PlaguePJP: XLI

by PlaguePJP

SCP-8598 — The Sharpshooter

Item#: 8598

Containment Class: neutralized

Secondary Class: {$secondary-class}

Disruption Class: {$disruption-class}

Risk Class: {$risk-class}

SCP-8598.

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-8598 is neutralized. No containment procedures are necessary.

SCP-8598.

Description: SCP-8598 is professional wrestler and reality bender Gary Moreno.

SCP-8598 performed between 1966 and 1974, beginning in Japan and ending in the burgeoning World Wide Wrestling Federation. He gained fame as "Jerry 'Sharpshooter' Roulette," a heel1 outlaw bounty hunter chasing 'bounties' and the world championship.

After a car accident in 1973, SCP-8598's anomalous properties began manifesting; this coincided with the development of major depressive disorder, theorized schizophrenia, alcoholism, and drug addiction. SCP-8598 began living solely as Jerry "Sharpshooter" Roulette, which included wearing his wrestling gear any time he was in public, ignoring or lashing out at mentions of his legal name, hunting fugitives as a vigilante, and having professional wrestling matches with members of the public.

Persons close to the subject describe this switch as SCP-8598 engrossing himself in Kayfabe.2 In short, SCP-8598's frame of reality was through the character of Jerry "Sharpshooter" Roulette, and all events within his life would be altered by his reality warping capabilities to ensure that experience.

Addendum 8598.1: Early Career and Time in the World Wide Wrestling Federation

SCP-8598 was born in 1942 in El Paso, Texas. At 18, SCP-8598 joined the Dallas Cowboys practice squad but was released less than a year later after a career-ending knee injury. SCP-8598's trainer recommended that he pursue professional wrestling, and he enrolled at the same wrestling academy as his childhood friend Larry Hennig.

SCP-8598 wrestled in Japan for the International Wrestling Enterprise promotion under the pseudonym "Jack 'The Gunslinger' Roulette." In Kayfabe, SCP-8598 was promoted as a heel, donning the character of an outlaw bounty hunter chasing the promotion's top championship. Initially, SCP-8598 was placed in a tag team with Larry Henig, and the pair would win the IWE Tag Team Champtionship. The team would split in 1969 when SCP-8598 attacked Hennig in the ring as part of a story line. Later that year, SCP-8598 would defeat then-Champion Antonio Inoki and win the title.

The following is a segment from the testimony of Jim Cornette, a former scriptwriter for the World Wrestling Federation and professional wrestling historian.

Jim Cornette.

Cornette: Well, he was before my time, I’ll tell you that. Everything I knew about the guy came from Gong Magazine, with the big, glossy photos done up by Koichi Yoshizawa. And at the time, that was one of the only outlets for American fans to catch what was going on in Japan. But yes, I was aware of the Gunslinger. And he had it all! The star-power, the aura, whatever you want to call it. You’d see a black-and-white, two-fold spread of the guy doing a side headlock and he could’ve jumped out of the page and fucking goozled you just for staring too long!

So he looks like a million bucks, he’s able to work a goddamn match, and he’s getting coverage all the way across the world. He should be a superstar! You’re probably thinking, what the fuck’s the issue?

Problem was, these Japanese fans, they kept fucking cheering for the guy. And back in the day, that was unheard of for a heel. You’d bring a gaijin in to be booed— the foreign heel, it’s easy heat! So what do you do when your bad guy’s getting cheers like a good guy? You fucking turn him face. Except, Yoshihara — the booker — he didn’t want that. So they sent him back to the States, got him strapped in with the WWWF, and told Vince Sr. that he was his problem now.

After losing the title back to Inoki in 1970, SCP-8598 signed with the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF).3 The WWWF renamed SCP-8598 to Sharpshooter Jerry Roulette and his character remained largely unchanged. While the IWE booked SCP-8598 as the top heel, the WWWF used SCP-8598 as a stepping stone for babyface wrestlers to overcome before fighting for the championship, leaving him lingering in the midcard4 and not reaching the height he did in the IWE.

Cornette: Things petered out. He got pushes, but they were on and off. And the WWWF was running monthly shows— you don’t get booked every month, there was no guarantee the crowd would remember you the next go around. Being a foreigner in front of a Japanese crowd made you an attraction. Over here, when you’re next to guys like Bruno Sammartino and Chief Jay Strongbow, you need to grab one big-ass stepstool to stand out.

And that fucked with him. Not getting the same type of reactions he did in Japan, not moving up the card. WWWF was a babyface promotion— top heels were locked in programs with top faces for months on end. Not a lot of mobility. So there was a lot of downtime for a guy to get shitfaced in every bar in the northeastern corridor.

