Letters written to Deadspin about wrestler encounters

[RP]

Can't paste atm

http://m.deadspin.com/5919737/?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

[Volare]

I got ya RP

[Volare]

In 2000, I was in school and working part-time at Blockbuster Video. It was an easy enough gig. I'm holding the place down by myself one weekday afternoon. The store's pretty much empty when the doorbell chimes. I look over to see Raven sporting a black Wolverine tee and basketball trunks. It's strange seeing someone you've watched get bludgeoned to a bloody pulp just walking around all casual. Normal even. I've met wrestlers before, but being alone in a store with that guy put me a little on edge. Needless to say there was no way I was making this man pay late fees.

After a few minutes of looking around he walks up to the front counter. I can say that the words that would come out of his mouth were nothing like I'd imagined. "Do you have the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series?"

I stood there for a split second and could only respond, "I don't know." I looked it up in the computer, nothing. Walked him over to the TV section, still nothing. I apologized and he mumbled something resembling, "That's cool. Thanks anyway." He ended up leaving empty-handed. I never mentioned that I knew who he was. I was just so bummed out that I couldn't help Raven get his Buffy! I ended up seeing him again at the Cumberland Mall, checking out some sneakers or something. He was rocking another comic book tee. The man had good taste.

Evo:

It's 1991, I'm nine years old, and my dad picks me up from school. It's close to summer, and it's an extremely hot day for a Southern California beach city. Probably a blistering 79 degrees. Instead of going straight home where I could take off my pants and watch some goddamn cartoons, my pop tells me we have to go to his work and pick up his paycheck. Ugh. We pull into his work, a warehouse by the airport. He goes into the office area to get his check, and I stay outside. Since I'm a kid, I get bored after waiting for 11 seconds. I decide to go explore. During my short expedition, I notice some kind of shipping container. Obviously, I can't NOT go inside of it and close the door behind me. That's what I do. And of course, now I'm stuck.

If you remember what it's like being nine years old, you know you have zero sense of pride and self-awareness, especially in what seems like a dangerous situation. I didn't even wait a minute before I started screaming at the top of my lungs. Some guy finally comes over and sees me. There's a clear plastic window in the door area, and I can see he's sorta laughing to himself. THANKS MAN. Eventually he tries to open the door, but it won't budge. It locked itself somehow. He tells me he's going to find someone to open it for him, but I'm kinda freaking out and I ask him not to leave. He calls another dude over and they're both just looking at the door, looking at me, looking at the door, and laughing. OH COOL GUYS. NOT LIKE IT'S HOT IN HERE OR ANYTHING. After a few more minutes of these chuckleheads doing nothing, my dad finds me. I can tell he's a little pissed, but he doesn't want to explode in front of people. One of the dimwits that was hanging around tells my dad he's going to get his brother to help out. He says he's a big guy and can probably just pull the door off. My dad looks at him weird and says okay, but says it with a tone that means you're absolutely no help and I'm glad you're going away. Couple more minutes pass, a couple more guys come over to try and get me out, with no luck. One more guy comes over. It's the dude's brother. AND IT'S FUCKING ZEUS. ZEUS. FROM NO HOLDS BARRED. THE MOTHERFUCKER THAT FOUGHT HULK HOGAN IN ONE OF THE WORST (GREATEST -9 year old me) MOVIES EVER MADE. I don't believe it. My dad doesn't believe it. Neither of us believes it when Tommy "Tiny" Lister grabs the door and pulls it off from it's fucking hinges.

Deebo saved my life, or at least saved me from an additional few minutes of sweating in a little box. Almost immediately after Tiny gets me out, some management types arrive at the scene, and they don't look too happy. That is until Tiny introduces himself and calmly, but firmly, explains the situation to them. They melt like butter. It was awesome. Everyone chats it up for a few minutes, talk about Hulk, make fun of me, he signs a few autographs, and that's it. He grabs my shoulder a little, tells me to be careful, and him and his brother leave. My dad and I leave right after, lest the management guys decide to blame him for the damaged container. Our ride home was quiet and somewhat surreal. I think my dad was just happy my dumb ass didn't get him fired. I was wondering how I was gonna tell my friends the bad guy from that Hulk Hogan movie rescued me from certain death.

