Wrestling With Sin: 325

Brian Damage

This is the 325th 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.

American Bat Sh!t

In 2000, Mark ‘The Undertaker’ Calaway married a woman by the name of Sara Frank. The Dead Man famously tattooed his wife’s name on the front of his neck. Before long, Sara became involved in WWE storylines and the quasi – valet to her husband the Undertaker. One such storyline had Sara be the victim of a stalker revealed to be none other than Diamond Dallas Page.

While traveling on the road with her husband, Sara apparently caused some tension behind the scenes. According to former WWE Diva Torrie Wilson, she and Sara were not the best of friends. As a matter of fact, Wilson claims that Sara accused her of having an affair with another unidentified wrestler (who was married). Torrie denied the accusation, stating that she wasn’t that type of woman to come between a couple’s marriage.

Despite this, Sara was convinced that Wilson was a homewrecker and had a few verbal confrontations with Wilson…one of which nearly got physical. As Torrie put it…Sara Calaway was “Bat Shit Crazy.” Sara’s own marriage would eventually fall apart as it was heavily rumored that the Undertaker was carrying on an affair of his own with fellow WWE wrestler Michelle McCool. Sara and the Undertaker would divorce in 2007 and the Undertaker married McCool in 2010.

Potty Talk

In the early 1980’s, Vince McMahon was making his move to take the World Wrestling Federation national. In doing so, many smaller territories were being gobbled up by McMahon. There was an emergency meeting of the National Wrestling Alliance held and Jim Ross and promoter Bill Watts attended representing Mid South wrestling. During the meeting at a restaurant, JR excused himself from his table and went to the bathroom. While in the stall, Ross recalled a couple of big name and recognizable promoters entered the men’s room.

The two began talking about McMahon and how to put a stop to his national expansion. One unidentified promoter suggested that they hire a hitman to take out the ambitious McMahon. He then continued that he knew of a guy that would do the job for about $700. That’s as far as the discussion went…and Ross went back to tell his boss Bill Watts of the potential assassination attempt. Watts seemed uninterested and was more concerned about eating dinner. Watts would eventually say that it would never happen, because all the promoters would argue who should have to pay the money to do it.

The Not So Perfect Scam

In 1985, Freebird Terry ‘Bam Bam’ Gordy was banned from flying on Northwest Orient Airlines ever again. The lifetime ban was due to Gordy’s behavior on at least one flight to Japan where Gordy was intoxicated and was harassing several other passengers including the airline’s staff. Because traveling to Japan was vital to Gordy’s livelihood, the Freebird needed to get himself back on the airline.

Gordy decided to use another person’s name to book a flight. The name he used was of fellow wrestler Curt Hennig. When the airline discovered that Curt Hennig was really Terry Gordy…both Gordy and Hennig were blacklisted from flying with them. It is unknown if Hennig was even aware that Gordy used his name to book the flight. It is also unknown if Hennig was ever reinstated on Northwest Orient Airlines.

O the Agony

Being the son and brother of professional wrestlers…it only seemed natural that Barry Orton would follow in his family’s footsteps. In reality, Barry’s passion was not wrestling, but to become a Hollywood actor. Despite that, Orton did become a wrestler himself. While his heart was never really into the business, Barry would become heavily involved wrestling’s darker side.

Sex and drugs became the norm for Orton, who admitted he helped stars like Hulk Hogan score cocaine whenever he was in Orton’s hometown. Orton’s own abuse of drugs and alcohol were prevalent and saw him serve some prison time due to a tragic incident. Barry’s wrestling career was pretty much over and his addiction to drugs became stronger. He cited a sex fueled weekend with a woman that led to his addiction to crystal meth. He said all that was done day and night was have sex and smoke meth.

His addiction became so bad that every night Orton would place a .44 Magnum in to his mouth and pray for the courage to pull the trigger and end his life. Thankfully, Barry Orton managed to escape the stranglehold of drug addiction and got himself clean. He now finally achieved his real dream and does some work in Hollywood as an actor and working behind the scenes.