SCP-8598's girlfriend, Catherine Hobbs, gave birth to twins in December of 1970. The pair would later marry and have a third child by the end of 1971. SCP-8598 floated around the midcard of the WWWF in 1972, and had an upcoming contract negotiation that September.

Cornette: You have these kids coming in, great shape, good looks, making more money than they thought they ever would, and they're going out and meeting these girls et cetera, et cetera. A baby pops out nine months later, and now, they say, "fucking shit!" because now this profession where you were fucking around with your buddies and traveling the country has to feed a family.

Jim Cornette, suspended in a shark cage as part of an on-screen wrestling angle.

He has this contract negotiation coming up. He wants to stay close to his wife and kids, so he's not shopping around at these other territories, and again, he's not a draw. It just so happened, at the time, that one of Shooter's good friends, Ivan Koloff, was champion. So you have Koloff, this three-hundred-some-odd pound Canadian with a sickle and hammer tattooed on his arm pretending to be a Russian, and he's the top heel for about a year at this point.

Bruno Sammartino is booked for the opportunity to fight Koloff for the title, but Bruno ends up snapping his fucking femur in half. So now, Vince Sr. is scrambling for a new all-American, apple pie-eating babyface that will defeat the Reds and bring the title back to the US of A. What do you do now? Vince looks around, thinking, and remembers he has a 300-pound cowboy with whom he's done squat. He finally got his push.

Following Bruno Sammartino's injury in August of 1972, SCP-8598 successfully beat Pedro Morales in a contendership match, which landed him a chance for the championship. The next week, SCP-8598's contract negotiation occurred, and he was resigned for $250,000 per year and booked to win the title from Koloff at the next event in November.

Cornette: He gets two-hundred fifty grand in 1972, he's booked to be a top champion in a few months, and he's signed for another four years. Knowing he has four mouths to feed, the first purchase he makes is an eighty-thousand-dollar racehorse. I can't fathom it! He'd use it in place of a car. He, (Chuckles), he would ride it backstage and Vince Sr. slipped in a puddle of its piss. He wasn't allowed to bring it around the arenas anymore after that. He starts riding it around on the street late at night, saying it helps get him into character.

These were the things you dealt with with character performers. The real dedicated ones want to make themselves their characters as much as possible. It helps sell the business. If I went up to Shooter on the street and he turned to me and said, 'How ya doing, buddy, the name's Gary,' I'd probably never watch again.

Things like this were not exactly promoted, but they were accepted. And then, you know, he— he took it too far.

SCP-8598.

SCP-8598 purchased a racehorse named Alto Soprano after signing his renewed contract. One week before his scheduled championship match, SCP-8598 rode his horse down a residential street. At an intersection, SCP-8598 was struck by a vehicle, killing the horse and grievously injuring him. He was subsequently moved out of the title match and replaced by Morales.

Addendum 8598.2: Injury and Anomalous Phenomenon

SCP-8598's left femur was shattered to the point doctors initially thought the leg would have to be amputated. He also suffered a broken collarbone, a skull fracture, a major concussion, and fluid build-up in the brain. Luckily, the leg did not have to be amputated and steel plates were bolted into it instead. Doctors told SCP-8598 that he would likely not be able to wrestle again, or even run, and gave him a timeframe of eighteen months before he could walk again.

The painkiller medication SCP-8598 received as part of his treatment quickly became an addiction and compounded with his preexisting alcoholic tendencies.

The following is a segment from the testimony of Catherine Moreno, the wife of SCP-8598.

Moreno: It broke him. It really, really broke him. He used to just sit in his wheelchair and stare out the window of our bedroom, mumbling to himself.

The WWWF took care of all of the medical bills; he probably would've never walked again if they didn't pay for the physical therapy. He made really good progress, but — he reached such a height early in his career, and he spent the rest of his time chasing after it. The fact he got so close to winning the championship at the biggest territory — finally getting that push to the top — and losing it because of some dumb decision destroyed him.

He barely said a word to me in that first six months. He would shake his empty bottle of whiskey in my direction when he wanted a new one, and that was the most of our communication. I wasn't in a position to really stop that. He was hurting, and if liquor made it feel the slightest bit better I wasn't going to take that away.

(Pause.)

I wish I did.

Lague: Did he start improving at any point?

