Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
This is the ninth installment of the ‘Wrestling with sin’ series. These pieces examine the darker, seedier side of professional wrestling. Some involve sex, assault, rape, drugs and even murder. As always, I do not condone nor do I condemn the individuals involved in these stories.
Jeff Hardy
As we have documented here before, Jeff has had his fair share of legal problems mostly stemming from drug abuse. In 2009, Hardy faced the biggest challenge when police seized approximately 262 Vicodin prescription pills, 180 Soma prescription pills, 555 milliliters of anabolic steroids, a residual amount of powder cocaine, and items of drug paraphernalia from his residence.
Jeff was able to agree to a plea deal and received 10 days in jail, 30 months of probation, a $100,000 fine and ordered into a drug rehabilitation clinic.
Dick Slater
In 2003, Dick Slater took a butcher’s knife and attacked his then live in girlfriend by stabbing her while in a drug haze. According to Slater, he was on both morphine and Oxycontin at the time of the assault and had no recollection of the event. Slater was arrested and sentenced to 1 year of house arrest…2 years probation after that and a fine of $18,000.
Jerry Lawler
In 1993, Memphis wrestling legend and WWE color commentator…Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler was accused of raping and sodomizing a teenage girl within the age of 13 to 15 years old. He was also charged with intimidating a female witness. Jerry was removed from WWF television as a commentator and also replaced at the Survivor Series that year by Shawn Michaels. The case started to unravel when another key witness in the Lawler case was arrested for rape himself. Lawler was eventually acquitted of all charges when the teen in question admitted to making up the entire scenario.
Blackjack Mulligan and Kendall Windham
In 1990, Blackjack Mulligan and his son Kendall Windham were arrested by the US Secret Service in a joint investigation with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement over counterfeiting. Over $500,000 in counterfeit 20 dollar bills were seized from their homes. The father and son took a plea deal where they served 2 years in a Federal prison. They were both released in 1992. Ironically, Kendall has since opened up a security firm since his release from prison.
Kevin Lawler
Kevin Lawler…the son of Jerry Lawler and a wrestler/referee for several independent promotions in the Tennessee area was arrested himself back in 2008 for burglary and trespassing. According to several reports, Kevin ran a carpet cleaning business in Tennessee called ‘King’s Carpet Cleaning.’ A female customer gave Kevin a key to her home to clean her carpets which he did. Later on that night…Kevin returned and entered the home again with a key that he had made startling the woman and her boyfriend.
Johnny Grunge
A month after Johnny Grunge and Public Enemy tag team partner Rocco Rock signed with WCW in 1996…Grunge became intoxicated and took a WCW production van for a ride without permission. WCW management called the police and reported the van stolen. Police found the van and a drunken Grunge inside of it where he was promptly arrested.
Juventud Guerrera
While on tour with WCW in Australia in 2000, famed luchador Juventud Guerrera was arrested after running through a Brisbane, Australia hotel naked and high in what was believed to be the drug PCP. When police were called to the hotel, Guerrera assaulted 3 of them until handcuffed and fully detained. Juvi was fined over three thousand dollars including restitution to the officers he attacked. Juventud asked for leniency from the court as a conviction would have his working visa revoked thus not being able to wrestle overseas and negatively affecting his wrestling career. The Judge granted leniency and Juvi was sent home to Mexico and was eventually released by WCW.
Gene Okerlund
WWE Hall of Famer Gene Okerlund was himself arrested back in 2000 on a DUI charge. He allegedly blew a red stop light and nearly clipped a police patrol car.