(“I don’t want to die. But I’m not afraid to. Because what’s left, man? What do you do when they quit chanting your name?” Props: ESPN via willvojtisek)
As the WWF’s “Razor Ramon” in the early 1990s, Scott Hall was one of pro-wrestling‘s biggest stars — a Scarface-inspired bad guy known for his ever-present toothpick, gold chains, and hilarious promos. But in recent years, he’s become better known for his personal deterioration, which culminated in an utterly tragic headlining appearance at a Massachusetts wrestling show in April, two days after having a seizure. Though comparisons to Mickey Rourke’s character in The Wrestler are easy to make, the real-life story of Scott Hall is much darker.
Last night, ESPN’s E:60 profiled Scott Hall’s path from wrestling mega-success to his subsequent battles with addiction and his questionable decision to mentor his son Cody to follow in his footsteps. We don’t go near pro-wrestling very often on this site, but I thought this was heart-wrenching stuff, and worth sharing.
Let’s remember Scott in happier times. After the jump: Razor Ramon’s five greatest WWF video vignettes…
(“I don’t want to die. But I’m not afraid to. Because what’s left, man? What do you do when they quit chanting your name?” Props: ESPN via willvojtisek)
As the WWF’s “Razor Ramon” in the early 1990s, Scott Hall was one of pro-wrestling‘s biggest stars — a Scarface-inspired bad guy known for his ever-present toothpick, gold chains, and hilarious promos. But in recent years, he’s become better known for his personal deterioration, which culminated in an utterly tragic headlining appearance at a Massachusetts wrestling show in April, two days after having a seizure. Though comparisons to Mickey Rourke’s character in The Wrestler are easy to make, the real-life story of Scott Hall is much darker.
Last night, ESPN’s E:60 profiled Scott Hall’s path from wrestling mega-success to his subsequent battles with addiction and his questionable decision to mentor his son Cody to follow in his footsteps. We don’t go near pro-wrestling very often on this site, but I thought this was heart-wrenching stuff, and worth sharing.
Let’s remember Scott in happier times. After the jump: Razor Ramon’s five greatest WWF video vignettes…
“Check my ride, mang. It’s a Cadillac, mang.”
“I through with you now…get outta here, I through witchu!”
“You got a problem with me taking whatever I want?”
“They may as well be tossing their dinero in a wishing well. Like this monkey.”
“Nobody cares where you come from, Chico. They only care where you’re going.”
Last week Porto do Vale Tudo published an interview with Paulo Filho in which the troubled former WEC middleweight champion denied reports that he was dangerously addicted to Rohypnol again and in hopeless financial debt. According to Filho, his friend Rodrigo Riscada, whom he lived with for the better part of the last five months and who was acting as his manager, has yet to pay him the money he received for his last two bouts and is spreading lies about his addiction and financial woes, which Paulo says are simply untrue.
Riscada responded to the interview this week and revealed that Filho’s issues are serious and if left untreated could lead to his untimely death.
According to Riscada, Filho is taking upwards of 60 roofies per day and on top of the potentially lethal dosage of GHB, he is injecting four vials of the veterinary steroid potenai daily as well.
(Riscada and Filho before their falling out.)
Although Filho says he’s clean, Riscada paints a different picture of sleeping on the floor beside Paulo’s bed and hiding his stash from the embattled fighter to make sure he wasn’t sneaking off to use drugs.
(Video courtesy of YouTube/Cyberplex)
Last week Porto do Vale Tudo published an interview with Paulo Filho in which the troubled former WEC middleweight champion denied reports that he was dangerously addicted to Rohypnol again and in hopeless financial debt. According to Filho, his friend Rodrigo Riscada, whom he lived with for the better part of the last five months and who was acting as his manager, has yet to pay him the money he received for his last two bouts and is spreading lies about his addiction and financial woes, which Paulo says are simply untrue.
Riscada responded to the interview this week and revealed that Filho’s issues are serious and if left untreated could lead to his untimely death.
According to Riscada, Filho is taking upwards of 60 roofies per day and on top of the potentially lethal dosage of GHB, he is injecting four vials of the veterinary steroid potenai daily as well.
(Riscada and Filho before their falling out.)
Although Filho says he’s clean, Riscada paints a different picture of sleeping on the floor beside Paulo’s bed and hiding his stash from the embattled fighter to make sure he wasn’t sneaking off to use drugs.
