10 More Forgotten Pro Wrestling Scandals

After producing 10 Forgotten Pro Wrestling Scandals, there was just so many more things to talk about and we had no issues compiling another list of transgressions that caused shock and outrage and, on occasion, threatened to end careers.  

These are 10 More Forgotten Pro Wrestling Scandals.

10. Ranger Ross

Wrestling fans may – or may not – remember Ranger Ross, the WCW army guy from the late 1980s and early 1990s who was primarily used as an enhancement talent. 

After Ross was let go by WCW he sued the company, claiming his firing was the result of racial discrimination, and took jobs as a probation officer and private investigator, while living in the Acworth suburb of Atlanta, Georgia.

On February 10, 1996, Ross handed himself in to the FBI and admitted to being the point man in five major robberies – four at banks and one at a convenience store – with authorities also believing he had been responsible for embezzlement of government funds and arson.

Identified as the infamous ‘motorcycle bandit’ who had used army counter-surveillance tactics to evade capture, it was alleged that he had attempted to burn down the city clerk’s office as it contained materials that could prove he was embezzling money in his job collecting fees from people on probation. He also denied trying to set fire to the building, but rather a filing cabinet containing evidence.

Ross ultimately served eight years in prison, which he credits for saving his life and helping him find religion. 

9. Billy Gunn's extramarital activities

Billy Gunn found himself on the front page of the Winnipeg Sun in 2009, but not for professional wrestling. 

Billy Gunn was wrestling on the independent scene when his extramarital indiscretions with a woman named Deborah ‘Pinky’ Simovich were discovered by his wife, prompting him to end the affair. 

However, according to Gunn, Simovich didn’t take the breakup well and began calling and harassing him and his wife. Simovich, on the other hand, claimed it was the other way around and that she had been threatened by Mr and Mrs Ass. 

Simovich even released some fiery audio recordings of phone conversations she’d had with Billy, as well as text messages and pictures she claimed showed him in a drug-induced state. 

The situation blew over eventually and Gunn and his wife remain together to this day. 

The WWE Hall of Famer has made no secret of his struggles with addiction during this period in his life and has since gotten clean and sober.

8. Steve Williams at customs

While attempting to board a flight to Tokyo, Japan on January 4, 1988, Steve Williams was detained by US Customs agents, who found a miniature pharmacy stashed within his clothing and luggage. 

Dr Death was released on a $25,000 bond and restricted from travelling outside of the United States.

Later, when Williams couldn’t be located, a warrant was issued for his arrest. He was ultimately found in Seattle and arrested, facing a $250,000 fine and 18 months in prison. Amazingly, because it was his first offence, he got off with a warning. 

The incident did not deter his drug-smuggling ways and, in 1995, he was caught with marijuana in his possession at Narita Airport. 

You might think that pales in comparison to the stash he’d been busted with years earlier, but Japan are a lot stricter with penalties when it comes to drug offences. It was only thanks to All Japan President Giant Baba that Williams was allowed to return to the country after a one-year ban.

7. Framing IYO SKY

Getting busted with marijuana on your person at Narita Airport can have negative consequences with regards to career progression. 

In May of 2012, Io Shirai – now wrestling for WWE as IYO SKY – and her then-boyfriend (and fellow wrestler) Nosawa Rongai were arrested at Narita Airport after travelling back to Japan from the Lucha Expo in Mexico. 

Accused of trying to smuggle drugs back into Japan, airport customs officials had found the weed hidden in the picture frame of two portraits the duo had been gifted by a fan in Mexico. 

Shirai was released a few weeks later and professed her innocence, while also saying that she didn’t want her career to be over – a very real possibility due to how Japanese culture views recreational drug use. 

Luckily for her, a few weeks later wrestler Takuya Sugi confessed to planting the drugs on them at the behest of ring gear and mask maker Masahiro Hayashi, who had a grudge against Nosawa. 

In any event, it was Sugi’s career that suffered, while Shirai was able to resume hers without issue.

6. Paul Wight gets physical with a fan

One of the drawbacks of being a famous professional wrestler is having to deal with the occasional unruly fan. Most of the time these encounters are harmless but every now and again they turn physical. 

At six-foot-six and 220 pounds, 30-year-old fan Robert Sawyer wasn’t exactly a small man. But then again, he wasn’t exactly big when standing next to Paul Wight. 

Sawyer ran into Wight, then wrestling for WCW as The Giant, at the Marriott Hotel next door to the Nassau Coliseum following a house show on December 29, 1998. Sawyer badgered Wight and performed an obscene gesture and, when asked to stop, tried to push him. Which, naturally, did not end well, as the future Big Show knocked him out, breaking his jaw in the process. 

The incident was caught on hotel CCTV, yet Wight was still booked into court on charges of third-degree assault. 

After explaining how it went down and claiming self-defence, the judge sided with the wrestler and the charges were dropped. There were also plenty of witnesses who corroborated Wight’s version of events. 