Tommy:

I was on a flight to Tampa around 2000 or 2001, when a flight attendant comes up to me and my brother telling us that a bunch of pro-wrestlers were sitting up in first class. Being a massive WWF fan (who was also about ten years old), I nearly shat myself. The flight attendant offered to take my boarding pass to get autographs from all of them, which would include The Big Show, Chris Jericho, Gangrel, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, and Dean Malenko. However, things became rather confusing for me when I turned to my right and realized that one of the wrestlers was not fortunate enough to be awarded a first class ticket. This extremely large man (around 6'3, 300 lbs) was Dennis Knight, or Mideon from the "Ministry of Darkness". He was the ONLY one of these guys sitting in a coach seat, and was easily the largest (aside from the Big Show, who had two first class seats to himself). In person, he truly looked like he had taken larger craps than Dean Malenko, but he seemed to be a nice guy who obviously knew his role. Funny to see that the pecking order of the WWF even translated to airline seats.

[Volare]

CP:

I'm from Westville, OK, a town of about 1,000 people whose only claim to fame is being the birthplace of Jim Ross, also known as Good Ol' JR. It's a very rare thing for him to actually come back to town, and when he does, he's usually visiting family and keeps his visit private. However, the year after I graduated from high school, the school superintendent got in touch with his family and asked if he would come speak to the students. Because of the size of our school auditorium, and it being a K-12 school, every assembly is basically conducted twice, once for elementary and then again for high school. I was working as a substitute at the time, so I was at the assembly for the elementary students.

JR comes out to huge cheers from the crowd, of course, and starts his canned "believe in yourself" speech. Our school didn't exactly have the best AV equipment, and during the speech, the audio started to cut out. He immediately began cursing, loudly enough that everyone could hear (the students are seated so that the youngest are up front), about how the "goddamn school" and it's "piece of shit" equipment were "wasting my goddamn time," pretending to do it under his breath. They got the mic working and he spoke for about another minute or so before leaving the stage, and we could still hear him backstage, telling the administration the one assembly was enough and that "I'm getting the hell out of here right now."

Randy:

From 1998-2001 I worked part-time at the Value City Arena in Columbus while I was in school at Ohio State. This was slightly before the city built Nationwide Arena in downtown Columbus, so all the big shows/concerts/events came to the campus arena. During this time nothing was bigger than the WWE and Monday Night Raw in the eyes of many college students. Raw came to Columbus 1-2 years per year while I worked at the arena. Of course, when Raw was in town, every single part-time worker wanted to be on the schedule all day long to see the wrestlers come in.

On one occasion, at the height of the Attitude Era, I had an unforgettable experience/interaction with The Great One, The Rock. I was lucky enough to work "security" at the arena, which wasn't really security at all. I, and my co-workers, basically sat in an office and buzzed people into the arena via the locked backstage door. We openly made fun of every other part-time worker who had to carry or push massive things around while we sat in an office and made hourly rounds of the building (which mostly consisted of staring at girls during events).

As wrestlers started to pour into the arena to prepare for Raw that night we had to keep buzzing them into the locked door one-by-one. It was completely monotonous, but we got to see everyone come in (Austin, 'Taker, Trish Stratus, Lita, etc.). At one point I had my back turned to the glass as someone came in. I heard them angrily trying to open the locked door so I quickly turned around to let them in. It was The Rock. When I turned around I completely froze and just stared at him. I was, and still am, a huge Rock fan. Seeing me just stare at him he says, totally in character, "Open the damn door and let the Rock in the building you jabroni." I must have hit the button 27 times in 5 seconds trying to let him in. He just stared at me and other people in the office the entire time and, even after entering the building, stared at us until he was out of sight.

Five minutes later I heard someone pounding on the office door (which was also locked) and it's The Rock. I really thought I was going to throw-up. When I opened the door he was just starting at us. He stood there for a few seconds...then completely broke character and started laughing. I was a little confused and still didn't know whether he was going to punch me or not. Turns out he was just screwing with us; he was by far the nicest celebrity I ever met while at that job. He talked to all of us for about 20 minutes, asked us what our majors were, etc., etc. He even told us who was cool to ask for autographs and who to not even make eye contact with (anyone with the last name of McMahon).

