Maryland Championship Wrestling booker Dan McDevitt has a plethora of funny stories to share with Express Night Out’s Chris Porter, and unsurprisingly, the nu-media sensation / shoot interview dynamo that is The Iron Sheik is at the center of one of ’em. McDevitt might have made some questionable decisions in his wrestling career, but none more costly than inviting the Sheik to his wedding in 2005.
“My wife’s side of the family knows nothing about wrestling, they’re not into wrestling ” so they’re very much normal. And the Sheik gets up there and says I’m one of his closest friends and what a great person I am and he loves me so much ” “Danny McDermitt.” So, he calls me by the wrong name ” and I think, ‘Oh, this is going to be good.’
“So, he’s drunk, and he says, ‘I just want to say to everybody, I have so much respect for Danny because he didn’t kill the Jews like Hitler. And he’s not like Saddam Hussein. And he’s not a no good son-of-a-bitch like Osama bin Laden.’ And I’m sitting there thinking, ‘Man, to make me sound like a good guy, did you have to compare me to the three worst dictators in the world?’
“Meanwhile, my side of the place ” the wrestling [side] ” is going crazy, screaming and yelling. And my wife’s side of the family is absolutely horrified.
“Then Stevie Richards comes running and pulls out a ‘Hulkamania’ sign and [Sheik] goes into a tangent about ” [the usual one] you’ve heard on YouTube.
“Everybody on my side of the family is in tears; my wife’s side of the family is getting up and leaving, walking out of the hall. It was kind of just downhill from there ” 10 months later I was divorced.”