I've heard alot about Tom Zenk telling hilarious stories but I've never heard or read them. Where can these be found?
If scuttlebutt is correct, from his jail cell currently.
The classic Zenk stories were on Meltzer's old Eyada radio show in 99, the most epic of which involved Zenk telling stories about working under Ole Anderson in 1990. The most famous were Ole's attempts to reduce peoples' contracts. Like Ole trying to cut Brian Pillman's "overpriced" contract and threatening to bust him down to opening match jobber, only for Pillman to tell him to go fuck himself because he'd happily be the highest paid curtain jerker in history.
Zenk had a website for a while detailing a lot of this stuff, but it went away around the same time Zenk did because there was a bunch of WWF stories about what an ass Rick Martel was, and how many drugs everyone was doing, and their lawyers didn't like being defamed. Here's the more toned-down version of 1990 from the site as it exists now:
Its funny how basically everyone says Zenk was a miserable prick. Martel and Tom Brandi basically said that in their shoot interviews
ReplyDeleteZenk's Z-Lock was probably the 22nd or 23rd best sleeper in professional wrestling. It wasn't as good as Piper's but I actually liked it more than Dusty's. Beefcake's was better too. Waylon Mercy's ranks well below.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading him on Wrestlezone like, way back in the day before I knew much of anything. Ohh memories.
ReplyDeleteI don't know much about Martel, but I've heard alot of bad shit about Tom Brandi. Supposedly he even stole the Patriot gimmick from Del Wilkes and claimed for years that Del sold it to him.
ReplyDeleteDid Del say that? Del had a major problem with pills so if it was him, I would be wary
ReplyDeleteThe site that Scott linked up is a hilarious read. Like jobbing Tom Zenk to Vader was a crime against humanity. From what I remember Zenk was pretty good, but let's not go nuts. I also learned that Arn Anderson wasn't in Zenk's league because Arn wasn't sexy.
ReplyDeleteEh...not your best.
ReplyDeleteArchive.org
ReplyDeletesearch Tom zenks site from late (december-ish 2001) Until May of 2003.
The way you wanna do this is by going to a week where he has a rant up.
Example:
Find a week on tomzenk.com from June 17, 2002 (via archive), click on it read the rant. after the rant are subsequent links of other rants that you can not pull up, but however are still working.
Its basically a crapshoot, but I had about 50 of the tom Zenk rants from back in the day before the site turned into what you see today.
I remember in 2003 he wrote a vicious rant about about he met up with Stephanie at a bar and hd sex with her. She got pregnant with his baby, etc etc...
The next week the site was down. It was down for about 3-4 months.
It came back up and all of the rants were gone.
Like I have said before, Reading the Zenk rants, WrestleCrap forums (yes I am originally a WC guy) and reading Scott Keith's Royal Rumble 2003 rant turned me into The Fuj: Smark
The Wayback Machine is good for stuff like this.
ReplyDeletehttp://web.archive.org/web/19991013074957/http://geocities.com/Colosseum/Arena/9893/backizzs.htm
Oh, this site is even more toned down from what it used to be, where this dude who was obviously in love with Zenk used to make cases for Zenk like he was a future World champion getting jobbed out in 1990, and post the most cheesecake-rific photos of Zenk like it was a shrine to him or something. It was CREEPY.
ReplyDeleteI remember something about how Meltzer was the only one who knew Zenk's whereabouts but wouldn't say. Jail, huh? Tough shake...
ReplyDeleteJust speculation on my part based on rumor. I really don't know his actual situation. Meltzer's typically cryptic comment might have meant he was in witness protection for all we know. But booking photos of Zenk from a few years ago and his conspicuous absence seem to add up.
ReplyDeleteFrom everything I've read over the years Martel seems to be a pretty decent guy...
ReplyDeleteMost accounts of the situation tend to support Del's side of things. Brandi basically started using the Patriot gimmick while Del was in jail for a year on drug charges/going through detox, meaning Del was in no condition to stop him from basically stealing the gimmick/persona.
ReplyDeleteBrandi's never been able to present legal documentation regarding the sale of the gimmick to back up his claim. The only reason Brandi hasn't been sued is that Wilkes basically doesn't have the cash for a prolonged legal battle, since Wilkes' legal and drug problems wiped him out financially.