411’s Dark Side of The Ring Report: ‘The Tragic Fall of Adrian Adonis’

-We are back after last week’s off week due to The Fourth of July. This week we are back in the 80s again with Adrian Adonis. Much like JYD, I first saw Adonis in the 80s WWF as I got hooked on wrestling as a kid thanks to Hulk-a-mania. Let’s get to it!

-Chris Jericho is our narrator!

-We start in the 1980s with Vince McMahon’s WWF and it’s cast of colorful heroes and villains. One of the most colorful was Adrian Adonis and Bret Hart calls him one of the best big guy wrestlers of the time. Dave Meltzer calls him a unique wrestler because of his body that looked like it wouldn’t be acrobatic, but it was. Other talking heads call him a dancing bear and twinkle-toes.

-Adonis wasn’t afraid to push buttons and ran with his feminine character and weekly “Flower Shop,” talk show. Dave says straight people hating gays was the idea behind the gimmick as we see a fan holding up a sign that reads, “go back into your closet.” Dave notes that the wrestling scene then was very stereotypical, and they would take fats guys and bleach their hair blonde and that was that stereotype. They show Adrian telling the crowd on Tuesday Night Titans that he is gay and the crowd boos him.

-Bret says that Adrian was a tough guy and says he was a close friend of the late Adrian Adonis. Adrian was born Keith Franke in the working class of Buffalo, NY. We meet his childhood friend, Anthony Gugino who says he never saw Keith/Adrian lose a fight. He was a great friend, but if you crossed him, he would drop you without thinking. He notes Keith was his bodyguard and I can relate as I was scrawny and had a boxing friend in junior high and high school that looked out for me. Thanks James!

-Adrian was very connected and his group started out as a high school fraternity and then a street gang. A lot of the group ended up being gangsters and Adrian didn’t want to spend his life fighting local bums in the streets. He decided to drop out of school and wanted to be a pro-wrestler.

-Adrian went to Texas and Bret recalls seeing him there doing a deal where fans would try to last 10 minutes in the ring with him for money. Jacked up guys would get in there and Adrian would knock them out cold. Dave notes you have to be a tough guy to take on fans for real as you don’t know anything about them. He says the rule was you had to pound the face of the fan or break a bone. It wasn’t enough to just out wrestle them.

-Adrian makes a name for himself and joins the AWA and that brings us Greg Gagne. He says that Verne loved Adrian’s presence and paired him with Jesse “The Body” Ventura. Dave mentions that Jesse was definitely the better talker, but Adrian was solid on the mic as well. Adrian would play up being from New York which made you a heel in the Midwest. He talks about how Adrian sold so well and made whoever he faced look like a bad ass.

-Jim Brunzell is next and says Adrian knew when to get heat and when to let the face get a comeback. Anthony was blown away this his friend was becoming a star and everyone in Buffalo was throwing parties to watch him.

-Next Adrian joins Vince’s WWF and Bret notes when he got there, he was a small fish in a big pond, while Adrian was a star. He wanted to befriend Adrian, but he was leery of Bret because he was a promoter’s kid and would rat them out if they did something. Anvil had to convince Adrian that Bret was cool. They let Bret in the hotel room and Adrian is chopping up coke on a mirror and then he name drops Piper, Fuji, Shiek as being in the room. For Bret it was like being under the learning tree as he did lines of coke with them until 4 AM. It helped him learn psychology and the little secrets of the business. He doesn’t consider any of that time wasted. Bret and Jim talk about the cocaine being passed around in the 80s and guys would shake your hand just to pass you an 8 ball which was basically a starter kit. Bret notes that Adrian went hard every night and that the problem with cocaine was it could become a monster in a short time. I mean, we kind of new cocaine was flowing in the 80s, but Bret put names out there and all of them are dead now.

-Commercials!

-Bret says that cocaine wasn’t the fun, friendly drug that thought it was and realized you had to wean yourself off of it. Bret says he and Anvil threw up the white flag and stopped partying with them because it was too much. Anthony says don’t let anyone fool you as they were all coke heads and you could find maybe 1 out of 100 that weren’t into partying. Now partying and being a coke head are different, though I assume he means they are the same in this situation.

-Brunzell tells a story of heading to bed and he heard a knock on his door. It was Adrian who said he was going to kill himself and threw a bag a coke in the door at him. A few hours later a strung out Adrian is looking for his bag of coke and Brunzell just hands it back to him.

-Bret says that Adrian was a different man around his wife and kids. He treated his wife like an angel and he thought it was a put-on at first, but Adrian was a real life Jekyl and Hyde. We meet his wife, Bea Franke Hall, and she says he was a very kind, sweet man. He would make breakfast for her in bed and while on the road he would call her several times a day.

