Everybody knows wrestling is fake. Except possibly many of the fans who act genuinely emotional when some of the scripted stuff at matches is particularly… well scripted, bless their “naive” souls.
But whether you like wrestling or not and whether you like it because of the sheer ridiculous larger-than-life exaggerated characters it brings forth, even knowing they’re fake, or you hate it for the same reason, you’re gonna be impressed by the following 5 cases of real wrestle mania that happened OFF-stage.
Of course, it has to be mentioned that these stories made it to the public indirectly, through local newspaper coverage, witness reports and other such smaller outlets. So they might be part of the marketing strategy to inflate a certain wrestler’s profile. But in that case, their PR people or the wrestlers themselves, if they were behind it, should probably consider changing careers. Because these stories are so crazy they sound true and anybody would have a hard time making something like this up.
1. “Is that all you’ve got?”
A night in 1986 in Fresno, California for WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) wrestlers and friends “Cowboy” Bob Orton, “The Magnificent” Don Muraco, and “Rowdy” Roddy Piper started like any regular night with friends starts for most people, by having some drinks together.
Sure, most people aren’t media “heroes” in an industry whose main trade is delusion and exaggeration, as these three were at the time. And most people don’t drink quantities of alcohol that would kill a herd of buffalo, until 3 am.
But these guys weren’t most people so they decided to go out, at 3 am, to get some MORE alcohol. Ended up at a liquor store where Piper, naturally, started a fight. They were asked to leave. Did so, by driving away. Ended up with their car stuck on some railroad tracks (trying to cross where there was no crossing) and Bob and Muraco were unable to “lift it over the tracks” with Piper inside, despite the brilliant idea.
Left the car there and went back to the hotel where the police were waiting to question them for some unexplained reason (liquor store? car on rails? naaaah… ). Cowboy Bob managed to get to his room unnoticed. Got bothered by the police interrogating his mates downstairs, as he couldn’t sleep. Shouted at ’em to keep it down (in more colorful words). Got tasered by the police. The end, right? Nope. Because the first tasering didn’t do much to stop him from coming down stairs to formally and gentlemanly challenge them to a duel. Which prompted a second tasering, amid drawn weapons, to finally pacify him.
2. Perry Saturn’s aborted lift-off
For a wrestler who worked for ECW, WCW, WWE and any other important company out there, it’s heartwarming to see him start telling the story featured here with the words that at that particular time he and his buddies were: “as stupid as we were bored”. Sounds like a decent level of stupid.
Anyway, they were in a hotel room and decided to call up some strippers to liven things up. When the girls came, things quickly went from your “average” stripper scenario to the following: a Slip n Slide (installed in the hallway by Perry himself and wet with a hose connected to a sink), a naked stripper with her legs spread open on one end and Perry at the other with a dildo strapped to his face.
Not hard to figure out his intentions, I’m sure. Suffice to say he couldn’t get enough slide for his satisfaction (being the big heavy guy he is) so he came up with the genius idea of propelling himself with an extinguisher, rocket-style. As he pushed on the button and tried to go where probably many men had gone before, the laws of Physics disagreed and nothing happened. Except security coming to see why the floor below was flooding and then promptly kicking Perry, strippers, friends and anybody else that even had a glance in common with them out of the hotel.
3. Arn Scissorhands
Wanna know how Arn Andersson got fired from World Championship Wrestling?
He and Sid Vicious were both working for WCW when they didn’t see eye to eye one night as they went out drinking in a bar. The subject was whose importance is greater for the company (ironic, huh?). Anyway, it seemed like it all blew over with them retiring to their rooms to contemplate, but Sid decided to go to Arn’s room with a stick and set him straight. Arn had continued drinking in the room as well, so he answered Sid’s summons vaguely intelligibly, through the door. Sid had some remorse and second thoughts and dropped the stick, only to discover the door opening with a scissors-armed Arn behind it, who promptly stabbed him in the gut. Then, according to Sid, Sid picked the scissors and started multiply stabbing Arn and kicking him in the face until stopped by a fellow wrestler housed in the hotel. And that’s how Arn got fired…
4. Madder than Mad Max
In this tale of derring-do, Paul Heyman and Samu and Fatu (known as the Samoan Swat Team) meet Sting and the Steiner Brothers. In 1989, Paul Heyman was driving Samu and Fatu to a show when they were set upon by Sting and the Steiner brothers with their well-known antic.
You see, most of us regular people might not compute this one, but it was common knowledge between wrestlers that if Sting and the Steiner Brothers saw another wrestler occupied car while they were driving, they would instantly engage said car, by means of Scott Steiner lifting his brother Rick out of their own car by his leg, so that Rick could grab an occupant from the other car.
Now, as Heyman and the Samoans knew about this, they locked the door, which aggravated Sting and the Steiners ,which started throwing everything they had in their car at the other car, Mad Max style, including a watermelon.
Heyman pulled over at a gas station and he, Samu and Fatu bought everything throw-worthy from there (including some flammable/explosive stuff). Then Samu and Fatu carved SST into their hands with a knife (a hint that it was no all-in-good-fun scenario), and they all-together tracked down Sting’s car and got their revenge. Inexplicably, despite the cars being completely messed up, the occupants weren’t.
5. Great work ethics
This one tops them all. Sandman (James Fullington) was on his way to a match in Milwaukee when he thought it would be a cool idea to inject himself with a pain-killing drug (Nubain). Makes sense, right? Yeah, except if that drug happens to be very powerful, you miss the dosage, which prompts you to start dying, which is what happened to Sandman.
So he flat out drops in the car and his friends take his inanimate form to the hospital, after first pulling over to give the drugs to one of them and dropping him off to get rid of the evidence in case the police investigates the death, of course. At the hospital, the doctors give him an adrenaline shot to the heart which despite all odds, resurrects Sandman!
So, he diligently calls the venue of the match and informs them that he’ll be right along to have at it that night as soon as he can make it from the hospital. Which he did in time.
