Devon Nicholson went to his YouTube channel to defend himself after footage released of him attacking a referee during a World-Class Pro Wrestling show in Irving, TX last week.
Nicholson, whom most known as Hannibal, was under the persona of Bloodhunter when he began lacerating the head of referee Lando Deltoro to the point in which Nicholson had to be pulled off him. Nicholson now jumps to his own defense in his video statinig that the referee Lando Deltoro was an active participant in the angle and that the intent was not to make Deltoro bleed with the spike that was used. You can read the transcription of Nicholson’s video below:
“This is Hannibal here from HannibalTV.com and I want to address an unfortunate wrestling accident that happened in Texas about a week ago now. There’s a lot of false stories with inaccurate information out there and I’m going to tell you what happened. My account of what happened.
First of all, it was going to be a match between Bloodhunter versus Carlito for World-Class Pro Wrestling. They are not a circuit. They’ve put on about two events in the past 2.5 years. I was involved in the production of their last two events, and I’ve been doing volunteer work for them for a while now and getting some sort of YouTube revenue split from them as well for my work I was doing with them on YouTube. However, it didn’t amount to much and they actually didn’t pay me the last pay me. They owed me from that.
But there’s going to be a match between Bloodhunter versus Carlito. Bloodhunter, me, wearing this mask with the mesh over the eyes. Yes, I wear glasses and yes, I wrestle in a mask with mesh over the eyes. Carlito did not want to bleed in this match. They wanted heel heat for this match. So we wanted to do an angle at the end of the match where Kevin Sullivan, who is known for having a golden spike, who is managing me that night along with Blaze, who is also my girlfriend, were going to come to the ring after the match, Kevin Sullivan and Andrew Anderson, and pass me this golden spike to use on the wrestler. Sullivan had managed me several times in the past, as you can see by this picture here.
The World-Class wrestling office was aware of this angle and they had approved it. I did find the referee myself. Here’s a conversation I had with the referee before the show, where he had said that he had bled before the hard way. The hard way is not bleeding with razor blade cuts, but actually bleeding from direct trauma from the head. He was okay with the angle, he was going to cut himself with razor blades in the match when the match ended. He was not supposed to referee the actual match or any other matches on the show that evening at all. As far as Kevin Sullivan, there’s a picture that was taken after the match with Kevin Sullivan, Blaze and myself before we knew the extent of the person’s injuries.
The World-Class Pro Wrestling owner had said he was not aware of this angle, but here’s a message of me telling the World-Class Pro Wrestling owner that the referee was going to come down at the end and he actually makes a joke that he hopes I’m not paying him much. The World-Class Pro Wrestling ring has two canvases. This is one canvas they used on a previous show where I bled. That’s my blood in the ring. They put this match on before intermission with me versus Carlito because they were expecting the referee to get a lot of blood. He said he was going to get good color. He actually told my girlfriend before the match that he was going to get really good color too. He told The Daily Beast that quote, ‘a proper blading requires three things, according to Deltoro; aspirin, preferably a shot of whiskey to thin your blood, and you also need to sweat,’ end quote. So if he believes whiskey and aspirin helps thin your blood to make you bleed more, I didn’t see him take a shot of whiskey or aspirin before the match but I’m going to assume he must have to get the blood flowing better.
Now let’s take a look at what actually happened. I just want to be clear here, I was not actually supposed to hurt him with the spike. I had the spike in my hand. The main part of it was on top of the hand and I did not realize there was anything poking out the bottom. Now let’s watch the first part of what happened here. Here I am with this spike and the referee actually has a blade in his hand and he’s bleeding himself right here. He just cut himself. Look at his hands. He’s putting it in his pocket, this blade that he had in his hand, and you can see I’m pretending to bite his forehead. I’m not actually biting his forehead. It’s a work. I didn’t actually think I was stabbing him either, and he is selling here. He’s not telling me to stop. He’s not putting up an X. To me, he looks like he’s selling. Nobody on the outside seems that concerned about his well-being here because that is exactly what was supposed to happen in the ring. If something goes wrong in the ring, the people on the outside should be putting up an X saying to stop.It was already predetermined that Blaze was gonna come in the ring and pull me off. There was also supposed to be referees and announcers trying to pull me off that whole time and they didn’t and I don’t know where Kevin Sullivan was during that whole match, he probably fought to the back with Andrew Anderson and Carlito as was planned.
Let’s look at the second part here where I have him, where by the way, this is not a real choke. Look where my arm is. It was not under his neck. It was above his chin. There’s 135 pound Blaze pulling off a crazed psychopath. So this 135-pound woman pulls me off and after this it was scheduled that I was supposed to attack the announcer. As you can see, they go along with what’s scheduled. They don’t put up an X. There’s the fake belt to the back. Nobody’s running from the back to help the referee. Everyone’s just going along with the script here. This is fan-cam, cell phone footage and here I am as scripted going after the announcer. Nobody’s telling me to just go to the back. Here comes help from the back, but they’re not working on the referee, they’re working the angle that was planned here. Everybody’s on me. They’re not putting up X’s telling me that this guy’s hurt, just go to the back, let us work on him. They’re doing the angle. So I had no idea that anything unusual had happened until I got to the back. Had I known that he was actually getting more hurt than his blade marks, I would have gone to the back. When you normally wear glasses and the guy is supposed to bleed already and he’s not telling you you’re stiff and you have a mask on with mesh and you feel blood you just assume that it’s coming from his blade job.
The next day before the World-Class Pro Wrestling owner ever put out his message claiming that he was parting ways with me, I sent this message ending our partnership, two and a half to three hours before he ever posted his thing, ending our partnership, I had been running their YouTube channel, their Twitter and I had access to their Facebook page and I had been helping fund the events. So I feel a lot of the heat was put on me for this.
From my understanding, the company didn’t have liability insurance, which I always personally get from my events. They didn’t seem to have paramedics on site. I did talk to the referee as well after, where I told them I had seen the hard camera footage and he told me he didn’t hold any grudge towards me. I apologized. He said, ‘shit happens,’ and I thanked him for the situation. He also said he wanted $200 to cover his medical expenses. I later gave him another $500 above the $200. I know he had more medical issues. I don’t know what he has covered by insurance and what he doesn’t. But I do find it strange that his initial ask was only for $200 and then his GoFundMe was for $10,000. I’m not saying he didn’t have that much deductibles and it’s a horrible thing that happened, but at some point, the World-Class Pro Wrestling owner the next day was acting like I was refusing to pay anything towards his medical costs, but he had only told me he needed $200 which I forwarded to him. So I wasn’t refusing to pay anything.
I think there was a lot of miscommunication in this situation. I regret my part in it. I truly feel bad for him. I felt terrible for him all week and I’m glad that he has, from what I understand, the staples out. I’m glad he’s doing better and I wish him a full and speedy recovery. That’s my side of it and now it’s out there.”
Transcription credit should go to Gisberto Guzzo of Fightful
You can watch the video of Nicholson’s statement below:
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