Moreno: In a vacuum, he did. He started walking with crutches about six months after his injury. He only mumbled to himself still. I kept the kids away as much as I could, and we had the guaranteed money he signed for, so it wasn't like he needed to get back, but he wanted to. Around the seven month mark was when I noticed he was losing it. I was yelling across the house for him; 'Gary,' I said. Then I hear something shatter in our bedroom, so I run up. He's waiting for me, standing straight without any crutches in his full Sharpshooter outfit and asks me 'What's my goddamn name?'

I said 'Gary, you're drunk.' and he charged over to me and asked that question again, 'What's my goddamn name?' I didn't answer; I was scared. He looms over me and, through gritted teeth, says, 'I'm the Sharpshooter Jerry Roulette,' and leaves the house.

Lague: Was there any abuse?

Moreno: No, no, he never hit me or even shouted at me other than this one time. I don't know what it was, but the character Jerry Roulette became who Gary was, and Jerry was a heel. He was so sweet and loving to me and the kids. But he put on that hat and that coat, and he'd lose that part of him. He had the wherewithal to keep it out of the house.

SCP-8598's mental health issues and anomalous capabilities reared their head following the injury. Despite being unable to walk, whenever SCP-8598 wore his ring gear, his injuries healed and he returned to a performance-ready state. He made a drunken, unannounced appearance backstage during a WWWF event only to be escorted out and ordered to remain home until he was fully healed.

SCP-8598's reality warping manifested in the world around him being affected by Kayfabe. Any altercations between SCP-8598 and members of the public became official professional wrestling matches. His theme music would play upon him entering any location, and his official records would be updated to reflect the events in his life.

Hennig: He was fucked up. It— it was sad to see; really sad. I became estranged from him for that reason. Once, he showed up at my hotel room in full gear, like he was ready to wrestle then and there. He was mumbling and slurring his words — I thought he was drunk, and I knew that the best course of action in dealing with a drunk Shooter was to get him cooled down and put him to bed. I had him take his coat and hat off, and I saw the needle marks in his arm.

I told him to leave, I wasn't going to deal with that. He kept repeating himself, 'The hangman needs his dues, the hangman needs his dues.' Real sad shit. I just couldn't deal with it. I had my wife in the room. I— I couldn't do it. I called Vince Sr. and told him Shooter needs an intervention fast. We organized it, all this stuff, and he shows up in his gear. We tried to sit him down, and I made the mistake of calling him Gary. He picks me up and throws me against the wall, then pins me and wins our match.

He turns to the group and, I'll never forget, says, 'God sends traitors to the twelfth circle, but the devil sends traitors to me. I have your bounties, and I hate keeping the hangman waiting.'

In another incident, SCP-8598 approached five would-be robbers attempting to mug an unknown man. The robbers turned their attention to SCP-8598 and pointed their weapons at him. In turn, SCP-8598 began cutting a promo,5 ending with his catchphrase, "Dead or alive. Step in this ring, and you'll go home cold." Simultaneously, one of the robbers, John McLeary, had climbed on top of a dumpster and performed a frog splash onto SCP-8598. The other four attempted robbers then ambushed SCP-8598. At a certain point, a referee was brought to the street and began officiating.

SCP-8598 would win by hitting five bodyslams on each of the attackers, pinning all five in a stack. None of them had any wrestling training or recollection of their "matches" from when they attacked to being pinned.

The following is a segment from the testimony of Oreal "Ivan Koloff" Perras, a former wrestler and tag team partner of SCP-8598.

Oreal "Ivan Koloff" Perras.

Lague: A gorilla?

Perras: Yes.

Lague: How is that possible?

Perras: There was a police report about Shooter trespassing at the Philadelphia Zoo. At 3 AM, he was found in his gear outside the gorilla enclosure, microphone in hand, cutting a promo on them. The next night, two zookeepers saw him inside the enclosure, and he walked out uninjured.

Lague: So from that, you're extrapolating that he wrestled a gorilla.

Perras: No, my friend. He wrestled a gorilla and won.

SCP-8598.

In 1973, WWWF doctors deemed SCP-8598 healthy enough to compete. During a contract extension negotiation with the WWWF, SCP-8598 threatened to hogtie and drag Vincent J. McMahon behind his horse "until the sun charred [his] skin" due to a perceived lowball offer. Despite this, WWWF management wrote this off as SCP-8598 remaining in character, and the contract was signed.

SCP-8598 was pushed back to the main event scene following his return. After attacking Koloff in an on-screen segment at the Boston Garden, SCP-8598 stole his spot in a championship contendership match. During his entrance, SCP-8598 was attacked by a knife-wielding fan. Despite the gash slicing the femoral artery and SCP-8598 losing enough blood to expire, he continued to the ring. The attendee, 17-year-old Gregory Kaplin, jumped the barricade, climbed into the ring, and began performing multiple wrestling moves on SCP-8598. Kaplin was notably overweight and never had wrestling training, but despite this, the pair went 15 minutes, resulting in an SCP-8598 victory. SCP-8598 received stitches and the originally-planned match was held, resulting in an SCP-8598 win.