Walt:

When I was younger, about 12-13 years old, I was blessed to have a father who knew a guy who knew veteran referee Mike Chioda. Mike blessed us with press box tickets for the (then) WWF event in Philadelphia. My brother, my friend and I spent the entire show asking various wrestlers for autographs, which they begrudgingly signed.

Later in the afternoon, I went to the bar in the press box to ask Savio Vega (my 16th favorite superstar at the time) to sign my WWF the Magazine. He put down his ice cream cone to take the pen and magazine from my hands. After signing some chicken scratch, he turned back to finish his coveted custard, only to find that the bro next to him (not a wrestler) devouring it. Savio, already annoyed about signing an autograph, replied, "Hey man, that's MY ice cream." The bro, who didn't seem to know (or care) who THE Savio Vega was fired back, "Oh...SORRY," saying so with as much, if not more, attitude than he received. He then turned away and continued to finish off Savio Vega's ice cream.

Savio left the press box shortly thereafter.

Tim:

I've worked in radio for about 12 years now and have had several interactions with wrestlers during meet and greets. Usually they're shockingly nice guys who are perfectly happy to sign and take pictures. One meet and greet has stuck with me for more than a decade now though.

Back when WCW was still on top of the world they brought a show through our town and actually taped a few matches for their "Thunder" show, so we had some pretty big names show up. The meet and greet we did had three wrestlers: Juventud Guerrera (right before he became The Rock's favorite punch line), Konan, and Rey Mysterio, Jr. All three walk in and ask me where they sit. The first thing I noticed is how quite they were. Then I noticed they all had a perma-smile going. And really, really red eyes. I quickly figured out they were stoned as stoned can be. No big deal, all they had to do was sign some autographs.

When we did our meet and greets, we would bring in food from a local chicken place, so the room has several tables with fried chicken, mashed potatoes, etc. on them. As soon as the trio saw the food, they literally started to drool. Konan very sheepishly asked me "Hey, is that food for everyone? Like, can we have some too?" I told them "yeah of course you can" so they got in line with everyone else and came back with two plates full of food each.

I have to give them credit though, when they hit the ring about half an hour later they were spot on.

Chris:

We went to go and see Rowdy Roddy Piper at a book signing. The entire time my friend was talking about how he was going to try and get Roddy to give him a chop to the chest. When the time came he asked Roddy, who said that he wouldn't do it. He did however offer up the consolation prize of being put in a sleeper hold. So he goes to put my friend in a sleeper hold, and this was no show sleeper hold, he legitimately started choking him for a couple of seconds. After it was done, he checked to see if my friend was OK, to which my friend said that he "was seeing stars." Roddy then told him "See, you don't have to do drugs anymore. Next time you wanna get high I'll just put you in a sleeper hold." Seriously one of the most awesome moments ever.

[Volare]

Calvin:

A few years back some friends and I attended a local arena football game. While walking through the main concourse I saw what appeared to be an Elvis wannabe sitting at a table. Figuring the team was running some dumb promotion, I didn't think anything of it. When we got closer to the table I discovered that it was no ordinary impersonator, it was non other that The Honky Tonk Man.

He was there to promote a match he had the next time for some small time rasslin' organization. On his table he had stacks of 8x10 glossy photos and as it was labeled "My official guitar from the WWF." Being a fan of shitty old wrestlers I went over for an autograph.

The Honky Tonk Man was HAMMERED. He had no idea where he was or what was going on. He just said "at half time, I'm playing my song, buy a photo ... uhh ... or I'll sign something, ain't no one came up to my table yet. Bunch of assholes, don't know when they are in the presence of the greatest" I told him my name and asked him to sign a promo sheet I had on me. I spell my name for him, yet he manages to add 3 new letters and leave out two other ones. He asked if it was right so I told him how to spell it again. He looked up at me and just said "It's close enough, I don't need this shit, I'm the champ. Not you. Not any other of these people wanting my name on their shit. I'm THE BEST!"

