Get FACTcinated: Jabbing You With A Lot More Useless Wrestling Facts

Brian Damage

It is time for another round of useless wrestling facts, stats and otherwise inane trivia. For many of you, these facts may be commonly known, to others perhaps not so much. In either case, they are all meant to be in good fun. So let’s roll up our sleeves and take a jab at these latest tidbits.

Early in their careers while wrestling in the Memphis territory, the Nasty Boyz wore face paint. This was the idea of Jerry Lawler who wanted to ride the successful coattails of the ever popular Road Warriors. Brian Knobbs and Jerry Sags hated the make up and only wore it on shows they competing on that included Lawler. They immediately ditched the face paint once away from Memphis.

John Cena is the only person to main event Wrestlemania, have the #1 movie at the box office and have a platinum album.

The 2022 Summerslam event was the first show since 2003 where every title was retained and none changed hands.

Jim LaRock went to a time limit draw with ‘The Mighty Atlas’ on the very first match ever seen on Wrestling From the Chase TV program in St. Louis.

Smashing Pumpkins front man Billy Corgan bought the naming rights and titles for the NWA, but does not own the majority of the NWA video library. That is owned by WWE. Corgan only owns the NWA Houston territory library.

The very first tag team match televised on British television occurred in September of 1963. The Fabulous Royal Brothers (Bert and Vic) defeated Alan Colbeck and Ivan Penzecoff.

The first wrestler Stu Hart trained in his infamous Hart Dungeon was Nikolai Volkoff and the last he personally trained was Jim Neidhart. Many others were trained by Stu after Neidhart including his own children, but usually had other trainers assist him. After Stu retired from training, his son Bruce Hart took over the Dungeon training.

Abdullah the Butcher was a grandmaster in both Judo and Karate.

MMA fighter Valerie Loureda is the first Cuban American female to sign with WWE.

All the markings on Hakushi’s face and body were Buddhist scriptures.

Current New Japan wrestler Jeff Cobb was once the flag bearer for Guam at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.

Antonio Inoki’s daughter Hiroko played the part of Annie in the Japanese version of that production in 1986.

Saraya Jade Bevis fka Paige in WWE got her real first name after her mother tripped out on acid during a Slayer concert and thought the band’s name was ‘Saraya’ instead of Slayer. Her mother would also use the name during her own wrestling career as ‘Sweet Saraya.’

Bob Holly was a member of versions of both The Rock N Roll Express with Robert Gibson in 1992 and the Midnight Express with Bart Gunn in 1998.

Leon Spinks is only the second athlete to win a championship in both boxing (defeating Muhammad Ali) and pro wrestling (FMW title in Japan). The first being Primo Carnera.

Before Bill Goldberg used his famous theme music called ‘Invasion’ in WCW…it was used by Pat Tanaka.

Dana Brooke (as of this writing) has been WWE 24/7 champion for 140 days. That is currently longer than the last 4 AEW World champions and the last 9 TNT champions.

Dustin Rhodes once wrestled Goldust in a match for his father’s promotion ‘Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling’ in 2001.

WWE’s Queen Zelina Vega and international independent wrestling innovator ‘Amazing Red’ are cousins.

Shinsuke Nakamura’s knee strike finisher was called the ‘Boma Ye’ in Japan. The name of his finisher was bestowed upon him by Antonio Inoki who wrestled Muhammad Ali in 1976. Ali had that term bestowed upon him when he boxed George Foreman in the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ in 1974. Translated it means ‘Kill Him’ in Congolese. In WWE, the move was renamed the ‘Kinshasa’ which is actually the site where Ali and Foreman had that legendary fight.

The WWE’s character of ‘Eugene’ was actually based on a real life person with special needs named Eugene Palermo. Eugene’s father Bucky Palermo was a referee in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area.

Before the WWF/WWE became a staple for pro wrestling/sports entertainment on the USA Network…Southwest Championship Wrestling was the first weekly wrestling program on the USA Cable Network, airing Sundays at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time starting in 1982.

The tag team of Tex Slazenger and Shanghai Pierce in WCW, were also known as Phineas and Henry Godwinn from WWE respectively. The reason Shanghai Pierce aka Henry Godwinn wore a mask in WCW, was because booker Dusty Rhodes felt that he was too good looking to be considered a heel by fans.

‘The French Angel’ Maurice Tillet was the first ever pro wrestler to hold an audience with a Pope in 1947.

Chick Hearn was a legendary play by play announcer for the Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA for over 41 years. Before Hearn took over that role, Ron Trongard was the play by play man when they were the Minneapolis Lakers. Trongard would later become the longtime announcer for Verne Gagne’s AWA and briefly for the WWF.

Former NXT UK Women’s champion Meiko Satomura also appeared on WCW Nitro back in 1996.

In 2007, D Lo Brown and Bull Buchanan won Pro Wrestling NOAH’s GHC tag team titles in a tournament. They would lose the belts a week later.

Al Snow once reprised his old ‘Avatar’ gimmick on a ECW house show in Stamford, Connecticut. It was Halloween in 1997. Snow came out with ‘Head’ both wearing his old Avatar mask. He also wore a Job Squad tee shirt.

Brock Lesnar dethroned every black WWE Champion. This does not include the WWE World title aka The Big Gold Belt held by Mark Henry and Booker T. They include…

The Rock (2002)

Kofi Kingston(2019)

Big E (2022)

Bobby Lashley (2022)

While Edge has held more world titles in his singles career with 11 world title reigns for a combined 550 days…Christian has spent more time as a world champion with 7 world title reigns for a combined 594 days.

A Japanese Hulk Hogan trading card from 1982 recently sold for $51,600. The sale makes it the all time record high price for a pro wrestling card.

Art ‘Boom Boom’ Michalik was a pro football player turned professional wrestler. Michalik has the distinction of  inadvertently getting facemasks popularized in the NFL. In his rookie year as a San Francisco 49er linebacker in 1953, he tackled the Cleveland Browns quarterback Otto Graham so hard and violently that Graham was bleeding profusely from his nose, mouth and head. Graham would later return to the game with a makeshift plexiglass face protector attached to the helmet. The NFL soon adopted this piece of protection standard on all helmets moving forward.

Nikki A.S.H. is the only female wrestler in WWE history to challenge for every single women’s championship currently available. They include the NXT and NXT UK women’s titles, the Raw and Smackdown women’s titles and the WWE and NXT women’s tag team titles.

Jacques Rougeau Jr was initially known as ‘Jerry Roberts’ when he wrestled in the United States in territories like Georgia, Florida and Alabama.

The idea for the Road Warriors famous spiked shoulder pads came from Joe ‘Animal’ Laurinaitis who was good friends with Miami Dolphins player Dan Johnson. Laurinaitis asked Johnson for a couple of NFL shoulder pads, which was gifted to him by the tight end. Laurinaitis then painted the white shoulder pads black and added spikes to them.