When you think of some of the greatest stables in wrestling history, the NWO certainly comes to mind as do the Four Horseman, the Hart Foundation, the Heenan Family, and numerous others. One common theme in all of those factions is that they were heels and united to take down a top babyface or a group of faces. The New World Order in particular attempted to take over WCW as a whole and spawned one of the greatest heel factions in wrestling history. But there was an outlier in the group and that was the NWO Wolfpack who was the first and only incarnation of the group to wrestle as faces.
With their red and black colors, the NWO Wolfpack looked different than all other sub-groups of the NWO and with the likes of Konnan and Scott Hall; the NWO Wolfpack talked differently than all other NWO incarnations. Their main purpose was to take down NWO Hollywood and its leaders, Hulk Hogan and Scott Steiner. Unlike the NWO as a whole, which consisted of an astounding 62 members, the Wolfpack had 10 members throughout its entire run from May 1998 thru January 1999. Some of these were the biggest names in the world such as Kevin Nash, Sting, and Lex Luger. In addition to being some of the biggest names inside the ring, the Wolfpack also had some of the most interesting personal lives outside of the squared circle. We will explore some of the relationships as we look back at the 15 things you didn’t know about the relationships of the NWO Wolfpack.
15 15. Kevin Nash Has Been Married For 29 Years
By the late 1980s Kevin Nash’s pro basketball career had ended and he had shifted from being a strip club manager to a professional wrestler. It was also around this time that he married his wife, Tamara, who he still remains wed to this day. The two have survived many ups and downs including a separation in 2000. This came after the NWO Wolfpack had dissolved and Nash was a member of the last WCW incarnation of the NWO, the NWO 2000. They managed to get through this rough stretch and are now approaching 30 years as husband and wife which probably seems like 60 years in the wrestling business.
Despite his playboy personality, Kevin has remained committed to the married life and the Nash’s reside in Daytona Beach, Florida. They also have one son together, Tristen, who was born on June 12, 1996 which is two days after Nash made his return to WCW as a member of the Outsiders.
14 14. Savage Dated A Stripper Who Was 24 Years Younger Than Him
Savage underwent a mid-life crisis before our very eyes during 1999 as he sported a new look with a slicked-back ponytail and earrings and he also sported a new, younger girlfriend in Stephanie Bellars AKA Gorgeous George. Savage and George had met two years earlier when the then-45-year old wrestler noticed the then-21-year-old stripper at a gentlemen's club. They soon began dating and then helped form Team Madness upon Savage’s return to WCW. They would break up just a few months later and George would pop up briefly in ECW. She then returned to stripping for a while and appeared in a pornographic video that made the rounds on the internet in the early 2000s.
In 2001 she married Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein who was the former guitarist for the rock band, The Misfits. The two were together for a dozen years before divorcing in 2013.
13 13. Despite Being “Ravishing”, Rick Rude Was A Devoted Husband
Sometimes a wrestler’s gimmick is similar to his real-life personality such as Shawn Michaels during his Heartbreak Kid days. Other times, like with Ravishing Rick Rude, the gimmick couldn’t be any more different than the man himself. Despite having a wrestling gimmick which screamed womanizer, Rude was a devoted family man and other wrestlers took notice. Rude’s first marriage came in his early 20s and lasted just two years but he married again to a lady named Michelle and that lasted from 1988 until Rude’s death in 1999.
Bret Hart often tells two stories which point to Rude’s loyalty both to his profession and to his family. One is that Rude witnessed the Montreal Screwjob, was disgusted at how Vince McMahon treated Hart, and called Eric Bischoff while in the locker room to vouch that Hart was screwed and this was no worked-shoot. The other thing Hart often mentions about Rude is that he never took off his wedding ring while wrestling and preferred to just cover it up with a piece of tape.
12 12. Scott Hall’s Drug Use Led To His First Divorce
Hall’s use of drugs and alcohol are well-known and just this decade he’s been in and out of WWE-sponsored rehab, admitted to a hospital for overdosing on opiates, and arrested for disorderly conduct while under the influence of alcohol. One can only imagine what things were like when Hall was making 7 figures per year in the late 1990s with WCW. Actually, we don’t have to imagine as we saw on a Nitro that Hall was visibly drunk and vomited on Eric Bischoff in a scene of art imitating life. In 1998 WCW sent Hall to rehab and it was also around this time that Hall’s wife, Dana, divorced him after eight years of marriage due to his alcohol and drug use. They would remarry in 1999 but then divorced again in 2001 as Hall had (and has continued to have) several relapses with drugs. Hall was later married to a woman named Jessica Hart in 2006 but that marriage was also short-lived and lasted just one year.
