Wrestling With Sin: 469

Brian Damage

This is the 469th 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 Tale of the Tape

In 2004, former WWE stars Sean ‘X-Pac’ Waltman and Joanie ‘Chyna’ Laurer made a sex tape entitled ‘1 Night in Chyna.’ The video would go on to win an Adult Video News award for ;Best selling adult video of the year.’ While the sex tape was financially successful for its distributor Red Light District…the stories from both Waltman and the late Laurer tell tales of how much of a nightmare the making of the tape was.

According to Laurer, she claimed she was forced to make the video and called it a “rape tape.” She also claimed that Waltman was both physically and mentally abusive to her not only while making the video…but before and after as well. Waltman called Laurer a “habitual liar” who was the brains behind the making of the video, but did add that she was receiving bad advice from the wrong people. Joanie Laurer evidently believed that the making of the sex tape would somehow revive her career as a celebrity much like previous sex tapes did for Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton.

Waltman admitted that the two of them did a great deal of drugs leading up to the evening of filming. After it was all said and done, the couple did have a fight which led Laurer striking Waltman and breaking his nose. While Laurer was hoping for a career resurgence, Waltman said the exact opposite occurred and that she was ostracized for the video and WWE who still had some contact with her….completely cut her off. Waltman believes that caused Laurer to go into a deep depression filled with alcohol and drug binges that she never recovered from.

Standing Tall

Max Palmer was a former actor and professional wrestler, who competed in the 1950’s. Standing well over 7 feet tall, Palmer wrestled under the ring name of ‘Paul Bunyan’ (the Gigantic lumberjack from folklore) Palmer is on record as one of the tallest wrestlers in pro wrestling history…if not the tallest.

Palmer’s acting and wrestling careers were both abruptly ended due to his addictions to drugs and alcohol. He was often late on the set or in no condition to wrestler and directors and bookers found him to be too unreliable. Once his acting and wrestling gigs dried up….Palmer got himself clean and sober and became a preacher.

He referred to himself as ‘The Goliath for Christ’ and would do sermons on the dangers that drugs and alcohol had on his life both personally and professionally.

Powers Outage

Bill Eadie (Masked Superstar/Demolition Ax) recalled former wrestler/trainer turned wrestling promoter Johnny Powers owing him $1,000 for work which Powers refused to pay. Eadie decided to pay Powers a visit at his office, which was located in Toronto, Canada. Eadie confronted Powers face to face about the money…to which Powers continued to refuse to pay Eadie for his work.

Eadie noticed that Powers had new teeth and wearing a hairpiece, so according to Eadie, shattered Powers teeth and ripped the hairpiece off of the promoter’s head. Powers screamed for help, but nobody heard him. Jack Tunney heard of the confrontation and invited Eadie to his office, where he paid the wrestler 800 dollars. Eadie replied, “Where is the other 200 bucks?” Tunney allegedly replied, “You didn’t kill him, otherwise I’d have given you all of it.”

DeGalles of Him

‘The Running Frenchman’ Paul DeGalles was a top junior heavyweight pro wrestler, who competed from 1952 until his retirement in 1970. DeGalles wrestled all over the various territories across the United States and Canada including working in the WWWF. In November of 1961, while wrestling and living in Nashville, Tennessee, DeGalles was arrested after a physical confrontation with a 20 year old woman names Esther Ruth Spain.

According to police, witnesses claimed they spotted DeGalles grabbing the young woman as she left a local bar and allegedly forcing her into his vehicle. The police were called and they saw him struggling with the female in his parked car. DeGalles was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. He was eventually released on a 25 dollar bond and was scheduled to appear in court the following week, but did not show up and fled the state. No word on the relationship DeGalles had with Ms. Spain and what led him to try and forcibly place her in his car.

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