There was no one else with in 20 feet of his table.

At half time he went on the field and botched his theme song for 3 minutes and left. There was supposed to be another autograph signing afterwords, but he no-showed. Talking to the promoter after the game, he said that I was the only one who went up to his table all day and that at one point the Honky Tonk Man started yelling at people in the concession line.

We close, as always, with the Virgil story. Douglas:

I attended a card show at the Freehold Mall in NJ in the late 90s/ early 2000s. I must have been ten at the time, old enough to get really excited for a NJ mall autograph signing headlined by the immortal Larry Zbyszko. After waiting around for quite some time, we were informed that Zbyszko had cancelled his appearance. Im sure some reason was given, however this was lost on my young and very
disappointed self. My older brother acting fast, came up with a solution to end my turmoil: Virgil.

He noticed Virgil standing at a table not far from where we were. There were very few people at this event to
begin with, and none of them seemed very excited. We made our way over to Virgil and started to chat him up. To a little kid this giant man with an interesting name and mildly intimidating 8x10 photo seemed
pretty cool.

At first Virgil asked us if we wanted to take a photograph with him. We happily obliged. Next, Virgil said that he would give me an 8x10 photo of himself for free! We happily accepted. After Virgil handed me, a ten year old boy, this free photograph, he then asked me if I wanted him to sign it.I happily asked.

After Virgil signed it and gave it back, I imagine that I stared in awe-struck glee. Thinking I had just been giving an autographed photo I started to walk away. Before I could go Virgil stopped my older brother, who was barely 18 and said, "Yeah, that'll be 20 dollars."

Years later, my brother still reminds me that I don't appreciate that signed photo enough.

[RP]

Thank ya sir.

[Schlomey]

Virgil is a pimp

[Volare]

Thank ya sir.

No sweat bro. I clicked your link and after reading the first two, had to help you out....all your credit :D

[JimmyMess]

Virgilbag lol

[Razzamajazz]

lol honky tonk man

[Curd]

[quote=Volare;3907375]CP:

JR ... immediately began cursing, loudly enough that everyone could hear (the students are seated so that the youngest are up front), about how the "goddamn school" and it's "piece of shit" equipment were "wasting my goddamn time," pretending to do it under his breath. They got the mic working and he spoke for about another minute or so before leaving the stage, and we could still hear him backstage, telling the administration the one assembly was enough and that "I'm getting the hell out of here right now."

It sounds like the prednisone he takes to treat Bell's Palsy makes him irritable. I imagine he reviews his blog entries in the morning, after sleeping off the prednisone, before posting them live to make sure he doesn't sound too riled. That's a safeguard he doesn't have when broadcasting -- perhaps a contributing factor in McMahon taking him off the announce team.

The comments section in this article talks more about prednisone and the psychological impact it can have at higher doses:
http://gma.yahoo.com/c-tv-reporter-loses-her-smile-bells-palsy-164432652--abc-news-wellness.html

[RP]

"Wrestling Superstar Virgil," we continue with readers' encounters with the titans of the squared circle. If you've had your own run-in with pro wrestlers past or present, e-mail us, subject line "Virgilbag."

On to your stories! Jeff:

This story takes place some time after ECW folded, when a bunch of very talented wrestlers went from performing in front of tens of thousands of people to wrestling on independent shows in high school gyms in front of 50 people.

I loved ECW, and I was a big fan of Steve Corino and his King of OId School gimmick. So when he headlines a show at my local high school, my brother-in-law and I decide we have to go. We show up, not knowing what to expect. They've set up a shitty ring in the middle of the basketball court with plastic chairs around it. The capacity is probably 2,000. There are 50 people there. They don't even have to use the bleachers. It is depressing. Most depressing: Of the 50-member crowd, probably 5 are Juggalos — Insane Clown Posse devotees in full clown grease paint.

They sit in the front row and chant horrible things at the performers. "He's a FAG-GOT! (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap)" for example. They are loathsome little worms. I want parts of the ceiling to fall on them.

