Porn Valley- Pro wrestler Gangrel goes about 270 these days. With his size he doesn’t have to say, sir. But he says it a lot during the interview we had Wednesday afternoon.

Gangrel’s in town with Craig Valentine on a p.r. blitz. They were heading for Playboy Radio when we had our sit down at Rob Spallone’s Star World Modeling. In what’s got to be the ultimate full circle, Gangrel’s directing porn now, and this is why he’s making the rounds of the Valley.

Gangrel also tosses in a shocker. He tells me he’s a grandfather. He had a kid at the age of 16. Gangrel wed his high school sweetheart but later married Luna Vachon. Imagine having Luna Vachon as a stepmother.

I ask Gangrel how he winds up in the sleazy business of porn.

“I don’t know if it’s a sleazy business,” he laughs. “Wrestling’s a pretty sleazy business. It’s pretty shady. But what I have noticed here- with the girls and everything- they’re pretty upfront with how they feel about you. They’ll tell you I don’t like you. But in wrestling there’s just a bunch of backstabbing that goes on. It’s a lot of mental games.”

Though he’s new at the porn game, it’s something Gangrel’s always been interested in.

“This just kind of fell into my lap,” he notes. “I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth- that’s why I’m going to take it.”

Gangrel’s wrestled for 21 years and says, well, you can’t do that forever. He ran into Valentine and Summer Haze at a wrestling show. They talked and became friends.

“They’re slowly breaking me into this,” says Gangrel. “And I’m digging it. I’m liking it.”

This is Gangel’s first trip to Porn Valley.

“I’ve been up and down the streets,” he adds. “I’ve had a couple of dinner dates with people, talking business and picking up sponsors for Miami Rump Shakers 2 which is coming out.”

Gangrel didn’t direct the entire movie, just a scene to get the feel of it.

“And I can’t even remember the peoples’ names,” he admits. Which is already par for the porn course.

“But everything’s going along good- I’m having a good time.”

Though he’s not up on the new porn, Gangrel watched it “back in the day” when it starred Christy Canyon, Ginger Lynn and Nina Hartley. So the fact that he was being interviewed by Lynn and Canyon on Playboy later was something of a charge for him.

“I used to steal my dad’s old porn and watch it all the time,” he laughs. “I watched it over and over and wore it out.”

Because he’s been in wrestling over two decades, Grangel’s asked for a litany of his injuries.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve broken my nose or how many stitches I’ve had,” he says.

“I’ve had to hold my eyeball while they stitched my eyelid back together. I’ve blown each shoulder out, both knees. I’ve torn my right pec out; and tore this bicep [he points to his left arm] about two months ago. I’ve herniated my 5,6,7 discs; I got a hot spot on my brain because I had a permanent concussion for over a year. When I was out with a neck injury they discovered it. I had a year out not so much because of the neck but more so because of the concussion.”

“They didn’t think I was ever going to come nack to wrestling,” he continues. “I came back- I fought through it all and I’m still wrestling today. I’m still paying the bills by wrestling. Now I’m getting into this [porn]; it’s really cool and I’m really excited.”

And he’ll have plenty of excitement. Gangrel just signed a 12 picture deal.

“We got a movie we’re shooting, Rated: XPW in Ft. Lauderdale, and we’ve got a lot lined up in December,” he goes on. “It’s like planes landing, it’s stacked.”

The first time he got laid, Gangrel was 13 and the girl, who was from England, was 18. She was on vacation over here.

“It didn’t last very long- it was probably 20 seconds!” he roars. “It was in a dugout at Deerfield Beach. She was hanging out at an apartment complex. We hit it off. Now that I’ve worked in England and spent six months working there- I understand now- they’re pregnant at 12 over there. She was well seasoned and took advantage of me. She was robbing the cradle but it was cool. It was a good experience.”

Gangrel’s a Florida boy born in Hollywood and raised in Deerfield. He currently lives in Talahasee but is moving back to Hollywood.

“Were you always a big kid?” I ask.

“I was always a fat bastard!” he laughs. “I struggled to lose the weight and keep it off. I’m floating around 270-275. I like to be 250 but I was always heavy. It takes a lot of work for me to keep trimmed down. If I wanted to be 300 that would be easy.”

“By the way, those jeans don’t make your ass look big,” I tell him.

“No? Thank you so much,” he says.

“Were you always a gym rat?”

“I started wrestling when I was 17,” Gangrel continues. “Then I went to Puerto Rico. I was 19 and I never lifted weights until I went down there. I went to a gym with some of Craig’s trainers, Dan and Bruno. We’re in the gym and I couldn’t even lift a bar. They were, c’mon, dude. I couldn’t even balance the bar, but by the time I left that island a year later I was bench pressing about 340. Then I stayed a gym rat until about three years ago. But I had so many injuries.”

