Herb Abrams, T-Shirts, And Pro Wrestling
Vice Television is running a documentary series about professional wrestling called Dark Side of the Ring. A recent episode, “Cocaine & Cowboy Boots,” covered the swift rise and even-speedier fall of independent promoter Herb Abrams. I watched the episode this past week (watch it for yourself here) with interest, because I briefly knew Herb and worked for his Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF). They portrayed him as a freewheeling cokehead but never mentioned that he was married. I met Herb’s wife, a quiet Asian woman named Murry Lee. For viewers, this nugget possibly would have changed his behavior from titillating to deceitful. I was unaware of his antics at the time, because his wife was present during our interactions.
In 1990, I had been reading newsletters about pro wrestling for less than two years. I’d been “smartened up” to the business, without much contact to its backstage machinations. That changed at John Arezzi’s WrestleCon event at the LaGuardia Marriott. A former music promoter turned wrestling radio host, Arezzi hosted one of the first two-day weekend gatherings, which brought grapplers, fans, and vendors together, to charge for autographs and buy and sell memorabilia.
As the Dark Side episode chronicles, Herb fly in from California and held a press conference. The session announced the formation of the UWF and its deal for a…
