In what might blow away any past awards for sheer absurdity within wrestling; the aftermath of the sketch on Sunday night’s Armageddon PPV, in which a “despondent” Tim White was depicted at his Friendly Tap bar outside of Providence, RI, downing shots and beers (dealing with the pain of his legitimate injuries suffered at a previous Hell In The Cell match) then taking a rifle and off screen, firing the gun, with an implied suicide, resulted in the following…in real-life.
According to the webmaster of the FriendlyTap.com website for Tim White’s bar, this skit blew up to the extent that:
1) Local Cumberland, CT police got an estimated 1,000 phone calls about the “suicide” depicted on the PPV.
2) The door of White’s Friendly Tap bar was pried off the hinges by local police and fire, causing $3,000 in damages.
3) White himself has to give a deposition regarding the incident to local police, who were upset about not having been clued in ahead of time to the sketch.
4) The e-mail address of the bar recived 4,000 e-mails of condolence and comment.
This reaction may rank up there with the classic September 1, 1990 angle in which Jerry Lawler was run over by an automobile driven by Eddie Gilbert on the live WMC Memphis TV show; causing Memphis police to storm the studio looking for Gilbert.