The Juggalos are led by a ruffian I will call Blue Hair, because, well, he had fucking blue hair. The four other kids are clearly stupid. I mean, like, may not be able to read stupid. Blue Hair is clearly the most clever and bold of the five, and hence the leader. The largest is a boy I will call Skinny, because he's like 6 feet tall but has not grown into a man's body yet, even though he fancies himself a tough guy. Blue Hair instigates most of the chants and general assholery.

The show is actually pretty good. Some name guys, some hungry wrestlers angling for a chance to perform at a bigger show. Finally, the main event comes. I had wondered whether Corino, who is used to bigger shows, might mail it in. Oh no. He puts on a virtuoso performance. Works extremely hard. Gives it everything he has. Really tries to entertain. I expected him to put on a perfunctory 15 minute match, but he goes for 30, takes some big bumps, is sweating heavily. He's seriously working as if this crowd is 50,000 people. I know this sounds overblown, but it was kind of an inspiring art-for-art's sake performance.

This is especially impressive when you consider that these little fuckers are chanting stupid shit at him when they aren't chanting "JUG-GA-LO! JUG-GA-LO!" Yeah, the show is all about you, shitheel.

So Corino finishes up. There is applause, even from the little fuckers. And Corino, spent, covered in sweat, bows and leaves the ring, headed for his merch table to sell more hockey jerseys. That's when it happens. Blue Hair suddenly appears totally nonchalant, as if he's walking to the bathroom, or to one of the other wrestlers' merch tables. But —clearly having planned this in advance — he turns on a dime, leaps right next to Corino and shouts in his ear: "CORINO IS A FAGGOT!" Corino, irritated, turns as if to confront him. Blue Hair dances away, grinning. Skinny, taking inspiration from his leader, says "Oh, Corino wants to throw?" and advances on Corino, ready to swing at him

It is then that I watched the switch turn on Steve Corino. He's tired, sweaty, irritated. He's put on the performance of his life in front of 50 fucking ungrateful people. Now, some overgrown mouthbreather is going to punch him? OH HELL NO. Corino grabs the kid. Puts him in a front headlock. Just starts wailing the fucking shit out of him.

The remaining three kids, who had evidently intended to attack Corino as well, suddenly get huge eyes and reconsider. This dude is in good shape, pissed off, and even if the rest of the crowd doesn't jump in to help, could probably take all five of them easily.

Wait, did I say five? Blue Hair grins like a Cheshire Cat and disappears into the crowd. He's planned this all along, apparently knowing his stupider friends would take the ass-kicking for him. The other three, seeing their ringleader bounce, quickly peace out at as well. As for the rest of us, we just stand there, watching Steve Corino pound this kid until it bores him. Some of us are cheering. Some of us are clapping. Exactly none of us are trying to get him to stop.

The next day, I looked up Corino online. I wrote him an email thanking him for the great performance, said we all actually wanted to do what he did, and told him if he had any legal trouble as a result, I would happily testify on his behalf that the Juggalos shot first, so to speak.

I got a nice email back thanking me. It was signed, "All Best, SC."

George:

It's sometime last year (don't want to say the exact time to protect the promoter), at an indy show in the NJ/NY area. The promoter and owner of the indy company is a friend of mine and allows me to sell figures and DVDs as a vendor for a reasonably small fee.

Raven was wrestling that night. After his match, Raven walks in my direction and is looking around confused. I ask him what's wrong, he asks if he can use my table and tight space (that I've been paying rent on and occupying for the night) so he can sell photo ops and 8x10s of himself during intermission. Anyone who has ever been or still is a vendor at wrestling shows know that intermission is really the only time, other than when people are walking in at the beginning of the show, to make money or sales – if you're lucky.

I obliged but boy did I regret it. After he hogs my space and is literally standing in front of my table taking all the people's attention away from my table, as well having ME taking the photos for him (which I did because I didn't want fans to think I was a dick then I wouldn't sell nothing), I ask him if he can sign an ECW DVD and a toy figure of his for me that I had on the table after he was done with all 15 or so people that approached him. Raven asks me what my name is so I tell him thinking nothing of it.

