Wrestling With Sin: 388

Brian Damage

This is the 388th 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.

The Godwinns and Jake Loses

Henry Godwinn recalled how Jake ‘the Snake’ Roberts was assigned to work with the Godwinns tag team during their WWF run. At the time, Jake was being used as a road agent for the company. The team would ofen find themselves in hot water with management because they were consistently late to shows due to their agent Jake Roberts and his outside antics.

One particular incident, had the Godwinns of Henry and Phineas taking a flight to the WWF’s next town. Jake Roberts insisted to be left behind and he would take care of checking the duo out of their hotel room and return their rental car. A week or so later, the Godwinns were sent bills for damages caused to both their hotel room and rental car which cost over $1,000. Apparently, Jake trashed both after he went out partying like he was known to do.

The incident was the final straw for the Godwinns and they went to Vince McMahon and stated either Jake Roberts be far removed from them moving forward, or they were “going to kill” the veteran wrestler. According to Henry Godwinn, Jake was immediately fired from the WWF after that happened.

Valentine’s Day

Mayra Dias Gomes aka ‘May Valentine’ for Billy Corgan’s National Wrestling Alliance opened up about her battle with alcoholism. The NWA host, interviewer and valet admitted that her battle with booze started when she was just 14 years old. Through the years, she has dealt with serious bouts of anxiety and depression and usually turned to drinking to help cope with her mental problems. Valentine’s alcoholism led her to be involved in bad relationships and was no longer in control of her sexuality.

May Valentine said that the global pandemic just made her drinking issues get worse and found herself waking up in bed with a bottle of tequila in her hand. One day, she took it upon herself to seek a doctor and get prescribed medicine for alcohol abuse. She cut out all the toxicity in her life and proudly celebrated over a year of sobriety in November of 2021.

The Dark Night of Tony Marino

Tony Marino wrestled from the 1950’s until the 1980’s. He was a one time co holder of the WWWF International tag team titles with Bruno Sammartino. In 1966, Marino wrestled under the gimmick of The Battman, which was used to capitalize on the popularity of the Batman TV show of that era. He used that popular gimmick until 1970.

In July of 1986, Marino and another man were arrested in Charleston, West Virginia and charged with ‘unlawfully, knowingly and intentionally possessing with intent to sell 625 pounds of marijuana.’ Unfortunately, no other details about his arrest and indictment are available, but his wrestling career did end during this time.

Deliver Us From Evil

Omar Josafat Ramírez was an independent wrestler from Mexico. He portrayed a ‘rudo’ or heel under the moniker of Anarkia Punk. When Ramirez wasn’t wrestling, he was a delivery man to supplement his income for his family. Many of his friends and family said that Ramirez was a kind, generous man outside of the ring. On July 4th, 2019…Ramirez was working as a delivery man in a rough part of San Luis Potosi, Mexico when he allegedly spotted a handicapped girl getting robbed.

Ramirez stopped what he was doing to come to the girl’s aid and was murdered by the thugs in the process. He was shot once in the chest and once in the head. His killers were never caught.

You can read all previous ‘Wrestling with Sin’ pieces here.