Wrestling Brushes with Celebrities Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. In the annals of pro wrestling, there are few to match the in-ring talents or the microphone skills of 'The Loose Cannon' Brian Pillman (1962-1997). He was not only a star of WCW, ECW and WWE, he was also aligned with the NFL's Cincinnati Bengals and Buffalo Bills and the CFL's Calgary Stampeders. Pillman got his college education at Miami University in Ohio, where his roommate would go on to win a Super Bowl over a team coached by his own brother. Who was Brian Pillman's famous roommate?

Answer: John Harbaugh

John Harbaugh played with Pillman on the Miami RedHawks defensive team, while brother Jim Harbaugh played under his father, who was an assistant coach at Michigan under the great Bo Schembechler. While Jim went on to fame as quarterback for the Chicago Bears, Indianapolis Colts and San Diego Chargers, John would stay on the sidelines, coaching college teams at Western Michigan, Pitt, Moorehead State, Cincinnati and Indiana before moving to the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles and then head coach for the Baltimore Ravens. On February 3, 2013, John's Ravens beat brother Jim's San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII 34-31.

2. One of the more unique individuals in pro wrestling is retired former WWE champion, tag team champ, hardcore legend and best-selling author Mick Foley, also known by his ring names 'Cactus Jack', 'Mankind' and 'Dude Love'. Foley got his start wrestling at Ward Melville High School in Suffolk County, New York as one of two heavyweights on the team. One of his wrestling teammates (specifically, the other heavyweight) went on to do some pretty cool stuff too, starring in such comic films as the 'Grown-Ups' series, 'I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry' and 'Paul Blart, Mall Cop'. Who was Mick Foley's wrestling teammate that later became an actor?

Answer: Kevin James

Born Kevin Knipfing, James began doing standup comedy in 1989, moving to MTV in 1996 as an announcer for a sports show. His later appearances on 'Everybody Loves Raymond' garnered him his own show, 'The King Of Queens' in 1998. James' first movie role was as a client of Alex Hitchens (Will Smith) in 2005's 'Hitch'.

In a 2013 interview with Katie Couric, Foley recalled James as 'one of the toughest guys is school' and one of only two people who could bench press 300 pounds. James remembered Foley as 'the nicest guy in the world, but also the craziest'.

3. One of the biggest stars of the early days of WCW (then called Georgia Championship Wrestling) was the masked phenom Johnny Walker, known as Mr. Wrestling II (having inherited the title from the original Mr. Wrestling, Tim Woods). So popular was he that one of his biggest fans would later become President of the United States. Which president was he?

Answer: Jimmy Carter

Since WCW came through the offices of Superstation WTBS in Atlanta, Georgia, it stood to reason that all things Georgian would fall under the auspices of then-governor Carter. In fact, not only was he a big fan, but so was his mother, the fabled 'Miss Lillian' Carter.

There is a famous photograph of the 39th President with a headlock on Mr. Wrestling II. Walker was, in fact, invited to Carter's inauguration, but declined when he found out he would have to take his mask off for security purposes.

4. NFL Hall of Famer Warren Sapp spent the majority of his prime as the most feared man of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense, garnering one Super Bowl ring in 2003 and seven times a member of the Pro Bowl before closing his career with the Oakland Raiders. Sapp was also a consensus All-American when he started for the University of Miami Hurricanes in the 1980s, but to do that, he had to step in for another All-American defensive tackle who hurt his knee. The injured player took his athletic prowess to the WWE to become one of the biggest names of the 'Attitude Era' and a later Hollywood movie career. Who was the injured player?

Answer: The Rock

Dwayne Johnson, son of WWE legend Rocky Johnson and grandson of 'Lord High Chief' Peter Maivia, originally took the wrestling name 'Rocky Maivia' before achieving fame as simply 'The Rock'. Through his mother's side of the family, Dwayne is also related to the original Samoans, Afa and Sika, as well as Rikishi (Solofa Fatu) and his sons, Jimmy and Jey Uso, and the late Yokozuna (Rodney Anoi). The Rock has appeared on television and in movies.

Hogan (Terry Bollea) and Piper (Roderick Toombs) never played college football, while Simmons, who became the first black heavyweight champion for WCW in 1993, achieved All-American status at rival Florida State.

5. One of the most imposing wrestlers is the business, wearing a mask or not, is the seven-feet-tall 'Big Red Machine' Kane (Glenn Jacobs). He first entered the WWE as Isaac Yankem, DDS, Jerry Lawler's personal dentist, before assuming the role of the fictional younger brother of the Undertaker (Mark Calloway). Among his numerous matches includes a series of run-ins against a sports legend who would have his own corner of the Baseball Hall of Fame if it weren't for some very bad personal decisions. Who is this star-crossed superstar?

Answer: Pete Rose

The man known as 'Charlie Hustle' has held several Major League Baseball records from his heyday with the Cincinnati Reds, but was suspended indefinitely in 1989 by MLB commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti (and upheld by his replacements, Faye Vincent and Bud Selig) for gambling while a player, and later as manager of the Reds. The suspension also kept him out of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The WWE invited Rose to be a guest ring announcer at Wrestlemania 14 for the match between Kane and the Undertaker. Rose would be on the receiving end of a piledriver from Kane. The following year, Rose tried to get some revenge on Kane, entering the ring dressed in a chicken outfit. Again, he would get a piledriver. For his troubles, Rose was invited to (and accepted) a place in the Celebrity Wing of the WWE Hall of Fame in 2004.