-Gena Banta and Angela Perides, Adrian’s daughters, talk about their father netx. Angela is the oldest daughter and says her dad loved watching The Three Stooges. Bea says she felt she was a good wife and she could never get mad at that man.

-Adrian’s cocaine abuse makes his wrestling style change, and it got him heat backstage. Dave puts it bluntly that coked up Adrian could be tough on guys in the ring and if they complained, they were seen as not tough enough. Bret says every dog has their day and eventually everyone gets caught by someone tougher.

-In 1985 Vince Jr decided that tough guy Adrian needed a new gimmick as the New York tough guy gimmick was out. He retired the leather jacket and took on the gay character. Dave says it wasn’t super common, but it goes back to Gorgeous George. Anthony says nobody back home liked the gimmick, but they understood why he was doing it. Greg says that Adrian was too good to be doing that, but that’s what they did in the WWF. Bret says that Adrian embraced it and just wanted to prove he could make the gimmick work.

-Dan Spivey is here to talk about a match he had with Adrian as Adrian is being prepared for a run against Hulk Hogan. The dream of every heel in the 80s! A loop with Hogan meant lots of money! Dan was looking forward to the match as he was a little over a year into his career. Adrian apparently thought Dan was weak and things went wrong.

-Commercials!

-Adrian was to go over Dan on his way to Hogan. Dan says he heard Adrian was a tough guy and would take advantage. That happened as Adrian started abusing Spivey and they show footage. Spivey held it in and was pissed, but wanted to attack Adrian after the match. The Bulldogs convinced him to leave and cool off.

-They are scheduled to wrestle again the next night in Flint, Michigan. Brunzell says he and Orton had heard there was bad blood and they were keeping their eye on it. Adrian is going over again, but starts abusing Dan again. He hooks a sleeper and cinches down on it, so Dan loses it and knocks Adrian out cold. The ref yells that isn’t the finish and Dan tells him he changed the finish as Adrian isn’t going over tonight. Bob and Jim run in the ring to separate the two and people are losing it backstage. Adrian rushes to the back and starts acting leg he is going to apologize, but tries a double leg. Spivey is ready and lands a huge uppercut that lifts Adrian off his feet. “He came down like a walrus.” He was hit so hard the cheek bone was popping through the skin. DAMN! An ambulance was called and Adrian went to the hospital and was gone for weeks. Dan says he had to protect himself and his reputation and was fired a month later.

-Bret felt bad for Adrian as it had to sting to get his ass whipped in front of all the boys. Dave says that when you are a guy that is feared and that happens, you lose face. Jim doesn’t think Adrian ever recovered from that. He spiraled more into his addiction and started putting on more weight. Jim notes when you have an addiction you gorge when you find time to eat. His wife never noticed the weight gain because she just saw her husband.

-In May of 1987 Adrian is gone from the WWF and rumors were he was fired for substance abuse. Bret says he just wasn’t there anymore, and he just assumed he would be back in a few weeks. Adrian then shows up in the AWA and is pushing 400 lbs. Wow, he does look rough there! Greg says they had a match and barely made ten minutes. Greg tried to tell him to get back to his regular weight and it woke him up as he lost 100 lbs over the next six months. He ditched the Adorable gimmick and went to Japan to work. Spivey says they ran into each other in Japan, had a beer, and hashed things out. That’s nice to hear!

-Bret says he had dinner with Adrian and his wife, and Adrian was really getting his life back on track. They were all preparing for a big comeback as he was only in his mid 30s. His wife notes the last time she saw him was in a hotel in Los Angeles. He had flown in from Japan and then was flying out the next morning to Canada. She notes he came back to the room to tell her goodbye for a second time and he had never done that previously. That was their last goodbye!

-Commercials!

-Adrian meets up with The Kelly Twins in Canada and we meet Mike Kelly, who was the only survivor of the car crash. He tells us people may remember him from the Oh Henry candy commercial, and that’s exactly where I know him. Bret says the Kelly Twins worked for his dad and he remembers them from the 60s. You never knew which twin you were talking to. Mike says he and his brother were inseparable. They always had the same clothes, hats, watches, whatever. He mentions they had a bond where they knew when the other was hurt or injured as they could feel it.

-They were booked to work in New Foundland and meet up with Adrian Adonis, who was coming in from Japan. The Main Event was Adrian and The Bear Man against The Kelly Twins. We learn about The Bear Man, who was a wrestler and promoter and his gimmick was he had bears. Ricky Johson, wrestler, says Dave (Bear Man) was a good guy and paid well as a promoter. Apparently Ricky is the brother of Rocky Johnson and when he passed, he took on his Soul Man name to honor him. I didn’t know he had a brother! I quickly searched and there is a lot to Rocky Johnson I didn’t know.

