Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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Bandit
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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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--Von Erichs episode of Dark Side of the Ring averaged 234,000 viewers on Viceland on Wednesday night, which was again a high point for the series. The rating in the 18-49 demo was a 0.08.

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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That was the hardest episode to watch. Especially the story where
Spoiler
when Kevin wanted to steal the rifle so he'd get arrested and go to jail. But the elderly guy in the store said "Love ya Kev" and he brought the rifle back in and hugged the guy and the other guys in the store.
Kevin is a really good guy and I think he's incredibly strong to have to deal with losing all his brothers. I think his sons want to get into the business, which I'd have misgivings over considering the tragedy that he's had to endure. There's story that a guy put a curse on the family because of Fritz portraying a Nazi sympathiser gimmick but I don't know if it's true.

I think with the wrestling biz it's full of pitfalls if you don't walk the right path. It was just a tragic set of circumstances (the gastroenteritis with Dave which had he had his stomach ailment checked out could have been prevented, Mike should never had gone back into the ring after having toxic shock syndrome so his suicide was preventable too, same with Kerry after his motorbike accident could have retired and announced or be a manager/second, Chris I think is one of the most saddest because he was smaller in stature, had brittle bones and asthma but wanted to emulate his brothers. I'm sure he could have still been involved in the biz as a referee or a second for his brothers). The only death which wasn't really preventable was that of the oldest boy Jack who passed sadly after an accident.

There's an in memoriam page on a WCCW tribute site and the list of wrestlers etc no longer with us is sad to see. So many, if you believe in the curse that it cursed almost the entire World Class organisation. But I think it's more so the industry itself and some you can attribute to natural causes.

There's apparently a Dino Bravo doc in the works which should be really interesting. It will be part of the second series if it goes ahead. Which as the ratings so far are suggesting seems likely which is good.

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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It's definitely not cursed. Most of the deaths were preventable besides the natural causes ones and Brody who couldn't help that he was murdered. Kerry and Gino were allowed to have unchecked drug addictions and Fritz was wrong for pushing Mike to return to wrestling. I don't think those deaths would be allowed to happen today. There'd be outrage over Mike returning to the ring to where someone would step in and guys don't get away with being huge drug addicts as much anymore.

The crazy thing is as everything was going insane with World Class, Texas actually DEREGULATED pro wrestling in August 1988. That was so WWF would run in Houston and San Antonio more, but it's crazy to think people cared so little about wrestlers as people everyone would know the horror stories of World Class by that point and thought they needed even less oversight (although it was almost over because Jerry Jarrett took over a few months later which led to him shutting it down in 1990 when Kevin started demanding more of a cut of the profits than Jerry thought keeping World Class open was worth.)

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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Yea poor Mike should never have had returned to wrestling. He clearly had some brain damage and they should have kept him away from the ring for sure. The more I hear about Gino, I believe there was foul play going on. He had like 3 times the amount of cocaine in his body of a usual overdose. I believe he was involved with organised crime so I won't be surprise if they find out that he was murdered because he fell foul of the mob.

Yea poor Bruise, was disgusting how Invader I got off when he murdered him in cold blood. Have a great deal of respect for Tony for staying with his friend and speaking out. He could have towed the line and said he didn't see nothing but he stood up for Brody and I think had he actually known what was going to go on then he'd have prevented it. Unbelievable that Colon cleaned up that with no charges against him and a big investigation going on. Abby I think did know what went on with the meeting but he's keeping kayfabe about it. Same with Dutch, he knows something more too. I don't know if there's a statue of limitation of murder in PR but if so they should bring Invader to trial and convict him for murder. Wasn't Rikidozan stabbed to death too?.

