Pain & Gain: Refrain from the Feign

"There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking." – Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950)

The new film "Pain & Gain," which stars Marky Mark (Mark Wahlberg) and the Rock (Dwayne Johnson), is being touted in some circles as a dark comedy. And while I normally love dark comedies – "American Psycho", "Fight Club", "American Beauty" and "Eating Raoul" just to name a few – this one hits a little too close to home for me. There's no way I can see this as a comedy, dark or otherwise, in any way, shape or form.

You see, while I love the work of Wahlberg, the Rock, Rob Corddry, who played Lou in "Hot Tub Time Machine," and even director Michael Bay ("The Transformers" franchise), the characters Wahlberg and Corddry play in the movie, muscle head Daniel Lugo and accountant John Mese (pictured below), two members of the Sun Gym Gang, almost became my business partners back in the summer of 1995 – the exact time frame depicted in the new film.

While some may think I am stretching a connection here, I can assure you I am not. There is a direct link between certain aspects of the grisly murders and yours truly. The entire story of my association with these people is chronicled in great detail in Chapter 11 of my 2009 book "Swimming with Piranhas: Surviving the Politics of Professional Wrestling" titled "The Good, the Bad and the Downright Scary." The book was written long before they decided to turn this hideous episode into a movie. (You can buy the book here).



John Carl Mese

While I’m still debating if I should see the movie or not, as it is my understanding many of the characters, including the one played by Monk's Tony Shalhoub, is a composite of several individuals. For those of you who will see it, what I can tell you is what you won’t see in the film and that is the fact that Mese actually became a signer on my bank account and unbeknownst to me had planned to use my pro wrestling company as a way and means of laundering some of the money the Gun Gym Gang was stealing from their victims. What you also won’t see in the film is how Mese, being on my bank account, was used as evidence against them and how I became a witness for the state during the ensuing murder trial of the Sun Gym Gang.

So, dark comedy? Not for me.

Mike Johnson of PWInsider, once called me the Forrest Gump of Pro Wrestling, hopefully not for my simplemindedness, but rather for my uncanny penchant of interacting with both the famous and infamous, as scribed in "Piranhas." Now that the story of the Sun Gym Gang has been made into a major motion picture, with big time stars and a name director attached to it, I suppose this particular episode in my life can fall under both those categories.

All I can say is that they should’ve gotten John Goodman to play me!

Out.

"The wise man avoids evil by anticipating it." – Publilius Syrus (1st Century BCE)