11 11. Nash Posted A Nude Photo Of A Fitness Model On His Twitter Account
Just because Nash is married doesn’t mean he’s 100% faithful to his wife, Tamara. That’s what one can conclude when in 2015 a nude selfie of a fitness model ended up posted to Nash’s Twitter account. The woman in the picture was revealed to be a 53-year-old fitness model named Jennifer Micheli who had tweeted with Nash before. Even though the geo-location of the tweet just happened to coincide with where Nash was at the time for a WWE appearance, he claimed that his account was hacked. In the photo Micheli was laying on her stomach on a bed with one foot on the floor and the other on the bed. She was also holding a smartphone and apparently looking backwards at a mirror and taking the selfie. That’s the best I can describe the photo though I’m sure you could see it for yourself with some internet digging.
Besides saying his account was hacked, Nash never commented on the matter but one can only assume what happened between he and a naked woman in his hotel.
10 10. Randy Savage And Miss Elizabeth Were Divorced Despite Appearing Together In WCW
With all due respect to Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, the greatest marriage in wrestling history is that of Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth. The two were married in 1984 and then debuted in the WWF in 1985. Their marriage lasted about as long as their tenure with the McMahons as they would divorce in 1992 which is right when Elizabeth left the WWE. Savage would leave two years later but the two divorcees would be reunited in WCW in 1996. Just as in WWE, Liz was often paired in storylines with Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan when she wasn’t by Savage’s side.
Although most people know that Liz was married to Savage and was later involved in a relationship with Lex Luger; she was actually married in between the two to an attorney in Miami. She divorced him in 1999 and shortly before entering a relationship with Luger.
9 9. Lex Luger Cheated On His Wife With Miss Elizabeth
In 1979 Luger was still chasing his football dream and played in the CFL for the Montreal Alouettes after getting kicked off the football team at the University of Miami. ’79 was also the year the then-21-year-old Luger married Peggy Fulbright and the two couple would stay together for 24 years before divorcing in 2003. They had two kids together and both would go on to be athletes: son, Brian, was a basketball player at Mercer University and daughter, Lauren, was a swimmer at Tulane. The biggest reason for the divorce was that Luger had been openly dating Miss Elizabeth who was also his manager in WCW starting in 1999.
Luger admitted to having a home with his wife and kids in Duluth, Georgia and a townhouse with Elizabeth in Marrieta. In fact the ink on the divorce papers wasn’t even dry yet by the time Luger was involved in a domestic dispute with Elizabeth in April 2003. Peggy still lives in the Atlanta area today and works in real estate.
8 8. Nash And His Son Were Arrested On Christmas Eve In A Fight Also Involving His Wife
The 2015 Christmas won’t go down as a memorable one for the Nash Family. First, Nash’s 18-year-old son, Tristen, came home drunk and got into a physical altercation with his mother, Tamara. That’s when Nash stepped in to defend his wife against his son and both Kevin and Tristen ended up in a bloody fight. The cops were called and Kevin was arrested as the police deemed him to be the aggressor which is unsurprising considering he’s 7-feet tall and was 55 years old while his son was barely legal. Tristen even told police his dad chokeslammed him during the fight though there was no snake eyes or jackknife powerbomb…But there’s more! Just two hours later police were then called to the home and arrested Tristen after he allegedly slung his mom around the kitchen before being restrained by his uncle. Tristen was then taken into custody for battery so both father and son spent Christmas Eve in jail. Kevin Nash’s charges were later dropped as it was ruled that he was only defending his wife against his son.
7 7. Sting Admitted To Cheating On His Then-Wife When He Became A Born-Again Christian
Stop me when you’ve heard this before: A wrestler who came up in the 1980s and 1990s who was addicted to drugs and committed numerous extramarital affairs…That could be the back-story for just about every wrestler but Sting’s story ended with him becoming a born-again Christian in 1998. Sting and his first wife, Sue, were married in the late 80s and had three kids together. Without this rebirth, their marriage may have failed as Sue would say that Sting was a complete mess at the time. He admitted to doing steroids and being addicted to painkillers but that, along with sleeping around, stopped in 1998 and Sting and Sue would remain together for another 12 years. The two would ultimately divorce in 2010 and Sting would remarry to a personal trainer by the name of Sabine in 2015.
6 6. Hall Was Arrested For Domestic Abuse After Allegedly Choking His Girlfriend
In 2012 Hall was in between his part-time employment with TNA and WWE and was caught up in a domestic disturbance outside his Florida home. According to his girlfriend Lisa Howell, Hall had been drinking for days and got into an argument with Howell. She says she then got into her car at which Hall grabbed her by the neck, choked her, and tried to pull her out the car. She called the police and when they arrived they noticed an unknown white secretion coming out both sides of his mouth, saw the red marks around Howell’s neck, and arrested Hall.
