10 Nastiest Backstage Incidents In Wrestling History

2. The Nasty Boys vs. Ken Shamrock

Vader Orndorff This is one of those stories where you pretty much have to try and read between the lines to determine the truth of what happened. Back in 1990, Shamrock was working at South Atlantic Pro Wrestling under a €˜Mr. Wrestling€™ gimmick as Vince Torelli, and would be involved in an altercation with fellow SAPW workers Brian Knobbs and Jerry Saggs at a bar. The scuffle was broken up by the door staff, but a still-enraged Shamrock later tracked the Nasty Boys down to their hotel room. Bursting in, Shamrock leapt upon Knobbs, but says that he doesn€™t remember anything else. He claims that he put together from the police report that he€™d been suckerpunched by Saggs with a weapon €“ possibly one of those heavy-bottomed hotel phones. While Knobbs, the more useless of the two, reckons to have been mostly passed out at the time, Saggs asserts that no foreign object was involved: Shamrock attacked them both and they beat the tar out of him in self-defense. And they really went to town€ Shamrock claims that he suffered a broken sternum, a fractured eye socket, and a concussion, and that they almost killed him €“ further, that he had technically died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and was about a year in recovery. SAPW booker Frank Dusek says that the Nasty Boys had to be talked down from throwing Shamrock out of the window, and that:
€œHe took one whale of a beating. His head was swollen to the point that it almost didn't look human. His entire face was a mass of purples, greens and shades of yellow.€
Fast-forward to the late nineties after Shamrock had signed with WWF. By this point, he was a former UFC champion and King Of Pancrase - a much bigger and more intimidating name. He ran into the Nasty Boys by chance at an airport while travelling with some of the WWF boys, and apparently (and believably) the hapless Knobbs legged it as soon as he saw Ken approaching. Shamrock fronted up to the tougher of the two, Saggs €“ probably with that face on. You know the one €“ telling him he was going to kill him: something he€™d been fuming over for nearly a decade. In response, Saggs pointed out that starting a fight in an airport was a felony offense, and backed off and walked away. Opinions vary as to whether Saggs backed down from the World€™s Most Dangerous Man because he was scared or because he was smart. After all, he was right €“ both could have been arrested, charged and banned from flying. Shamrock knows what he thinks: that the Nasty Boys are pathetic bullies and were shown up in front of the boys, that he had the last laugh. If that helps him sleep at night, then more power to him.
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