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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Yes, Rikidozan was stabbed by a Yakuza member during an argument at a night club. The stab wound wasn't bad, he was cleared at the hospital. But some Yakuza soak their knives in dog urine so stab wounds become infected. So he died from an infection he didn't know was serious until it was too late a week later. Some have said because he got drunk after he was released from the hospital that made the wound worse.
Abby I think did know what went on with the meeting but he's keeping kayfabe about it. Same with Dutch, he knows something more too.
Abby was friends with Brody, he wouldn't have been told in advance he was going to be killed. Dutch wasn't a top guy at the time so he wouldn't be in on it either. He didn't become Booker until years later. At the time he was just a mid card heel.
I don't know if there's a statue of limitation of murder in PR but if so they should bring Invader to trial and convict him for murder.
He was acquitted of murder by using a self defense claim. Gonzalez admitted he killed him as soon as he was arrested, but claimed they were in a fight that Brody started. And due to Brody having the psycho gimmick and the Puerto Ricans not being as smartened up on wrestling being a work as in the US the jury believed it. So he can never be charged again. Brody's wife considered suing the promotion and Gonzalez but didn't think she'd ever see any money if she won so didn't think it was worth paying for lawyers for. So they did all they can do.

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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Thanks. With Brusier, I was referring to Abby saying he wasn't at the hotel meeting that Dutch and Tony said they went to in the aftermath. Brody was trying to buy in, or in fact did buy in to the PR territory and maybe that pissed Invader and Carlos Colon off. I don't think Abdullah would be behind his friend being murdered, no way, however, since he owned a percentage too he might have known if there was any ill-will towards Brusier buying in.

From how everything unfolded you have no Abby in the vicinity, neither is Dutch (I believe he walked in later on in the aftermath) and only Tony is a witness and speaking out. To me, that is suspicious but maybe coincidence. I'm not saying they set Brusier up, but I think they might have known something was going to go down and didn't want to be involved. Maybe they was murmurings about Invader having a grudge with Brody but he tells the boys he just wants to squash the beef and they are like "alright".

Put it this way, Invader says he wants to talk with Bruise and Abby & Dutch are there, along with Tony too. I doubt Invader would have even entertained the idea of killing Brusier Brody since he'd have his friends there to back him up. Just a real messed up situation. I think I said way back on the old BG that I'm a big Brusier fan and would like to see his family get the justice they deserve. Invader should have been locked up for a long time for what he did.

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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The kayfabe way of doing things prevented Abdullah from being in the same locker room since he was going to wrestle Brody that night. Dutch walked in a few minutes after it happened and Chris Youngblood and Tony Atlas told him Invader did it.

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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I'm watching the Von Erich episode tonight and no shame in admitting this, I'll have tissues handy.

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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This is the court record of the guy the family thought killed Gino https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/ap ... 43/177822/
First, Royal complains of the denial of his motion to exclude evidence that a customer of his, Geno Hernandez, died in 1986 as a result of using cocaine Royal supplied. During cross-examination, he denied that he was Hernandez's supplier at that time. A government rebuttal witness testified that the Defendant supplied the cocaine to LeBoeuf, who was unable to sell it as planned because there was something wrong with it, and that LeBoeuf then gave it to Hernandez. The government argues that this evidence is relevant to the conspiracy charge because Royal initially intended for Hernandez to take over his cocaine business and chose LeBoeuf for this position only after Hernandez died. This evidence is also relevant, the government contends, to impeach the Defendant's testimony that he had discontinued all drug trafficking activities by the time Hernandez died.

We are sympathetic to Royal's argument that the evidence of Hernandez's death was improperly admitted. The government could have offered evidence that the Defendant supplied cocaine to Hernandez in 1986 and intended to pass on his drug business to Hernandez to establish the details of the conspiracy and the time frame in which his drug activities occurred without also offering evidence that Hernandez's death resulted from "bad" cocaine that originated with Royal. In light of the other evidence against the Defendant, this evidence was completely unnecessary to the government's case and we discern no purpose other than prosecutorial overkill in the government's insistence that it be admitted.

Nonetheless, Royal has not demonstrated that the admission of this evidence prejudiced him in any way. The evidence of his involvement in the cocaine conspiracy was overwhelming, supported by the testimony of LeBoeuf, Husik, and LeBoeuf's brother, who also transported drugs for LeBoeuf, as well as by the physical evidence found in Royal's home. He has not convinced us that the jury convicted him to punish him for Hernandez's death, rather than for the drug conspiracy offense with which he was charged
Although
Spoiler
The family comes to the conclusion he wasn't murdered

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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Also Meltzer says Gino's mother was married to Jimmy Snuka in 1977 when he was in Texas as Paul Orndorff's tag partner, but it wasn't a valid marriage because he was married to another woman in another state at the time. So Jimmy Snuka was once kind of Gino's stepfather. That's not something I expected.