He was then so intoxicated that he was sent to a drunk tank before being booked on domestic violence. However, Howell refused to press charges and said this was a big misunderstanding and the charges were dropped. It is unknown if Hall and Howell are still together.
5 5. Savage’s Second Wife Was Someone He Dated Before Marrying Miss Elizabeth
Back in 1972 Randy Savage was known by his real name, Randy Poffo, and was a minor league baseball player in Florida. On an off-day he was strolling on a beach and first met Barbara Lynn Payne who was two years his junior. They dated for three years before going their separate ways and Savage’s way was a future in professional wrestling as well as an infamous marriage to Miss Elizabeth.
After 30 years apart, Savage and Payne rekindled their relationship and were married in 2010 on that very same beach in which they first met. Savage never had any kids of his own but he became stepfather to Layne’s two children. One year later on May 10, 2011, Randy and Barbara celebrated their one year anniversary but unfortunately, they wouldn’t make it to year two. Just 10 days after celebrating their anniversary, Savage died of heart disease while driving in Florida with his wife, who survived a car accident with minor bruises.
4 4. Dusty Rhodes’ Was Married Nearly His Entire Pro Wrestling Career
If you blinked, you might have missed the American Dream’s time in the Wolfpack as he was only in the red and black for a matter of weeks before switching sides and joining NWO Hollywood. However, Rhodes’ relationships lasted much longer as he was first married at 20 years old in 1965 to a lady named Sandra who gave birth to Dustin “Goldust” Rhodes and Kristin Runnels who became a cheerleader for the Dallas Cowboys. After divorcing Sandra in 1975, he then married Michelle Rubio in 1978 and she is the mother of Cody Rhodes and his sister, Teil. Dusty and Michelle would remain together until Dusty’s death from stomach cancer in 2015. In total, Rhodes was married for 47 years which is even longer than his legendary pro career which stretched 40 years from 1967-2007.
3 3. Hall Had An Affair With A TNT Production Assistant That Led To His Release
During his second marriage to his first wife, Hall admitted to having an affair with a TNT production assistant whose uncle just happened to be TNT president, Brad Siegel. When Hall went on tour with WCW to some shows in England in 2000, he then hooked up with an ex-girlfriend that happened to work at the hotel the wrestlers were staying at. According to Hall in a Shoot Interview, the PA walked in on Hall with his hotel mistress and, as a result, he was told to not even bother boarding the plane back to the United States. To make matters worse, the PA then told Uncle Brad about the situation which effectively ended Hall’s tenure with WCW. True enough, Hall never wrestled another match in WCW after this incident in England.
2 2. Miss Elizabeth Re-married After Her Divorce From Randy Savage
The only female member of the NWO Wolfpack, Miss Elizabeth was formerly married to Randy Savage and was in a relationship with Lex Luger at the time of her death in 2003. In between that, she moved to Miami, attempted to have a “normal” life that didn’t involve being on the road 200 days a year, and managed a women’s boutique shop. Through a mutual friend, she then met Cary Lubetsky who was an attorney in South Florida and the two married in a Cuban Hebrew Temple in 1997. However, the allure of the wrestling world was too much for Liz and she was re-hired by WCW full-time. The strain of being away from home so often was too much for the newly-married couple and they would soon separate and then divorce in April 1999. This was also around the time that Liz began managing Lex Luger and they would eventually begin dating even though Luger was married at the time. We all know what unfortunately happened next for Miss Elizabeth.
1 1. Luger’s Girlfriend, Miss Elizabeth, Died In His Arms After Overdosing
Luger admitted to doing steroids throughout his football and wrestling careers, but by the early 2000s he was into hardcore drugs. A two-week stretch in 2003 would be the lowest point in his career as his involvement with drugs and alcohol led to the death of his girlfriend, Miss Elizabeth. On April 19 Luger was arrested for battery for striking Liz in the face but was not imprisoned and was released on bond. Two days later he received a DUI and was also driving on a suspended license with Liz besides him in the passenger seat. Then, just 10 days later, and after a binge on drugs, Miss Elizabeth died in Luger’s townhouse after mixing pills and vodka.
A search of Luger’s home also turned up steroids, growth hormone, and testosterone and he was charged with 13 felony counts of drug possession. It’s somewhat shocking that Luger was able to survive and after becoming a born-again Christian in 2006, he looked back on this period in his life and said “I could have overdosed at any time. It is a miracle of God that I survived during that period of time."