“I don’t want to debate this situation any longer, but I can’t watch idly as Paulao, or someone representing him, slanders me. Due to everything I’ve been through with Paulao, I can affirm that he is not well and does not go one day without taking Roupinal and Potenei. All one needs to do is go up to him to see the explicit needle marks on both of his arms. Paulao must be hospitalized immediately, or else he will die.
I did what was possible and even impossible in order to free him from his addictions, but I was unsuccessful. Even his mother knows I speak the truth, just like all of his closest friends do. I feel sad, because his illness has made him turn against all those who have tried to help him. I wish I filmed the reaction of the first doctor I took him to when the doctor was told of the daily dosages. It a miracle that nothing has happened to him yet.
Paulao has refused to take any alternative medicines instead of Potenai. I did everything, I gave him food, medical assistance, psychiatrist, I allowed him to stay in my family’s house, and he was treated as a son by all. I spent days hiding medications from him so that he would not take them, in an attempt to reduce his dosages.I slept on the floor by his side, with the lights on since he cannot sleep in the dark. Actually I did not sleep, I napped since he does not sleep. I spent night after night in this routine, and I believe no one would have done the same.”
Riscada also addressed Filho’s claim that he witheld monies owing to him for his X-Combat and Amazon Forest Combat bouts, pointing out that “Ely” had amassed a large pharmacy debt for his drugs that he had to take care of and that Paulo recently dropped $18,000 on dogs for his pitbull breeding program and roosters for his cockfighting venture.
“It is necessary to clarify that I never said that Paulao owed R $20 thousand in Campos, but that his mother told me that he owed certain amounts in Niteroi, and that the group that has helped him until now would unite in order to help him pay.He alleges that he has no received anything from me, but he purchases $1o,000 worth of dogs, and $8,000 more worth of roosters in Campos. Everything was paid to Paulao, and whatever he decided to buy is his problem. I will not give him one more [dollar].
I already spent a lot on him. He said he had a monthly allowance/help. Where does you think that came from? All his expenditure came directly or indirectly from me. Paulao arrived in Campos with one change of clothes, and taking 60 doses of Rohypnol and 4 vials of Potenai together per day.
Two weeks ago he gave me the biggest emotional scare, and had to buy 4 cases of Rohypnol. I have witnesses to all of the bills I have paid and money I gave for him, and they are people that helped him together with myself, genuine and sober people like me. I will affirm it again: if he does not accept hospitalization (rehab) his life will have a tragic and sad end.
I consider him my brother, I don’t know why he did this to me. He knows how much I make, and I have ways to prove it. What was discounted from his purse and not passed on were the plane tickets and his purse bonuses. That was not done by me, but was done by the event itself. I don’t want to be paid, but it is him who owes me, and he owes me more than money, he owes me his life. I can’t charge him for that however, because he cannot repay that, because in my opinion, life is repaid through gratitude and not with money. He is being ungrateful, saying the same things, that he is clean, that no one pays him, that all who help him or who have helped him owe him… it is the same story for more than 10 years.”
As with most drugs, one of the main telltale signs that a person is using GHB is that they become chronic liars and do whatever it takes to convince people that they don’t have a problem. After more than two years of addiction, it’s unlikely that Paulo has licked his dependancy on the date rape drug.
If the performances the last few years by the once dominant PRIDE star are any indicator, he’s likely just fighting to fuel his habit and not to get back to the top tier of the sport.
Usually we only bring up boxing when it involves Floyd Mayweather Jr. getting arrested or sued or talking shit about MMA. But we wanted to pass along Oscar De La Hoya‘s bombshell new interview with Univision, in which the boxing legend discusses the personal demons that have haunted him over the past few years. After entering treatment at the Betty Ford Center in May, De La Hoya is now three months’ sober, and in the process of rebuilding his life. Some highlights from the interview:
On his lowest point: “Rock bottom was recently, within a couple of years. Just thinking, ‘Is my life was even worth it?’ I don’t have the strength, I don’t have the courage to take my own life, but I was thinking about it.”
On substance abuse: “There were drugs. My drug of choice was cocaine and alcohol. Cocaine was recent, in the last two years, last two-and-a-half years. And I depended more on the alcohol than the cocaine. It took me to a place where I felt safe. It took me to a place where I felt like if nobody can say anything to me. It took me to a place where I can reach out and just grab my mom, who passed away when I was younger. I was dependent on those drugs.”