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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Very interesting doc about Gino. I honestly don't think he OD'd. He had 5 x the amount of Cocaine in his body. Which raises the question, how could he have ingested so much?. I believe he was murdered and they covered it up by putting all that coke in his body to make it look like he overdosed. That story
Spoiler
With the guy telling his Mom not to worry and such. To me that came across as the debt was squashed when the murdered him. That guy called Royal said the same type of thing saying he didn't owe him any money. That came across as something you'd hear in a mob movie. These guys don't mess around, they see it as a huge sign of disrespect and regardless of how big a star Gino was in wrestling they would be sending a message to not mess them around.
As for the Paul Boestch as his father story. Gary Hart and Chris Adams denied it.
Obviously, there's no way to really know about Gino's biological father without a DNA test, which ain't gonna happen. So, that's another of those urban legends that will never have a definitive answer.

I do know that Gary Hart was adamant that Paul Boesch was not Gino's father and I know Chris Adams expressed that it was not true. Gino never claimed it to be true that I know of. I know he never tried to hide his close relationship with Paul, but nothing beyond that I can recall.

He took the last name from his step father, Luis Hernandez. My understanding is that Gino's biological father was Charles Wolfe who was an abusive husband to Gino's mother. She later married Luis Hernandez, who died on a tour in Japan. Paul, from what I was told, simply became very close to a young Gino and was very supportive of him. The rumors have grown from that close relationship.

http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.u ... 131195;p=0

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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Gino's family don't believe he was murdered anymore. Meltzer said the guy had a longer conversation with his mother (they only showed a little bit for time constraints and maybe privacy) and whatever he said satisfied her. So if she's satisfied I'm not going to worry about it.

I don't know if he was murdered or not. He could have been, or maybe he just took too much by accident by getting cocaine purer than he was used to (most people OD that way or quit for a while and then take drugs at their usual amount not realizing their tolerance dropped.) Or maybe he did it to commit suicide because it looked like he was going to be arrested soon, as the people he was involved with were arrested shortly after he died and did 30 years in federal prison. He had extreme cocaine paranoia and since he lived the high life certainly wasn't going to be able to adapt to jail for 30 years. So maybe he just decided to end it all doing the thing he loved until his heart gave out. We'll never know, but if his family thinks the case is closed so be it.

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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Yea, if Gino's Mom and his family are satisfied that he wasn't murdered then you can close the chapter on the case. Like you say we'll never know what really happened, but things like having so much cocaine ingested, the dead-bolt being off the door, the gun at the scene etc it sounds, on paper, that it wasn't just an overdose type scenario. Had it been a "speedball" that caused Gino's death then you could take it more at face value.

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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The Moolah episode was the weakest one. It seemed to need more time than 45 minutes. The Von Erichs doc made sense because I already knew the entire story so could fill in the gaps. But since I don't know the entire Moolah story since women's wrestling generally doesn't interest me I was confused in places. Maybe I just need to watch it again. But the Sweet Georgia Brown story was very compelling, and the Princess Victoria story was interesting. I agree with everybody calling bullshit on Wendi Richter claiming she had no idea Spider Woman was Moolah. I believe she was double crossed, but I wonder if she added in the claim she didn't know that was Moolah to make herself look better. Because obviously if you're doing an unmasking angle you're probably going to lose. Who knows.

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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I read they treaded lightly with the Moolah episode and that it could have been much worse.

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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That could be. It just felt weird that the show was a series of interviews with no real narrative. I think it needed more about Moolah's background to find out how she got to the point where she was so terrible to the people who wrestled for her. They touch on her abusive ex-husband behaving the way she did in later years, but then drop that as soon as they mention him. I'm sure it would be hard to find out about the real Moolah since those closest to her like Mae and Diamond Lil are dead and her daughter clearly only wants the good side of her portrayed. But if they could have focused some on how she became what she was it would have been a much better show.

I guess you could make the same argument about the Von Erichs episode since they didn't dig into why Fritz did what he did. But like I said knowing that story and not knowing Moolah's story was an issue for me. I think an unbiased biography on Moolah would be a great book. A look at a woman surviving in a man's seedy business shaping her behavior would also be a good angle of the story to explore.

