10 Dark Secrets Wrestlers Accidentally Revealed

Yet more of these awful stories, that reveal the rotten underbelly of the industry is even more repugnant than the most intrepid of reporters have depicted, surfaced with an alarming frequency in the 2000s.

The shoot interview circuit was a way for the old carny, banished to near-irrelevance by father time and the WWE monopoly, to make a few extra quid for nothing. It's ironic; many of these wrestlers loathed Dave Meltzer for "exposing" the business and putting it into disrepute, but were stupid enough to do something even more self-incriminating under the belief that they were being funny.

Brutus Beefcake is an example of the aforementioned "carny" (except it's inaccurate to state that he was banished to near-irrelevance because he was entirely irrelevant).

In a shoot interview with Sean Oliver, Bruti tells the story of a certain legendary wrestler habitually drugging women, sexually assaulting them when unconscious, and kicking their naked bodies out into the hallway. Beefcake laughs hysterically when recounting it.

Now, as narrators go, Brutus Beefcake is about as reliable as a horoscope, and has walked back his story as an "urban legend" on Twitter - but Marty Jannetty himself has at the very least admitted to the first part of it. As mentioned, Rob Van Dam, without naming names, has spoken about how this was ingrained in the pro wrestling culture when he broke in. Missy Hyatt has also echoed this.

It's not just that story, and if that Brutus story is or isn't an "urban legend": the shoot circuit was swarming with sordid allegations masquerading as "funny" "stories". Famous wrestlers striking women. One incredibly famous wrestler alluding to being assaulted by another incredibly famous wrestler.

Half of this stuff cannot even be written about unless it is in the vaguest terms imaginable for libel purposes, and some of these sick bastards laugh about it as they try to pop the interviewer.