Usually we only bring up boxing when it involves Floyd Mayweather Jr. getting arrested or sued or talking shit about MMA. But we wanted to pass along Oscar De La Hoya‘s bombshell new interview with Univision, in which the boxing legend discusses the personal demons that have haunted him over the past few years. After entering treatment at the Betty Ford Center in May, De La Hoya is now three months’ sober, and in the process of rebuilding his life. Some highlights from the interview:
On his lowest point: ”Rock bottom was recently, within a couple of years. Just thinking, ‘Is my life was even worth it?’ I don’t have the strength, I don’t have the courage to take my own life, but I was thinking about it.”
On substance abuse: ”There were drugs. My drug of choice was cocaine and alcohol. Cocaine was recent, in the last two years, last two-and-a-half years. And I depended more on the alcohol than the cocaine. It took me to a place where I felt safe. It took me to a place where I felt like if nobody can say anything to me. It took me to a place where I can reach out and just grab my mom, who passed away when I was younger. I was dependent on those drugs.”
On infidelity: “I don’t consider myself a sex addict. I’ve been unfaithful to my wife. I was unfaithful. [More than once], yes. We’re obviously not talking a Tiger Woods here, but I was unfaithful. It was filling the void of maybe not feeling loved to a certain point. It was filling the void of maybe not feeling safe.”
On rehab and recovery: ”Before I left Malibu, after seven weeks, I paid for another three weeks. It’s something I feel I have to do to keep me in check, [to] make sure that I’m jabbing ‘the monster’ you know, and keeping him at distance. We call it ‘the monster, it’s always there, it’s always there when you’re walking out the door, it’s always there behind you, shadowing you. And the more I’m prepared, the better I can fight this monster off. It’s the biggest fight of my life…I could put Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather, [Fernando] Vargas, I could put all of my opponents in one ring and battle all of them, but this monster is gonna be the toughest fight of my life. But I’ll be ready.”
With the last chapter of his life and his career behind him, the 28-year-old who overcame a highly publicized battle with painkiller abuse and anxiety is hoping that the headlines about his personal and professional struggles the past three years will eventually become footnotes in his life story rather than the main subject.
“When I put my life story out about all of the sh*t I’ve been through and everything that’s happened to me, even my parents will be like, ‘Oh my God,’ when they read it. They don’t even know the half of it.”
Page one of the new chapter of Parisyan’s story starts Thursday night in London, Ontario when he squares off with highly regarded Canadian welterweight Ryan Ford at MMA Live 1 and he says the main difference this time around is that he’s writing the story for himself and not for others like he’s been doing his whole life.
“I’ve been through hell and I’m still on the way back home. I hope people can understand and not judge me for the mistakes I made. I’m doing this for myself. I’m tired of worrying about this person or that person. My family always has my back, but I need to look after myself. I want to get out there and do this for me so I can feel good about myself again. I used to think a lot about what everybody thought about me and now I don’t care. I’ve been training since I was eight years old and competing as long as I can remember and I got burnt out,” Parisyan recalls. “I let the pressure get to me. I had the pressure of representing my friends, my family, Armenians, judo etc…etc. What I realize now is that except your age, what goes up must come down, so you need to not let every little thing get to you because that’s when the pressure will eat at you until you break.”
(Parisyan says although his demons are behind him, they’ll always be chasing him. PicProps: Sherdog)
With the last chapter of his life and his career behind him, the 28-year-old who overcame a highly publicized battle with painkiller abuse and anxiety is hoping that the headlines about his personal and professional struggles the past three years will eventually become footnotes in his life story rather than the main subject.
“When I put my life story out about all of the sh*t I’ve been through and everything that’s happened to me, even my parents will be like, ‘Oh my God,’ when they read it. They don’t even know the half of it.”
Page one of the new chapter of Parisyan’s story starts Thursday night in London, Ontario when he squares off with highly regarded Canadian welterweight Ryan Ford at MMA Live 1 and he says the main difference this time around is that he’s writing the story for himself and not for others like he’s been doing his whole life.
“I’ve been through hell and I’m still on the way back home. I hope people can understand and not judge me for the mistakes I made. I’m doing this for myself. I’m tired of worrying about this person or that person. My family always has my back, but I need to look after myself. I want to get out there and do this for me so I can feel good about myself again. I used to think a lot about what everybody thought about me and now I don’t care. I’ve been training since I was eight years old and competing as long as I can remember and I got burnt out,” Parisyan recalls. “I let the pressure get to me. I had the pressure of representing my friends, my family, Armenians, judo etc…etc. What I realize now is that except your age, what goes up must come down, so you need to not let every little thing get to you because that’s when the pressure will eat at you until you break.”