I always wondered how with all the traveling, wrestlers can even find time to get inside a gym.

“It’s very hard,” says Gangrel. “And with the wrestling I firmly believe that’s where most of the main injuries come from. You’re on the road six days a week. Sometimes you’re out three weeks- like when WWF was hot. So you travel and with making all your airlines and driving to the arena, you hit the gym and you also have personal appearances, and you don’t even get out of the show until 12, 1 in the morning which means you have yo drive to the next town, be up and catch a flight by 5am.

“You have to squeeze all this in there and you keep running and running. So you’re bound to make mistakes. Your body gives out and that’s where the big injuries come from.”

Since every wrestler of note seems to be writing a book, Gangrel’s asked about his.

“I’ve been asked,” he says. “I was married to a pro wrestler- I was with Luna Vachon- THE toughest lady in pro wrestling and the craziest.

“I was married to Luna- we’ve been apart for a year but she’s still my best friend,” says Gangrel. “It was hard on our relationship. Getting back to the book-thing, people thought we’d write a great book together because of the things we’ve seen. She came on in ’85 and I didn’t come on until ’87, ’88. She grew up in a wrestling family. Her father was a wrestler; her uncle [Mad Dog]; her aunt Vivian, and The Butcher Paul Vachon. Her aunt was married to Buddy Wolfe. It was just a big wrestling family and I came into that.

“Mad Dog always threatened me- even though he had one leg I was scared to death of that man,” Gangrel says. “He’d say [Gangrel growling], ‘You ever hurt my niece I’m going to break your fucking neck!’ And he meant it! I was yes sir. But she’s still a good friend.”

Gangrel continues to use the name noting that Vince McMahon doesn’t own it.

“It doesn’t seem to be quite that big an issue right now,” he states. “The WWE doesn’t own it. They don’t have anything to do with it.”

The development of the character comes from the film, The Lost Boys, he says.

“Luna tuned me on to it. And her ex-husband Dick Slater turned her on to it. She said it would be really cool to wrestle as a vampire. I said I don’t think it’ll ever work. She always pushed and said it’ll work.”

For years- everyhere he went- Puerto Rico, Memphis, Calgary, promoters all pushed the gimmick as a mummy, a monster-thing. But Gangrel kept trying to push the coolness of The Lost Boys.

“They didn’t understand it,” he said. “But Bruce Pritchard and a guy named Vince Russo who got creative control of WWE at one point, he saw what I was talking about- you get a group of young guys and make them really cool vampires. It didn’t matter if you got your ass kicked as long as you’re cool about getting your ass kicked.”

According to Gangrel, McMahon never thought the idea would work.

“He told me himself that he’d never use a vampire character,” states Gangrel. “But he gave Vince Russo creative control. Vince Russo hired the vampire character and it worked as much as everyone worked against it. It came off cool and just the way I pictured it with The Brood- me Christian and Edge- I was the older one and the guys liked me because the women weren’t hitting on me. They were all hitting on Edge. The twenty to thirty year olds loved Edge; the 12 to 18 year-olds loved Christian. So we had that bracket covered. It was just a good mixture, it worked out really good and we had a fun time.”

Gangrel left WWE at the time he herniated his 5,6,7 disc. He had the hot spot on his brain and went out for a year. When he came back, in the process of his getting cleared, the company bought WCW. They told him the talent roster was full.

“They didn’t think I was ever going to wrestle again,” he says. “They wanted to fuse four vertebraes. I told them, no. I rehabbed it. Then a year later they hired me back and just sat me home which killed all my contacts overseas. It killed everything. I didn’t think I could get going again. Then they let me go after a year. Another year and a half went by and I went back to England and started doing the same thing. Then they hired me again. Then I got let go.

“They also had these big plans for ECW, then they put another kid in there who worked a lot cheaper,” Gangrel adds.

With all this happening, it was about the time Gangrel ran into Valentine, Haze and The New Porn Order.

“One day we were talking online and they said if you ever want to check this out… so they’re breaking me in and showing me the ropes. I’ve had the special tour through Porn Valley. I’ve been to Porn Star Karaoke night already. I’m hitting the spots.”

On a side note, Valentine’s saying Tyler Faith’s scheduled to appear at a future wrestling event.

I ask Gangrel if he knew Chris Benoit. Not only Benoit, he used to travel on the road with Eddie Guerrero as well.

“I learned a lot in that time,” he says. “And the ride before that was with Big Bossman and he’s gone.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t want to get in a car with you,” I tell Gangrel.

“Wrestlers live life in the fast lane,” he states philosophically.

Asked if he saw the Benoit tragedy coming, Gangrel says no.

