Vic Grimes
Vic Grimes | |
---|---|
Birth name | Victor Grimes |
Born | [1] The Bronx, New York City, New York, United States[1] | January 3, 1963
Professional wrestling career | |
Ring name(s) | Grimes[2] Key[1] Vic Grimes[2] Vic Murdoch[2] |
Billed height | 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m)[2] |
Billed weight | 315 lb (143 kg)[2] |
Billed from | Sacramento, California |
Trained by | Dory Funk Jr.[1] Michael Modest[1] Spike Dudley[2] Roland Alexander[1] Manny Fernandez[1] All Pro Wrestling[1] |
Debut | 1996[2] |
Victor "Vic" Grimes[1] (born January 3, 1963) is an American professional wrestler. He is best known for his appearances with Extreme Championship Wrestling, Xtreme Pro Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation.
Professional wrestling career
All Pro Wrestling
Grimes began his career in California's All Pro Wrestling promotion, where he had a series of matches against Erin O'Grady. This "little man vs. big man" feud between the two even escalated to the point of O'Grady running into Grimes with a car.
World Wrestling Federation
J.R. Benson sent Jim Cornette a tape of Grimes and O'Grady's feud in All Pro Wrestling and scheduled them for a dark match before an edition of Monday Night Raw. WWF officials were so impressed by the match that they signed both men to contracts on the spot. Grimes would be moved to the Memphis developmental territories before being brought up to television under the ring name Key. He made his televised WWF debut on the July 26, 1999 episode of Raw. As Key, Grimes formed a short-lived drug dealer character along with Droz and Prince Albert and feuded with The Godfather. The Godfather suffered an injury just as the feud between the two was developing, leading to Grimes being taken off TV.
Extreme Championship Wrestling
The WWF encouraged Grimes to work for the Extreme Championship Wrestling promotion to further develop his skills. There, Grimes joined Tony DeVito and Spanish Angel, replacing P.N. News, in Da Baldies. The highlights of his ECW tenure were a fast-paced match against Kid Kash, an ECW World Heavyweight Title shot against Mike Awesome, and a Danbury Street Fight with Tommy Dreamer.
During Living Dangerously in March 2000, a breakdown in communication between New Jack and Grimes led to both men tumbling off a 20-foot high scaffolding rig onto concrete. New Jack suffered brain damage and was temporarily blinded in his right eye, which kept him out of wrestling for several months. Grimes would depart ECW not long after this incident.
Xtreme Pro Wrestling
Following ECW's closing, New Jack would come to Xtreme Pro Wrestling, and his feud with Grimes would be re-ignited when Grimes surprisingly attacked New Jack from behind with a guitar at Payback's a Bitch event; New Jack was involved in a verbal dispute with XPW CEO Rob Black when Grimes appeared through the mat from under the ring and attacked New Jack, aligning himself with Black's faction, "The Black Army". The beginning of the newly ignited feud featured both men in an infamous tag match, with Grimes teaming with The Messiah and New Jack aligning himself with Supreme; the match's infamy came from a freak accident where New Jack was powerbombed by Grimes through a flaming table, and New Jack was on fire for over 10 seconds.[3] Other major points of the feud featured New Jack diving off the Los Angeles Grand Olympic Auditorium balcony over 30 feet onto two tables, with Grimes on top of both, at Redemption in May 2001, as well as Grimes throwing New Jack off the same balcony through many tables stacked below at New Year's Revolution in January 2002.
The feud culminated in February 2002 in a scaffold match, as towards the end of the match, Jack broke from the script and legitimately shocked Grimes with a taser before throwing Grimes from the scaffold and sending him crashing to the ring 40 feet below; there were over 12 tables stacked on top of each other to break the fall, but Grimes missed all but two of them and came within less than a foot of missing the ring completely. Grimes broke his fall on the top rope, dislocating his ankle and suffering multiple other injuries in the process. In the 2005 documentary Forever Hardcore, New Jack claimed that his intentions were to throw Grimes so hard that he would fall head-first onto the steel turnbuckle and die, as retaliation for the now infamous Danbury Fall. However, this is now believed to have been a 'work' on New Jack's part as closer inspection of the footage appears to show that Grimes threw himself off the scaffolding at an unexpected angle and with more velocity than intended.[4]
When Shane Douglas took control of XPW following Baptized in Blood 3, Grimes would remain with the promotion and engage in feuds with Douglas and Snuff. One memorable incident from his feud with Douglas occurred during a tag match between Douglas and Lizzy Borden against Grimes and Lucy, which saw Grimes botch a superbomb on Borden through a table on the outside of the ring, as Borden missed the table completely and landed head first on the floor.[5] Grimes would also wrestle against several cruiserweights such as Psicosis, Little Guido, and Altar Boy Luke.
Wrestling Society X
After XPW folded, Grimes went on to work for various Californian independent promotions before he took part in MTV's new wrestling show, Wrestling Society X. He made his debut for the WSX dubbed as "Vicious" Vic Grimes on March 14, 2007 alongside Arik Cannon in a 3-on-2 handicap match against The Cartel, who Cannon had been attacked by a couple of weeks ago. However, Grimes and Cannon lost to The Cartel.
Two episodes later, Cannon and Grimes competed against Luke Hawx and Al Katrazz, during which Grimes missed a spear on Katrazz and landed into some light tubes at ringside, allowing Cannon to be pinned by Katrazz. Grimes would remain with the promotion until its closure.
Other media
He appeared in the video game Backyard Wrestling 2: There Goes the Neighborhood.
Championships and accomplishments
- All Pro Wrestling
- APW Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Little Dic Grimes (1) and Frank Murdoch (1)[6]
- APW Universal Heavyweight Championship (1 time)[7]
- Power Pro Wrestling
- PPW Heavyweight Championship (1 time) [8]
- PPW Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Erin O'Grady[9]
- PPW Young Guns Championship (2 times)[10]
- Pro Wrestling Illustrated
- Xtreme Pro Wrestling
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "OWOW profile".
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Cagematch profile".
- ^ Wrestling Gone Wrong - New Jack catches on fire in XPW
- ^ Wrestling Gone Wrong - New Jack throws Vic Grimes off a scaffold
- ^ Wrestling Gone Wrong - Lizzy Borden's head hits concrete after Vic Grimes top-rope powerbomb
- ^ "APW Tag Team Championship history".
- ^ "APW Universal Heavyweight Championship history".
- ^ "PPW Heavyweight Championship history".
- ^ "PPW Tag Team Championship history".
- ^ "PPW Young Guns Championship history".
- ^ "Pro Wrestling Illustrated Top 500 - 2001". Wrestling Information Archive. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-06-28.
- ^ "2001 King of the Deathmatch Tournament".