It may have come to a favourable resolution for him, but the case had lingered for months and Wight had jumped over to WWE by the time he was acquitted. 

5. Blackjack Mulligan ends up in prison

After getting out of the wrestling business, the legendary Blackjack Mulligan decided to try his luck in real estate. As sometimes happens with that volatile industry, things didn’t quite work out as Mulligan had planned and he found himself in a bind. 

Looking to make some quick cash in the final week of 1989, Blackjack and his son Kendall Windham attempted to sell over $1 million worth of counterfeit $20 bills for around $250,000. 

The people they met with, however, turned out to be undercover law enforcement agents, who had been keeping an eye on the scheme that apparently involved 14 other people. 

Just prior to being busted, Mulligan had supposedly paid wrestlers who performed on a show he promoted in the Bahamas with the phoney money. 

In May of 1990, Blackjack was sentenced to two years in prison, while Kendall got 27 months (with both getting two years of probation following their sentences). Everyone else – the ‘rats’ who cooperated with investigators, according to Mulligan – got six months. 

This had a knock-on effect for Blackjack Mulligan’s son Barry Windham, who was wrestling for WWE as The Widowmaker at the time, but quit the company following the scandal. 

4. Main Event Championship Wrestling

Main Event Championship Wrestling was one of the several promotions that emerged following the demise of ECW and WCW in early 2001. 

Put together by a businessman named John Collins, MECW looked to fill a void and made a lot of lofty claims about who they had signed, television network interest and how they were going to change the wrestling industry. 

Their August 11 debut show drew 1,300 people to the former ECW Arena, thanks to the free entry and a few big-name stars on the bill.

Somewhat predictably, many of the wrestlers who worked for Collins’ next show in Indiana had issues, with some not being paid their fees and others finding that their flights home hadn’t been booked.

A few of the wrestlers actually confronted Collins at his home, demanding to be paid. When more cheques began to bounce, Collins went and faked a heart attack and the promotion soon went bankrupt. 

Collins was eventually sentenced to 71 months in prison and ordered to pay $291,000 in restitution after receiving funds from business partner Gary W. Stroud, a Canadian who was under investigation for scamming people worldwide out of millions via a series of internet pyramid schemes.

3. Hiroshi Tanahashi stabbed by his girlfriend

Hiroshi Tanahashi’s good looks would sometimes lead to trouble like in November of 2002 when Tanahashi was stabbed twice in the back by his girlfriend, news reporter and TV Asahi production assistant Hitomi Hara, in her apartment after telling her that he was seeing another woman. 

Becoming enraged at his desire to move on, Hara admitted to authorities that she had planned on killing Tanahashi before taking her own life. She was duly charged with attempted murder.

The New Japan star suffered a collapsed lung which kept him in the hospital for 10 days and out of action for several months. The incident only led to Tanahashi becoming a bigger star, as fans sympathised with his situation and waited eagerly for his return.

A Tokyo District Court judge sentenced Hara to three years imprisonment, but she ended up being placed on probation for four years instead.

2. El Hijo del Santo unmasked

Like his father, the legendary El Santo, El Hijo Del Santo was a major babyface star in lucha libre. 

The Son of the Saint, however, almost had his reputation destroyed in 1993. At the time, El Hijo Del Santo was in the middle of a bitter divorce from soon-to-be ex-wife Sylvia Tovar. Seeking to gain custody of their two children, Tovar released the couple’s divorce papers to the press, which included two allegations of domestic assault. 

Adding insult to injury, she also released pictures of her estranged husband unmasked, revealed his hidden identity as Jorge Guzman and, to top it off, released a picture of El Santo unmasked, too.

Considering El Santo had requested to be buried in his mask, this was considered particularly vindictive by some.

The story was front-page news for the Mexican tabloids and El Hijo Del Santo’s home promotion AAA had to actually pay the wrestling magazines for favourable coverage that made Tovar out to be a spiteful gold-digger.

Despite some magazine covers proclaiming the scandal to be ‘The End of the Legend’, the masked man’s career continued to flourish after.

1. PN News' WCW release

Fun-loving, rapping big man PN News got quite the push there in WCW in 1991 and things were before some serious heat with the boys derailed his career momentum.

One incident saw him take a hiding from Stan Hansen after calling ‘The Lariat’ an ‘old man’, while on another occasion notorious hardman Rick Rude punched him in the face.

While on a tour of the United Kingdom in December of ’91, News was accused of stealing from the other wrestlers by going into their bags and taking jewellery and cash. According to some accounts, this is supposedly why Ravishing Rick blacked his eye upon their return to the United States. 

News professed his innocence and even claimed to have had his own money stolen from the mysterious backstage bandit, but once the rumour had started to gain steam it was hard for him to convince his co-workers and he ended up being released by WCW just a few months later. 

In a cruel twist of fate, shortly after his departure the real culprit – a WCW referee – was found and promptly given the boot.