SCP-8598 finally won the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship in May 1973, becoming the fourth man in company history to hold the title.

Addendum 8598.3: Death and Legacy

SCP-8598 was scheduled for a championship match in November against Koloff as a follow-up to the stolen contendership opportunity. He would fail to make his call time at the arena.

Perras: Going back to the '50s, every promotion has a call time for any show. If an event starts at 8 PM, everyone had to be there by 2 PM at the latest, you should actually be there by 12 PM. By 3:30, Shooter didn't show up. We thought he had bought another horse and was fucking around on it, who knows. I talk to Vince, and he goes to Jim in talent relations, and he asks me if I know the hotel he's staying at.

Perras and SCP-8598.

I call it; 'Hello, I'm a wrestler for the WWWF, and one of our wrestlers hasn't shown up for the show we're having. Do you know what time he checked out? His name is Jerry Roulette.' (Chuckles) I knew the last thing he'd do was check in as Gary Moreno. And, uh, and, god damn it.

(Koloff sniffles.)

'Sir,' the lady says back, 'The police are here. Mr. Roulette is dead.'

Awful. I couldn't believe it. I still can't. […] Just awful.

SCP-8598 died of a massive heart attack at the age of 32. While evidence of painkillers and alcohol were found in his blood, they could not be deemed the main factor in causing the heart attack. A tournament in SCP-8598's name would subsequently be held, and Bruno Sammartino would win, dedicating his championship victory to SCP-8598 in a post-show promo. SCP-8598's hat and boots were brought to the ring by Sammartino, and the championship was laid alongside the gear.

Cornette: It's very obvious when a wrestler has problems and they can't perform. That— that wasn't the case with Sharpshooter. No one could tell where Sharpshooter ended and Gary Moreno started. Things were allowed to slide, maybe a bit more than they could with anyone else.

I still think about this every day. Someone so dedicated to this business, to their craft, to their art; how does that heart stop beating? He wasn't done. He wasn't even close to done, and […] he didn't get a chance to finish his story. He had his issues, but it wasn't a drug overdose or alcohol poisoning, his heart just stopped.

Maybe he could've beaten those addictions, and maybe he could have come slightly back down to reality, and maybe he would've been a great champion. But— but he never got that chance. I think about all that potential and how much he contributed in the five years he was in the business. I can only imagine what he could've done in the next decade.

World Wrestling Entertainment inducted SCP-8598 into their Hall of Fame in 2012. Larry Hennig delivered the induction speech, a segment of which as been transcribed below.

Larry Hennig.

Hennig: You'll notice I haven't been calling Sharpshooter 'Gary Moreno,' and that is for damn good reason. Sharpshooter truly, genuinely lived as the outlaw, the cowboy, the bounty hunter, Jerry Roulette. Anytime he was around anyone, public or in the business, he was The Sharpshooter, and he expected to be treated as such.

I've seen many of the boys backstage meet the true Sharpshooter after giving him a mistaken "How're you doing, Gary." He'd give you your one warning, and after that, he'd make you a wanted poster and pin it up in his locker. He was going to get that bounty, dead or alive.

Wrestling is stageplay. Wrestling is entertainment. Wrestling is scripted. Today, we have newsletters and reporters ready to pounce on any talk from the people backstage, and it breaks the magic; it breaks the magic Sharpshooter protected for the seven short years he was in this business. He fought his ass off to make sure he was the Sharpshooter, inside and out, and that was his greatest accomplishment — to embody a character so masterfully that he became one with it. Sharpshooter may have passed, but Kayfabe lives on, and that's all he would have wanted.

Footnotes

1. The "bad guy" of a wrestling storyline.

2. A wrestling term similar to "the suspension of disbelief." It's primarily used in reference to staged events being presented as real.

3. Now known as World Wrestling Entertainment. The company went through two rebrands in their lifespan, first to the World Wrestling Federation, and then to the aforementioned WWE.

4. Wrestlers occupy one of three categories: Main Event talent, wrestlers who are booked in the top storylines and fight for the biggest championship; Midcard Talent, wrestlers who are put in less-important storylines and fight for less important titles; and Jobbers, wrestlers who are often booked to lose for the purposes of making other talent appear stronger.

5. A scripted monologue or dialogue a wrestler performs to further a story.

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