Parisyan now believes that it was that pressure, coupled with the drugs that amplified and maybe even caused the anxiety, which he now says is under control.
As the sole financial support for several of his family members, if he didn’t perform and get paid, it didn’t just affect him, it affected everyone he cared about. When he was suspended and fined $32,000 for testing positive for painkillers following his UFC 94 win over Dong Hyun Kim, the financial hit he took only added to the pressure.
“I only made $6000 for my last fight after I paid the commission for my outstanding fine. That’s not enough money to support myself, let alone my family. It baffled me how I got a $32,000 fine and nine-month suspension when some of these guys popped for using steroids got six months and $12,000, but I did my time and I paid for my crime. Let’s move on,” he says. “I didn’t make the conscious decision to get anxiety or to become reliant on painkillers. It happened and I got through it and I’m working to get back to where I used to be and that’s all I can do.”
The toughest lesson Parisyan says he learned from this personal struggle was that many of the people close to him, whom he believed would be part of his support system through thick and through thin, when push came to shove weren’t who he thought they were.
“I screwed up and I have nobody to blame but myself. Sure I could blame a lot of people for what happened, but I’m not going to because I learned a lot through all of this. Nobody gave me a hand when I needed it the most. If you can’t help me up, fine, but don’t kick me down more than I already am. There are people who helped me out and they know who they are and I love them to death, but most of the people who I called my friends and family who were all around me when I was doing well, as soon as I fell, they were nowhere to be found,” Parisyan points out. “Nobody gave a sh*t, nobody wanted to give a sh*t, nobody called, nobody visited, and nobody said anything. For the record, f*ck all of them. They know who they are, from friends to cousins to certain family members, f*ck them – all of them.”
Although it was tough to come to grips with, Parisyan says that looking back on the situation, that moment of clarity when he realized that the people he surrounded himself with weren’t in it for the long haul with him was the main impetus for him getting started on the road to recovery.
“People need people. They need their friends, blood and family members to support them when they’re going through problems in their lives. When I walk into the cage, nobody walks in there with me. I’m on my own. No one is helping me out in there. A lot of people help me get ready outside the cage and I appreciate it and I love them for it and I’ll repay them any way I can,” Karo says. “But when I’m locked in the cage it’s only me in there and I’m putting my whole life on the line, so I have to worry about pleasing myself and not everybody else. It’s the same thing with life. I’m fighting for me now. That’s how it should have always been, but it wasn’t.”
For the record, Parisyan wants to be clear that when he started taking the painkillers which were prescribed by his doctor for a serious hamstring tear he suffered nearly four years ago, he could barely get out of bed without them, let alone train. A dent on the back of his thigh is a reminder of the severity of the injury that eventually healed up enough to allow him to stop taking the medication. When a freak training accident forced him out of his UFC 88 bout on the eve of the fight with Yoshiyuki Yoshida and he was put back on the pills, so began his humiliating slide down the slippery slope into addiction, anxiety and exile from the UFC. He says that he didn’t take pills recreationally, but explains that he became reliant on them to numb the pain enough to allow him to train and and that the side effect of such longterm use became a dependancy.
Ready to make penance for his past transgressions, Karo says he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get back to the UFC and that he doesn’t expect any favors considering how things played out with his last few fights in the Octagon.
“It’s been such a long road and people don’t realize and will never know just how big some of the bumps were. You have to crawl before you walk and walk before you run. I was running and now I’m back to crawling. I’m in a very, very deep hole and I’m crawling out slowly but surely. I’m doing what I need to do. It’s going to be a long road. Even if, God forbid, I walk out of the cage or ring with a loss, I want people to say, ‘Karo is back, he’s looking good, we can expect more from him and he’s far from done.’ At the very least, that’s what I want people to say about me,” he says. “I used to pray to God asking him to give me a chance. God gave me a chance and I screwed them up. Now I pray to God and ask him to forgive me for my sins and I tell him I’ll do the rest. The UFC gave me a few chances and I screwed it up. It is what it is. I talked to Joe Silva and I told him that I know last time I kept on asking him to give me a chance because I needed to come back without having fought outside the UFC at all. This time I told him I don’t want them to do me any favors. I’ll fight my way back to the UFC because that’s where I belong. I’ll fight my way back. I don’t need a handout from anybody. I’ll prove myself and I’ll beat whoever it takes to make it back there. I’ve made a pact with myself to keep fighting – and believe me, I thought about packing it in. I’m going to keep my mouth shut, train hard and give the fans what they deserve and what they expect from me.”
