Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
This is the 525th 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.
Rats Amore
Lanny Poffo once recalled how Ole Anderson hated the entire Poffo family, but especially despised Lanny in particular. Lanny accused Ole of always calling him a “fag” whenever he was Poffo at a show. Lanny believes Ole thought Lanny wrestled too effeminately and was flamboyant and that rubbed Ole the wrong way. Ole allegedly sent his good friend and partner Gene Anderson to shoot on Lanny during a battle royal in South Carolina which saw Gene rough up Lanny initially, but Lanny stated he came back and took down the veteran humiliating him in front of the boys.
Poffo then states that things continued to be hot between him and Ole, but Ole refused to wrestle Lanny claiming that Poffo was to girly. To get even with Ole, Lanny claimed he slept with one of Ole’s prized “ring rats.” When Ole found out, he and Gene Anderson approached Lanny and Ole asked him how was the “used pussy?” Lanny said it was great, once you get past the used part. That statement enraged Ole, but was careful not to do anything considering that Poffo knew Ole was married and could do damage to him.
Spider Bite
In 1954, Al ‘Spider’ Galento was about to wrestle a match in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma when he in explicably punched the ring announcer during the introductions. The ring announcer just so happened to be a traffic court judge named James Demopolos. He sued Galento for $25,000 for injuries sustained in the unprovoked attack.
The judge presiding over the lawsuit awarded Judge Demopolos $10,000 for his pain and suffering. He was never able to collect the money because Galento skipped town without paying.
Not Cosplaying Around
WWE wrestler Zelina Vega and her husband AEW star Malakai Black have been accused from a creator of some of her custom ring gear of scamming the creator by underpaying or not paying for her gear at all. The creator took to social media to accuse Vega and Black by writing….
“WWE Wrestler Zelina Vega with the custom Mecha Chancla we designed, printed and hand stoned one by one that she practically got for free and severely under paid me for.
Also wasted my time on a pair of cuffs, Mech wings and headset, all hand stoned. She gave me the wrong address which resulted in my wings getting cooked in the hot 100 degree florida sun, melting it essentially, having to reship it, and then finding out the time specified was too late, then having a piece detach due to melted pieces from again…it getting damaged from being delivered to her old address that she THOUGHT she could pick it up from. It was literally something so fixable and yet she said it was my fault and a skill issue as well as her “assistant” saying I’m unprofessional for even saying it’s anything but my work and my skills suck. She got all that (commission valued at $2.5k) for $900 with a promise of exposure and I had to refund multiple customers and reject new orders to get this done, hours upon hours of 3d designing everything, bedazzling everything one by one, custom painting everything, attaching LEDs, crystalizzing the transparent parts of the wings, etc. A labor that should have taken months, I did in 2 and a half to 3 weeks non stop breaks and no sleep. And guess what? Only for her to return everything, dispute the total amount without deducting what she kept via paypal and keeping the chancla and headset for practically change. All of that…for nothing and to have expensive stuff for Temu price. As a Puerto Rican, you are literally a disgrace and 100% not for your people, let alone small businesses.
Safe to say I will never work with a celebrity that tries to scam me for cheap services and practically free items again and I will never bedazzle either, but still pretty cool to witness my piece on TV and the world seeing it. Of course there’s no tag, but that’s nothing new guys.
I definitely don’t want to work with celebrities or influencers anymore, they always expect super cheap or free stuff and excessive labor just because it’s them. I AM HUMAN TOO, I HAVE BILLS TO PAY, I NEED TO EAT. THIS IS NOT A CHINESE SWEATSHOP OR MAJOR CORP, ITS A ONE WOMAN ARMY.”
That post led another costume designer to come forward and add that he too had a very negative experience in dealing with Vega. This led Zelina Vega to reactivate her Twitter account to defend herself by saying…
“Welp, had to reactivate Twitter just to correct people. Screenshots, photos & videos to come. Last thing my husband and I are, are scammers, so! Time to make things clear. Alllll of it.
And for the people who want to threaten, lie and create fake “new scam scenarios” to jump on the hate train because they think it’s fun and cool for social media, do better.. bcz you’re about to be proven very wrong.”
“**I do not want any hate sent to ANY of the people (including Mecha) or situations that I’m about to clear up** if you’re a fan of mine, please don’t. This isn’t meant to be “twitter fun” but I do have the right to defend myself. Excuse the slow responses as it is a travel day. None of my other gear makers have ever had an issue with me and if they did, we handled it in person.
My intent, despite being highly upset at what trolls blew this up to be, is to get to a place where everyone feels ok about things as I thought that is where my team and her got to. Once it left my hands (I was moving, working and dealing with a sick family member) I left it in their hands and it seemed to be settled.
Starting with @sangrebomb because Mecha is a lot more involved and I’m going to be recording a video, not that you can tag a person that blocked you on IG anyway:
I asked “would you be interested, do you want compensation, they said no. I still offered everything else and even surprised them by getting them tix and brought them backstage to say thank you personally. They went back on the original agreement and wasn’t clear about what they now wanted and I stopped using their image on the controllers and respectfully cut ties. How am I the bad guy here?”
As of this writing, Vega was not in trouble with WWE management over the alleged incidents.
Minor Offense
Reggie Folks was an independent wrestler based out of Atlanta, Georgia, who competed under the moniker of ‘Reggie Rage.’ Folks was still in training at World Wrestling Alliance 4 in Atlanta while competing locally. To supplement his training, Folks moonlighted as a Lyft driver in his spare time. On the evening of May 15, 2024, Folks picked up a passenger named Koby Minor. Minor was a six year veteran of the Atlanta police. He had just resigned from the police force that day, due to an ongoing investigation over an unrelated incident.
According to reports, Koby Minor believed his driver “is in a gay fraternity and was trying to recruit Minor into it and believed he was getting kidnapped by Folks.” Minor began to hear voices in his ear and tried to exit the vehicle. Minor stated that he demanded the driver to pull over and let him get out, but Folks allegedly ignored his request. That is when Minor pulled out his revolver and shot Folks in the back of his head…killing him instantly. Minor was arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault.
The World Wrestling Alliance 4 issued a statement on social media which read…“We are heart broken. Devastated. Reggie Rage, we all love you. You lit up The 4 EVERYTIME you came. Gonna miss you. Gonna miss watching you tryin all that crazy stuff when class was winding down. The one legged hop with the hype entrance. Damn. We love you Reggie.” Reggie ‘Rage’ Folks was 35 years old at the time of his death.