Dave Meltzer has finally weighed in on the controversy with Dawn Marie's Wrestlers Rescue

by Keith Harris on Aug 15, 2010 6:50 PM EDT

Did "Dr Death" Steve Williams get a fair share of the proceeds from Dawn Marie's charity drive for him?

Almost a month ago, I mentioned on Cageside Seats that Irv Muchnick had exposed Dawn Marie Damatta to not be as charitable as she purported to be in the New York Times. A lot has happened in the meantime. Dawn Marie has written an open letter defending herself against accusations that her organisation Wrestlers Rescue is not completely on the up and up. But then suspiciously decided to sick her lawyers on the people who raised the genuine concerns, Mike Aldren and Irv Muchnick. The wrestling community has largely leapt to her defense, such as Missy Hyatt and Lance Storm, despite the worrying lack of transparency behind her project. Meanwhile, the wrestling media largely kept quiet about the controversy.

The queen bee of the wrestling media, Dave Meltzer, finally broke his silence on the August 12th Wrestling Observer Radio Show:

Dave Meltzer: The only thing I know about Dawn Marie is that she spent, or her foundation, did donate three thousand dollars to Steve Williams and the reason they didn't do, that Steve didn't get a voice box is because Steve was terminally ill and he instead asked that the money that was raised to be used to pay his astronomical medical bills, so that's what they did. So it's not like he never got any money. The deal was she didn't give the money to him, she paid the money to the hospital to help defray his huge medical bills, which is what he asked for her to do.

Bryan Alvarez: So that pretty much settles that. It's been talked about for a while now and very, very good stuff that has come out of that...

Dave Meltzer: I mean there's more, but that's the gist, cos I mean that was the thing that everyone was calling into question.... I talked to a couple of friends of Steve Williams and they all have the same story that Steve had told him that directly and so I'm relatively certain that it's true.

I'm not so sure I'm as naive as Bryan Alvarez to believe that Dave Meltzer's second hand sources "pretty much settles" the whole controversy. We still do not know how much Dawn Marie's organisation Wrestlers Rescue collected in total for "Dr Death" Steve Williams and whether she gave him a fair share of the proceeds. If she had absolutely nothing to hide and had only managed to raise $3,000 for him, then why all the lack of transparency and why did she immediately sick her lawyers on Mike Aldren and Irv Muchnick as soon as their concerns became public, instead of providing them with evidence that their concerns were misplaced?

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There is a bunch of suspicious stuff going on here. And the $3000 to Williams hardly settles it.

-Speaking of Williams,while she may have given him some money. Mike Aldren is claiming she told him she was going to give the left over cash to Steve’s family. Never happened.

-I also find it a bit weird that for all the stuff they did for Steve Williams (and he was like their major beneficiary for years) all he ever got was $3000. That’s all? All the fundraisers and publicity and you’d think he’d have gotten way more. And he’s still the only person they’ve been known to have helped. And this is after, what? 3 or 4 years of fundraisers and collecting non-stop memorobilia from people in the business?

-Dawn Marie will threaten to sue everyone, but for some reason, won’t open up her books or name examples of anyone she’s helped. I’ve also heard from people who’ve spoken to her, that she is incredibly vague when talking about wrestlers rescue at conventions.

-Former WWE announcer Michael Porter’s talked about his experience in dealing with Dawn Marie, and it was pretty damning: him and his former manager told Porter needed money for rent, so she ran a collection on the official website (although she later expunged any hint of Porter from the website) and the manager spoke to a bunch of wrestlers who said they sent stuff. Porter never gets his rent money, gets evicted and Dawn Marie swears blind all she ever sent anything.

-Terri Runnell’s involvement. Dawn’s has said herself Terri has been involved in wrestlers rescue since “day one”. Check out Terri’s housing/essay scam from a few years ago.

-Additionally, the only other official thing they’ve ever done, besides Williams, is raise $500 to send Terri (who they claim needs help because she’s a single mother) to England to meet an obese fan. But I thought it was “wrestlers’s rescue”, not “obese fan rescue”.

Her only defence is she’s too dumb to run this, and incredibly stupid with paperwork. Except she’s shown herself to be very savvy and manipulatuve at certain points.

by S.Bruce on Aug 16, 2010 10:50 AM EDT reply actions 2 recs