Dark Side of the Ring this week was the story of Ion Crattoro, better known in the wrestling world as Johnny K9 or

Bruiser Bedlam in Smoky Mountain Wrestling if you were a Smoky Mountain fan. I came into the episode not

knowing a lot about him beyond the fact that he had fallen into this life of crime and he ended up

going to prison. I remember hearing a lot about that when he passed away a few years ago, but I

again I came into this not knowing much about him beyond that and these are the episodes I feel

like I like the most because I learned a lot of things that I didn't know going into it and it's

not just rehashing things that I did know. He did jobs for WWE in the 80s around the time that I

first became a fan and started watching and I have no memory of Johnny K9 at all and that's

that's a name I think that you would remember if you heard it. I think a Barry Harrow it's Mike

Sharp, Steve Lombardi, Dwayne Gill, those are some of the job guys that I watched the most.

I don't remember Johnny K9, but his life of crime started early and his widow Tracy who was the

main talking head interviewed for the episode because she obviously would have known him the most

said that he had already been to prison before the two of them even met in the early 90s. She

was an exotic dancer and he walked into the bar that she was working in and it was love at first

sight and when his WWF work dried up that's when he met Scott Demore for the first time who was

you know working as an independent wrestler and now Scott Demore works for impact wrestling

but he was one of Johnny's best friends and they travel the road together and they work together

and he told a great story about being stiffed on his pay one night by a promoter and they get in

the car as they left the building and when Johnny finds out that you know Demore was shorted on the

money he storms back into the arena he grabs the promoter by the throat and he threatens him until

he paid Demore the money that he was owed which as Demore told him after the fact wasn't the wisest

move because the promoter never booked them again after that you know nails grabbed Vince McMahon

...