A controversial documentary accuses the 2011 WWE Hall of Fame inductee of passing Hepatitis C to another wrestler with a double blade job. The wrestler claims he lost a WWE gig due to the Butcher’s negligence.
The documentary is available in full on You Tube and comes from Canada. Canadian independent pro wrestler and MMA fighter Devon Nicholson is the subject of “Don’t Bleed on Me”. The documentary brings to light the subject of what Superstar Billy Graham calls “Commingling of blood.” In pro wrestling, commingling of blood is when two wrestlers bleed onto one another in a wrestling match. The dangers here are obvious.
This documentary specifically points a lot of fingers at Abdullah the Butcher. Nicholson claims to have been offered a WWE deal in 2009 which was immediately rescinded when his blood tests came back positive for Hepatitis C. Nicholson claims that he was tested clean in 2005 and had a serious of bloodbaths with Abdullah on the indys since his clean test. Nicholson claims that Abdullah bladed himself in a match and then used the same blade to cut Nicholson. Footage is shown of such a match and slowed down in order to see the double blade job which definitely happens. Nicholson says it was Abdullah’s dirty blood passed to him through the blade that infected him and ended his WWE dreams.
The documentary is certainly damning to Abdullah the Butcher. Several veterans are interviewed throughout the documentary and all recount stories of Abdullah’s reckless blade and blood jobs throughout his career. The Honkytonk Man and Superstar Graham in particular recount tales of Abdullah going wild with the blade and shredding the heads of many unsuspecting men. Superstar Graham goes as far as to call Abdullah’s WWE Hall of Fame induction a “sham” due to this behavior he exhibited throughout his career.
Watching the documentary brought back memories of an indy show many years ago in New Jersey and an incident I’ll never forget with Abdullah the Butcher. Abdullah was wrestling Jerry Lawler on a Dennis Coraluzzo/Larry Sharpe show. Lawler was managed by a pro wrestler named “Tricky” Nicky who happened to be a friend of mine. Abdullah grabbed him at one point in the match and cut him so viciously that the blade almost went into his eyeball and blinded Nick for life. That was a side of Abdullah the Butcher which made him a very polarizing figure throughout the wrestling business.
Cutting unsuspecting victims with a razor blade was something I was always cautious of whenever I was within a few feet of Abdullah. It was almost a game to him to grab someone and cut them open with a blade to their shock and surprise. I sat a few feet from Abdullah to conduct an RF Video Shoot Interview with him many years ago. Knowing his propensity to do this and having the extra incentive of a camera kept me on the edge of my seat for two and half hours. I have sat and interviewed dozens of wrestlers over the last fifteen to twenty years and only with Abdullah did I ever have my guard up like that.
Nicholson claims that Abdullah has not and will not offer a blood test. This worries me. Abdullah wrestled through seven decades and may have cut and bled with more pro wrestlers than anyone in the history of the business. If Abdullah did indeed infect Nicholson, there could be hundreds of ex-opponents walking around with the disease that don’t know it and aren’t treating it. Additionally, some of those ex-opponents are likely to have bled with other wrestlers if they were that willing to bleed with Abdullah, thus infecting others. There could be a serious epidemic here that needs to be investigated.