Wrestling With Sin: 494

Brian Damage

This is the 494th 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.

Tussles in Tulsa

Mid South Wrestling in the early to mid 1980’s was a territory where you could make great money. As manager Jim Cornette remembered, while the territory was hot, he despised when the promotion traveled to Tulsa, Oklahoma. The fans were wild and already drunk by the time the doors opened for a show. They would ban weapons of any kind from getting into the arenas, so some fans brought water guns instead. While the toy guns would make it past security, fans filled the guns with Drano instead of water and try to shoot the liquid into the eyes of the wrestlers. Skandor Akbar nearly went blind once from getting hit in the eye with Drano.

Chairs were used as weapons, as fans would throw them towards the wrestlers. One time, a chair was launched from the upper deck nearly missing Nikolai Volkoff and hitting a deputy officer working security…knocking him unconscious. Cornette would often resort to using his tennis racket as a weapon to keep the fans away from him as he retreated to the locker room. Cornette remembers being busted open from a wild fan attack and police apprehended the individual and brought him to a back room.

The fan was then met by Mid South owner Bill Watts, who had ‘Grizzly’ Smith hold the individual and allowed Watts to rough him up in front of the police. The cops would then take the battered fan and arrest him.

House Cleaning

Shirley Strimple was a professional wrestler who was married to another wrestler named Roy McClarity. During her career, she was nicknamed ‘The Wrestling Housewife.’ In November of 1959, the five foot three inch 130 pound Strimple was hired by Aurora, Illinois Mayor Paul Egan to be his sergeant at arms. Mayor Egan, a wrestling fan, hired the lady wrestler to restore law and order during very contentious council meetings.

Her very first day on the job, Strimple showed up late to a meeting…but was in time for the chaos that ensued afterwards. A skirmish developed outside of city hall between police and reporters. Strimple allegedly shoved a reporter down the city hall steps causing the reporter to suffer neck and arm injuries. When questioned by police, Strimple swore the reporter fell on his own. No charges were ever filed against the wrestler.

Unwrapping A Riddle

Former WWE star Matt Riddle was accused of inappropriate behavior at an independent show back in 2016. Veteran wrestler Malia Hosaka recalled resting in the women’s dressing room at the indie show in question. Hosaka claims while she was resting with her eyes closed and feet up, she heard another female wrestler gasp. When she opened her eyes to see what the commotion was about, she saw Riddle in the nude getting undressed. Hosaka immediately screamed at Riddle to leave the room and then went to the promoter and complained about what Riddle had done.

Riddle laughed off the accusation, stating that there was only one room for all the wrestlers (both male and female) to get dressed and undressed in. He said that Hosaka completely overreacted to the situation and that there were no malicious intentions on his part. Hosaka and the promoter both stated that there was more than one dressing room for the wrestlers including multiple bathrooms to change in.

Wheel Housed

Howard ‘Dutch’ Wyman started wrestling professionally in 1933. He competed all across the country wrestling stars like Cowboy Luttrall, Bearcat Wright and Hans Schnabel. In March of 1939, Wyman was arrested on grand larceny charges after two police officers witnessed the wrestler jacking up a vehicle and removing its tires and then placing the tires in another vehicle.

When questioned by police, Wyman stated that the tires he removed from the vehicle belonged to him. Upon further investigation, police discovered the vehicle was not his and was subsequently arrested at the scene. The arrest made local newspapers and helped ruin his career as promoters refused to work with him after he was released from jail.

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