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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Funny the high brow magazine/website The Atlantic is talking about wrasslin'. But that's a great thing for the show getting to continue and maybe getting more wrestlers to talk in Season 2. Now they know what it is. Like they said Abdullah assumed they were just like RF Video doing another shoot interview. But now they know they're important.

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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Bandit wrote: Fri May 17, 2019 6:30 am That could be. It just felt weird that the show was a series of interviews with no real narrative. I think it needed more about Moolah's background to find out how she got to the point where she was so terrible to the people who wrestled for her. They touch on her abusive ex-husband behaving the way she did in later years, but then drop that as soon as they mention him. I'm sure it would be hard to find out about the real Moolah since those closest to her like Mae and Diamond Lil are dead and her daughter clearly only wants the good side of her portrayed. But if they could have focused some on how she became what she was it would have been a much better show.

I guess you could make the same argument about the Von Erichs episode since they didn't dig into why Fritz did what he did. But like I said knowing that story and not knowing Moolah's story was an issue for me. I think an unbiased biography on Moolah would be a great book. A look at a woman surviving in a man's seedy business shaping her behavior would also be a good angle of the story to explore.
I agree a unbiased book about Moolah would be very interesting. There is "First Goddess of the Squared Circle" but it's a WWE book so it's not going to go into any real controversial territory. As you've said outside of her Daughter, you could say, maybe Vince, but it's unlikely he'd have the time to speak at length and any scandalous or salacious rumours he'd not want to be involved.

Even Corny who dislikes almost everyone :olol: lit up talking about her so if the general consensus is that she was a nice old lady no ones going to come out and say she was taking advantage of the girls and pimping them out, taking their money etc. Lady Victoria contradicted herself saying she wasn't taken advantage of when she told the story about going to Holland and Moolah was real pissed she didn't sleep with the guy.

You can say that Moolah was acting or forced to act on Buddy Lee's behalf and he was the real villain of the story. But apparently Mad Maxine said she was pimping girls out when she was around and she left Buddy Lee a long time by then.

https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/excl ... erpetrator
I don’t know where u got ur information for the horrible things u said about Moolah but u have incorrect information. If there was any pimping going on I assure u it was not done by my mother. After Buddy Lee n(sic) her broke up some of the girls stayed with her and some went with Buddy including Georgia Brown. Anything that happened to her was a result of Mr Lee.This was her choice To go with him. The other information u got from some of the wannabes that didn’t make it at her school.Why don’t u talk to some of her girls that don’t have a negative jealous opinion.

U seem to have jumped rite into hate mode talking about her. What horrible things to say about a person that had been dead over 10 years!You r wrong and ur additude (sic) sucks!She will always b the best woman wrestler ever n was NEVER a pimp as u said.Get ur facts straight.Two sides to every story.
So Sweet Georgia Brown went with Buddy, although it's alleged Moolah told her to sleep with him and the family featured in the doc are allegedly Buddy Lee's children.

https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/art ... love-child

http://www.free-times.com/archives/baby ... dc785.html

https://www.si.com/vault/1974/11/18/618 ... ck-on-life

There's a conflicting story about her daughter wrestling too. I believe she denied that she wrestled, but an old article says she was wrestling at 15?

Image

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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http://slam.canoe.com/Slam/Wrestling/20 ... 08686.html
She recalled that Moolah did however, offer her trainees work of a different, insidious variety. "Moolah did send girls out to this guy in Arizona and pimped them out. I actually spoke to him on the phone and asked him what he was looking for. He said, 'If I'm spending all this money, you know what I want.' That was part of Moolah's way of making money. She was just a bad person. Moolah didn't have a good bone in her body."

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Re: Viceland's Dark Side of the Ring documentary series

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The episodes of the other Viceland wrestling show:

5/22: The Gabe Sapolsky story

5/29: A veteran wrestler ends his career as a rookie begins his

6/5: Joshi

6/12: Death match wrestling

6/19: How women in the business have battled misogyny

6/19: How Lucha Libre promotions have coped with the Cartel drug wars and the difficulty of Mexican wrestlers trying to come to America

6/26: DDT

6/26: Wrestling promotions on Indian Reservations

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