Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
This is the 47th installment of the ‘Wrestling with Sin‘ series. A group of stories that delves into the darker…seedier…side of professional wrestling. Many of these stories involve sex, backstage politics, assaults and sometimes even murder! As with every single story we cover in the Sin series…we never look to criticize or applaud any of the alleged incidents or the participants. We are simply retelling these stories.
To Catch A Catch As Catch Can
Johnny Doyle was an extremely successful wrestling promoter from the 1930’s to the 1960’s. He was also a notorious womanizer back in his day. In one infamous incident…the late, great six time NWA world champion Lou Thesz recalled Doyle and his mistress coming to visit him in Los Angeles. After the visit, Thesz looked out his window and noticed a suspicious vehicle that began to follow Johnny Doyle and his girlfriend.
Thesz instantly realized this wasn’t a good sign and ran to his car and followed the car following Doyle. The car following Doyle began ramming Doyle’s car trying to run him off the road. The car following Doyle and his girlfriend then crashed into a store front. Thesz would find out the driver of the car trying to kill Johnny Doyle and his girlfriend was another girlfriend Doyle had on the side. She found out about the other mistress and became jealous.
As it turns out, the jealous girlfriend was arrested and eventually bailed out a few hours later…by Doyle himself. This wasn’t the only incident involving Doyle and a woman…in 1953…Doyle was sued by an actress named Catherine Monroe (No relation to Marilyn) for beating her after she turned down Doyle’s exual advances. He settled the matter out of court. Johnny Doyle’s wife who was married to him for 22 years with kids filed for divorce citing Doyle’s infidelity and cruel treatment of her.
The Long And Short of it
In 2010, a pro wrestler named ‘Solid’ Chris Long who worked for the short lived Lucha Libre USA on the MTV networks was shot and killed. He was moonlighting as a bouncer at an Atlanta area strip club when 3 patrons became rowdy and Long escorted them out. Hours later…the same men returned to the club and opened fire shooting and killing Long. The shooter was arrested not long after and charged with aggravated assault and murder.
Blood Money
During a title match between Chris Jericho and Dave Batista at the 2008 Cyber Sunday pay per view…Batista decided to go against the WWE’s new “No Blood” policy and bleed to sell a Jericho move. After “blading” and bleeding….when the match was over…both Jericho and Batista were screamed at by Vince McMahon. Batista was against the entire “PG era” the WWE was trying to change into and felt bleeding was “Best for business.” A week later, Vince McMahon called both Jericho and Batista into his office and levied fines to everyone involved including referee Mike Chioda and producer Dean Malenko.
Jericho, Chioda and Malenko all received fines of $5,000…while Batista received a huge fine of $100,000. Batista said later in interviews that the huge amount shocked him so much…it sucked the passion for pro wrestling and the WWE right out of him. He wound up honoring the final years of his contract and then quit the company in 2010.
Curt Under Par
During a golf outing in St Paul, Minnesota involving Curt Hennig, Ken Patera, Road Warrior Animal and Jim Brunzell….Ken Patera recalls Hennig’s drug and alcohol problems. When the four wrestlers met up to play a game of golf…Curt had already smoked a joint…took 6 pain pills and drank 6 beers. By the end of the game…Curt had smoke 3 or 4 joints…drank a case of beer and took numerous painkillers. Despite all the substances Curt had in his body in the 3 hour game…Curt still defeated the much more sober wrestlers by a large margin.
Curt Hennig died in 2003 of a drug overdose…he was 44 years old.
Carmella-dramatic
Former Playboy playmate Carmella DeCesare was a finalist in the 2004 WWE Diva search competition. (She was beat out by Christy Hemme) Despite losing in the final round…DeCasare was eventually signed to a WWE contract and began a small feud with Hemme before being released from the company.
Later that same year, DeCasare allegedly assaulted another woman in a bar by kicking her in the head. The cause of the fight stemmed from Decasare and the victim dating the same man…former NFL quarterback Jeff Garcia. Decasare turned herself in to police and plead not guilty. She was given community service…one year probation and a small fine.