves, but opted for boxing instead. Despite not become wrestlers, the Krays allegedly employed many actual wrestlers to become “muscle” for their organization over the years. They would be used as bodyguards, bouncers for their nightclub and possibly even enforcers when tracking down people with outstanding gambling debts.
Reggie Kray dabbled in promoting a couple of wrestling shows in and around the London area. He never used his name on the marquee, instead getting a midget wrestler named Roy ‘Little Legs’ Smith to broker a deal with legendary UK wrestler/promoter Tony Skarlo. Skarlo would organize everything, while Reggie Kray was the anonymous financial backer. Skarlo said he never dealt directly with Kray, instead going through Little Legs Smith to communicate with the criminal boss. Skarlo said that the shows did very well, but once he discovered that Little Legs was skimming money from the shows, Skarlo decided to end the relationship.
As far Little Legs Smith, he claimed he was also used as an enforcer for the Kray twins. When not wrestling, Smith claimed he would burn down establishments and people’s property if they were late paying money to the Krays. He also allegedly assaulted a few of the Krays rivals by either slashing their ankles or busting their kneecaps as at 4 feet 3 inches tall…that is as far as he could reach. Smith had a total of 22 convictions on his record, including shooting someone at the Krays London nightclub.
The Pain of Cocaine
‘The Nature Boy’ Buddy Landel was once considered a can’t miss star in professional wrestling. At the height of his career, Landel said he was making easily $100,000 a year. With fame and fortune, came a debilitating cocaine addiction. Landel said his addiction lasted around 10 to 15 years. His addiction caused him to no show dates, develop attitude issues and overall, become unreliable to various promoters.
Landel was no longer wrestling on TV and no longer being used consistently. Landel lost his home and he and his wife and young daughter were forced to move in with his sister. Landel and his family had to sleep on the floor because there simply was no room. Despite being homeless and losing mostly everything he once owned, Landel continued his drug habit. He was driving under the influence, when he was involved in a car crash that totaled his vehicle. The car was the last thing of value that he owned and now he was left with absolutely nothing.
With his marriage in shambles and on the verge of divorce, Landel saw a preacher on television and decided to give up drugs and try to salvage his marriage and wrestling career. Buddy Landel started to get clean and sober and began wrestling again after getting a job with the WWF. Unfortunately, Landel never again reached the success that he once had, but he was able to save his marriage and said that he remained clean. Tragically, Landel died after suffering injuries from another car crash at the age of 53.
Yumi and Some Teeth
On April 27, 1987 during an All Japan Women’s 2 out of 3 falls tag team match that pitted Kazue Nagahori & Yumi Ogura versus Yumiko Hotta & Hisako Uno aka Akira Hokuto, Yumi Ogura legitimately, but accidentally broke the neck of Hokuto. It was after a second rope tombstone piledriver. Ogura and Naghori got the pinfall victory, but to Hokuto’s credit continued to wrestle the rest of the falls.
Hokuto’s partner, Yumiko Hotta (nicknamed the Murder Goddess) took exception to Ogura accidental botch and went into business for herself. Hotta repeatedly used stiff kicks to Ogura, hitting her a number of times in her face, knocking out several of Ogura’s teeth. After the match ended, AJW management made Yumiko Hotta go around the ring picking up Ogura’s teeth. The rumored story was that All Japan Women management did not want to pay to have Yumi Ogura’s teeth to be fully replaced.