-Back to Bear Man as Bret says that he owned Terrible Ted, the wrestling bear. Mike wanted nothing to do with the bear as it can obviously tear you apart. Speaking on that we get a story where Bear Man’s girlfriend was taking a shower and the bear was in heat, sensed it and tore her to pieces while Bear Man was working outside. They even include the headline in the paper which noted the bear was in heat. I feel like we could get an entire Dark Side episode on the Bear Man. I mean, this has kind of put Adrian on the back burner here.

-Of course, he continues to work with bears as they head out on their next tour. They were heading to from one town to another and the mayor of Lewisporte was throwing a party for the wrestlers in their honor. Adrian, The Kelly Twins, and Bear Man were in one car and Ricky was about to join them, but instead took a ride with someone else who left 10-15 minutes later. Ricky says they hit traffic which never happens and he said there had to be an accident and then he says the red van in the water. It’s an image that has never left his mind.

-Commercials!

-Mike says they were going to Lewisporte to advertise and even at 8 PM at night it was like it was noon with the sun out. They saw a bear cub, and the sun caught his brother’s eye and they went into a dip and hit a rock in the water head on. He fainted and when he woke up he felt ice cold water and wondered why he was in a stream. He looked over and saw his brother was dead. Ricky breaks down trying to talk about it. He remembers seeing the van and realized it was The Kelly’s van. Bear Man died instantly. Adrian was in bad shape and was yelling for someone to help him. Ricky remembers seeing his elbow and the bone sticking out of it. He remembers thinking they had to save him, but there was no saving him.

-Back to his daughter Gena, and you can see the resemblance to her dad. She says it was 4th of July and they were celebrating with family. Angela says she has a cousin that was scared of fireworks, so one cousin went to check on her, answered the phone and they asked for Mrs. Franke. They informed her that her husband had been killed in an auto accident. She asked to speak to Dave and she was told that he was dead too. She wanted someone to talk.

-Mike was the only survivor and talks about being so close to his brother. Back to Ricky as he says that a few of the road guys that worked for Dave, jumped into the water and robbed Adrian. WOW! They took his money, watch, and whatever they could find. Thankfully they were arrested and his wife wanted to press charges. “Why rob a dead man?” Seriously!

-Ricky says the guys met up at a bar to relax and then it hit everyone that a bunch of their friends were dead and all hell broke lose. They did $12,000 worth of damage to the hotel bar and were billed for it. The CBC showed up when the wrestlers were visiting the site to ask if booze was involved, and the boys told them to screw off.

-Commercials!

-Next week Abdullah The Butcher!

-Some have suggested the accident was caused by drinking and driving. Mike says there were no drugs or alcohol involved. The doctors checked and he insists there was nobody drinking in the van. He breaks down talking about his brother, but notes “things have to go on.”

-The friend from Buffalo says the good die young and Keith was one of the best. He notes he was in a Federal Prison in Texas when Keith died and he couldn’t go to the funeral.

-His wife says the funeral was a blur and it didn’t hit her until later. She found his New York jacket in a closet and she could smell him and it all came back to her. She took the jacket and went to bed and that was the finality of it. “He was never coming home. Ever!”

-Meltzer says that Adrian was a talented guy and never got his due. A guy like him would be a big star today. Greg thinks Adrian should be in the Hall of Fame. Bret thinks it is possible that if Adrian wasn’t in the accident, we could have seen Bret vs Adrian at WrestleMania five years later. That would have been around WrestleMania X-XI or so. Bret would have given anything to have an Adrian Adonis waiting for him in the ring. “He was the real deal.”

-Man, this one was way more than I expected and ended up being one of the better episodes of this series. I wasn’t anticipating everything we got and really this could have been two hours easily with everything they covered. We went from your normal 80s cocaine scene to a wrestling bear in heat killing a poor woman trying to take a shower. Someone should do a movie about cocaine and bears! The talking heads were all very good here and nobody felt out of place or like they didn’t contribute anything. Getting Spivey to talk about the fight was needed as I always appreciate hearing from family even though it generally rips your soul out hearing the pain, they had to endure losing someone. Bret did a lot of the heavy lifting which is fine as he is easy to listen too and always tells good stories. I am still stunned by the bear story and then there is the guy from the Oh Henry commercials I remember as a kid. Again, this one was just wild and needed more time. There was so much to get too, they kind of flew by anything of note Adrian did in the WWF outside of the Spivey fight. Definitely check this one out as it was far exceeded what I was expecting going into it. Thanks for reading!