“I know he loved her [Woman]so hard,” he continues. “I can’t say what was really going on his mind but I do know that he was a really good person and one of the few guys I’d say, man, I love you, dude. I had a special bond with Chris. I wasn’t there. I don’t know what happened. He loved her, he loved his kid. People snap.

“I don’t think it had anything to do with the steroids or anything else. There was a whole lot of other demons. If it had been a garbage man who went out and killed his family, it would have been in the newspaper for one clip. But it was someone who was in the spotlight that kids idolized. It was another stab at the wrestling industry and people are going to take stabs at anything that’s making money.”

“It’s sad- that’s the bottom line- it is what it is,” Gangrel says.

“And Eddie was a great person, too; and The Bossman and Crash Holly- they were all my boys,” he continues. “You see them come and go. Some of them were older and took care of me; and I’ve seen the younger ones go before me.

“They all said it would be me, but I got my life turned around. I had my problems. I had a lot of substance abuse problems and I had a wife that would have killed me any second. And that’s the truth. She’s put a 940 Glock to the back of my head and fired it into a wall in downtown Tampa. But I love Luna to death. She’s the sweetest person in the world but you just don’t mess with her.”

According to Gangrel, Luna kept him in wrestling and showed him the ropes.

“She taught me that survival guide,” he says. “She gave me the basic rundown how to get from A to Z and that helped a lot. She’ll always be my best friend but I’ll never cross her. She’s a good woman, though.”

Craig Valentine brings up the big wrestling event scheduled for December 16 in Florida which Tyler Faith will apparently participate in.

“That’s me and Gangrel versus Evan [Stone] and whoever he thinks he can find and we’ll see who’s going to AVN [in January] with the gold,” says Valentine.

Valentine brings up the story that appeared on TMZ. www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=25255 and said Ron Jeremy got stuck with the check at Bamboos when all of them went out in the parking lot.

“Evan’s still miffed about what happened a few weeks ago in the wrestling ring,” Valentine explains. “Evan made a couple of smart comments- which is like him to do. I told him to shut the fuck up before I bust his other arm and he got mad. I don’t know why he would get mad.”

“I didn’t realize he had such aggression,” I comment.

“Neither did I,” replies Valentine.

“It’s the little man complex,” adds Gangrel.

“After I got into the car he [Stone] threw his book,” Valentine relates. “I told him, dude, after you pick it up can you stand on a box so you can look at me eye-to-eye and talk to me? He’s going look at you, you’re a fat guy with a little cock. I’m like you’re a short dude with a big cock, so what’s your point? Evan was just being Evan and he got smart, so I threw it back at him and I guess the Prince of Porn isn’t too pleased with the king of reality porn. But the wonderful people at the restaurant titled it as an East Coast-West Coast fight.”

According to Gangrel, Stone had to realize sooner or later he was going to get hurt in the ring.

“Now he’s trying to take advantage saying Craig did it on purpose.”

“Did you do it on purpose?” I ask Valentine.

“We don’t want to admit that!” yells Gangrel. “We’re on tape right now. I’m just trying to cover up for that whole little man complex.”

Valentine says the match with Stone and a partner-to-be-named is going to be at Club Passions at the Club Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida.

According to Valentine, at the behest of Jesse from Hot Movies, he and Stone have to stay separated from now until then.

“They’re kind of our benefactor so we have to behave,” says Valentine, noting that he and Stone expect to be at Monday Nite Raw this Monday in Ft. Lauderdale with two other female porn actresses. But he doesn’t know who they are, yet.

Regarding Tyler Faith getting into the ring, Valentine said he heard Faith was going to manage Summer Haze at Haze’s title defense which is also on the 16th.

“It’s a big show- there’s five matches, and since Mr. Ego [that would be Stone] thinks that because he’s so famous, The Prince of Porn, he’s putting together a special guest list. I don’t see why he thinks people will show up just to see him.

“It’s all women, I’m sure,” adds Gangrel.

“Guys might show up, you never know,” muses Valentine. “It’s going to be pretty entertaining but I’m more curious what’s going to happen when we get to Ft. Lauderdale. We’re sitting ringside and we’ll see what happens.”

I like Valentine’s reference to Stone as Prince of Porn.

“Look at it this way,” says Valentine. “He decided he wanted to mouth off on TMZ.”

Gangrel’s asked if he’s going to do any scenes.

“I’m just going to stay on the other side of the lens,” he replies noting that the majority of his income is still from wrestling.

“And I’m a grandfather,” he adds. “I have two boys and a grandson. I mean I’m not an old dude. I started young and had a kid at 16. It was a childhood sweetheart and it lasted until I was 18 then met Luna. She corrupted me.

“Fresh meat she said as she dragged me out of the locker room.”

On another note Valentine said he was signing his first contract girl and that she comes out the end of the month to sign.