The asshole SIGNS AND AUTOGRAPHS MY FUCKIN NAME WITH THE CAPTIONS: "Not for Resale" ON THE MERCHANDISE SO I CAN'T SELL IT!!! I jokingly explain to him [even though I'm pissed at this point] that I'm a vendor and that, while pointing at the merchandise, tell him obviously I was planning to sell these items along with everything at this table. If that wasn't bad enough, as he leaves, he takes a DVD off my table and goes through the backstage curtain.

When I'm loading up my car with my table and boxes of goods at the end of the night, I talk to the promoter for a few minutes and I tell him this story. He laughs but feels bad for me and tells me I don't have to pay rent for tonight but I refuse because it's not his fault. The promoter tells me that Raven pulled a dick move earlier in the evening by trying to demand more money and how difficult he is to deal with! Not surprised.

Larry:

When I was 21 years old, I worked as a music journalist for a small, online radio station out of LA, covering mostly local heavy metal acts. I was tapped to cover the NAMM show, a music merchants convention that is basically a gear show by day, and a party for some of the world's biggest metal musicians by night. I realized pretty quickly that a 21-year old wet behind the ears kid had no business at a bar with 40+ year-old metal legends who'd been firing off lines of coke and sucking down shots of whiskey all night. Fuck it, I'd just drink until I felt like I belonged.

Two hours later, me and my friend are standing in the smoking section when we see a man dressed in a velour jumpsuit, bandana and dark sunglasses (it's 12:30 AM!) come strolling towards our table. I drunkenly blurt "is that fucking X-PAC?" and the man turns his attention to me. It is X-Pac. I am a drunken jackass.

He walks up to our table and bellies up. I didn't invite X-Pac to join us, but I'm not going to turn him down (this ends up being a big mistake). Being new to this whole "holy shit I'm actually hanging with the big boys" vibe, I don't mention that I'm actually a total fucking nerd who knows his name is Sean Waltman, that he used to be the Lightning Kid, that he trained with the Malenkos and that 1-2-3 Kid's upset win over Razor Ramon shocked the fuck out of me when I was a child. I'm too enamored by his ability to wear sunglasses at 12:30 AM and not feel like a total jackass.

Waltman is a personable guy. He chats me and my friend up for about 45 minutes (maybe this is where he realizes I'm a nerd... I'm 21 and full of raging hormones and I'm skipping out on all the free groupie ass at this party to talk wrestling with X-Pac), telling us all kinds of awesome stories, and confirming that he did, indeed, put a log of shit in Mark Henry's sandwich backstage and watched as Henry bit into it. Pretty hilarious until...

It's 1:15. The bar closes in 45 minutes, and all the potential groupie gash will start fleeing soon. I'm now tasked with a way of ending a conversation with X-Pac. I try every way I can to wrap it up. "Well it was nice to meet you dude..." "Hey I'm gonna hit the bar for another drink..." "Have you met my friend? He's a big fan too." Everything I can think of is met with another story or conversation piece. I can't escape. Shit!

Suddenly, my friend makes the biggest mistake either one of us would make that evening... he says the word "Chyna." Suddenly, Waltman gets really sad. I think this is my cue to leave, but he starts pouring into tales about dating her, how she's crazy and she beat him and treated him like dirt. I start feeling like a psychiatrist, and the barstool Waltman is sitting on looks more and more like a couch. After hearing stories about what a terrible girlfriend Joanie Laurer is, I decide I've had enough and simply bolt to the comfort of the bar.

I truly hope Sean Waltman has found peace in all of that, he was a really nice dude, more open with a couple of dorks than he had to be, and impressively kept those sunglasses on all night.

Brian:

I used to live in Tampa in the late 90s

[Schlomey]

that waltman story is sad but that is what you get for dating a man...baby.

[Wehttam]

brian's story is the best one of the bunch

[mhirn3]

I liked the promoted link to a story about a lady's rejection letter and the san diego padres on the sidebar of that story you guys posted:

http://deadspin.com/5933467/i-would-like-to-extend-you-a-counter+offer-to-suck-my-dick-a-rejected-jobseeker-sends-the-padres-the-best-letter-ever?popular=true