6. When the legendary wrestler Andre the Giant (1946-1993) was growing up in Grenoble, France, his acromegaly (a condition of the pituitary gland that causes unchecked growth) prevented him from riding the bus to the local school. That job fell to a neighbor, who just happened to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969...and own a big truck. Which director and playwright was Andre the Giant's neighbor?

Answer: Samuel Beckett

Andre's father, Boris Rousimoff, helped build a cottage for Beckett, the author of 'Waiting for Godot' and 'Endgame', among a slew of other classic works. According to Andre, Beckett and Boris would play cards games on a regular basis. When he heard about Andre's dilemma, Beckett got out his truck and made the morning rounds. Andre went on to add all he and Samuel Beckett ever talked about was the game of cricket.

7. Few can match the incredible heat (crowd reaction) generated by Memphis' 'King of Wrestling', Jerry Lawler. Throughout his storied career, he fought the greats and near-greats to countless sold-out crowds. One of his most famous rivals was not a wrestler at all, but a television actor and stand-up comedian who took the feud from Memphis to the desk of David Letterman in New York. Who was this wrestling wanna-be?

Answer: Andy Kaufman

Actor Kaufman (1949-1984) was a standout in the early years of 'Saturday Night Live' before becoming a regular on the comedy series 'Taxi'. He was already performing skits as the 'Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion', but would wrestle only women. Kaufman sought out 'Pro Wrestling Illustrated' magazine photojournalist Bill Apter, who introduced him to Lawler, and a plan was formed.

The feud culminated with the infamous appearance on Letterman's show, where Lawler slapped Kaufman to the floor. Most of the questions of the feud were finally answered in the 1999 film 'Man On The Moon', a biopic of Kaufman's life made 15 years after his death.

In one scene, both Kaufman (played by Jim Carrey) and Lawler (playing himself) revealed the whole thing was planned and they were actually very good friends. Kaufman also got into a famous scuffle with Richards, at the time a cast member on the late-night variety show 'Fridays'.

This was also later revealed to be pre-arranged.

8. A giant among wrestlers who became managers was the infamous 'Captain' Lou Albano (1933-2009). In the early '80s, he considerably softened his usual loud bragging by striking up a friendship with a young singer who was then hitting the charts with 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' and 'True Colors', before forming the basis of what would be called the Rock-and-Wrestling Connection. Who was the singer?

Answer: Cyndi Lauper

Lauper and Albano were truly the odd couple, she with her rainbow hair, mismatched clothes and Bronx honk and he with the scraggly peppered beard punctuated by a rubber band pinned to his cheek. Albano often appeared in Lauper's videos (as her father), and was soon joined in subsequent videos by other wrestlers like Roddy Piper, Freddie Blassie and Wendi Richter. Lauper and Albano were instrumental in introducing the MTV crowd to the pro wrestling scene, which culminated in the first 'Wrestlemania' in 1985. Lauper, emulating her mentor Albano, would manage Richter to win the WWE Women's Championship from Leilani Kai.

9. If it can be said there is a wrestling family, its name would be Anoa'i. Brothers Afa and Sika were known as the 'Wild Samoans', one of the most respected tag teams in the business. Both have trained wrestlers at the Wild Samoan Training Center in Mineola, Florida. Among their students was a former boxer-turned-actor trying to get a floundering career on track and learn wrestling for a movie. He wound up getting an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in 2009. Who was the actor?

Answer: Mickey Rourke

After hit movies like 'Diner', 'Barfly' and 'Angel Heart', Rourke was sliding down with a series of public break-ups with girlfriends and some badly-advised plastic surgery. At first, he was not interested in Robert D. Siegel's script for a film project called 'The Wrestler', but the longer he trained and watched videos, the more he appreciated what wrestlers actually go through in life.

While he lost the Oscar to Sean Penn's role in 'Milk', he did get a Golden Globe and an BAFTA, the British equivalent of an Oscar, as over-the-hill wrestler Randy 'The Ram' Robinson.

10. WWE star David Otunga seems to have everything in control. One of the last members of 'NXT' to join the fledgling group 'The Nexus' with Daniel Bryan, Wade Barrett, Skip 'Ryback' Sheffield and others, he would also be one of the few wrestlers who graduated from Harvard University (Christopher Nowinski was another). In 2009, Otunga became a father with what Oscar-winning actress?

Answer: Jennifer Hudson

While Barrino came out as the winner of Season Three of 'American Idol', it was Hudson, the sixth runner-up, who would go on to win a Grammy for her debut album and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2006's 'Dreamgirls' in a role made famous on Broadway by the Tony-winning performance of Jennifer Holliday.

Source: Author Oddball

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor Pagiedamon before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

You tend to think of pro wrestlers as living in their own little world, but they do go out at times...and with people who are famous in other areas like entertainment, politics, etc. So the question is...who is schmoozing with whom?

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