If his notable differences in demeanor and attitude when speaking of his upcoming fight and opponent are any indication that “The Heat” is following through with the pact he says he made with himself, it’s a good sign that he’s on the right path.
“I want to thank Ryan Ford for taking the fight because he was the only guy they offered it to who would take the fight. I have a lot of respect for him already because he isn’t afraid to get in there with a guy with a lot more experience. I don’t know how this fight will go. I’ll never make a prediction again because anything can happen and it’s bitten me in the ass every time I talk big,” he explains humbly. “I will tell you that I pray and I train every day and I hope the outcome is good. I will bring the fight to Ryan Ford and try to win this fight any and every way I can. That’s what I’m going to do. I will never go out to a fight and have people say I look ill or look stupid ever again. I want to do this for me. I’m in a much better place than I’ve been for a long, long time. I’ve been at the top of the ladder and I’ve been at the bottom of the ladder. Whatever I have to do to get back up to the next rung and then the next rung, I’ll do.”
Cognizant that as he gets a grip and a foothold on the subsequent rungs on the ladder out of the hole he dug for himself, he will be met with more and more resistance from his opponents, fans and the media, Parisyan says he’s up for the challenge and says that this time around things will be decidedly different than the last.
“Of course everyone is going to say they’ve heard me say the same thing before about how I’m better and I’m back to my old self, but this time I’m going to let my performance prove it, not my words. I had no business coming back to the UFC when I did because I wasn’t ready. I needed the money and I fooled everyone, including myself, into believing I was through my problems. If I was set financially, I would have stepped away from fighting for six months or a year and gotten better physically and mentally before taking another fight, but I couldn’t afford the time off,” he admits. “I forced myself to take the last six months off, even though I’m in such a huge amount of debt, because I needed to do it for me. I was offered dozens of fights, but I turned them all down until I knew I was ready. People are going to have their minds made up about me and think they know what’s going on in my head or in my life, when they have no idea. That’s the way reporters and even fans work sometimes. They get something in their heads and you have to work the rest of your life to prove them wrong. There’s only so much you can do. People believe what they want to about you, so I’m going to worry about what I can control and that’s me and my performance in the cage.”
He points out that this isn’t the first time people claiming to know who is and what he’s about were wrong about him.
“It’s nothing new. Everyone made such a big deal about my appearance on The Ultimate Fighter when I asked Nate Diaz, ‘Do you know who I am?’ I didn’t mean that I was some big shot fighter like everybody assumes that I meant. Everybody in that room knew I was a fighter and Nate knew me because I fought his brother, Nick. I meant that he doesn’t know me outside of fighting – outside of MMA. He didn’t know my background. I meant, ‘Don’t get all gangster on me because it isn’t going to work.’ That might intimidate some people, but there isn’t anything anyone can say or do that will rattle me,” he explains. “I come from Armenia, Russia, Eastern Europe, and over there guys don’t argue with their fists, it’s with knives and guns and bullets. There are armies and wars. It’s very bad. I’m not some guy from his neighborhood who he can intimidate by getting in my face and trying to bully me. I’ve seen people burned alive inside of tires – and I was just a kid when I saw that kind of stuff. People picked up on that one sentence and they assumed that I was acting all high and mighty, but that’s not how I meant it. I meant that I wasn’t buying his tough guy bullsh*t.”
Although he isn’t making many guarantees these days, one promise Parisyan makes is that he’ll never come into a bout unprepared like he did in his last fight with Dennis Hallman.
“I fought those demons and I’ve beaten them to a certain point and I’ll always have to fight them to some degree. I’m training. I feel a hundred times better. I look better. I wouldn’t have taken this fight if I didn’t think I was prepared for it. I did that in my last fight and look where it got me. I will never do that again. That was not me in the cage. Dennis Hallman called me after that fight to tell me he would give me a rematch whenever we were both healthy because he knew what I was going through because he had been through the same thing and he knew that wasn’t the real Karo he fought in the cage that night. That meant a lot to me,” he admits. “Ryan Ford is not an easy opponent. He’s a strong, tough guy who has been fighting for a while and has beaten some good opponents. I could have taken an easier fight, but I don’t want to take a fight with an easy opponent. He’s won championships and he’s no pushover. At the end of the day it’s business. When I walk in the cage I’m going to go after Ryan and I will do whatever I can to beat him.”
