Introduction
Charles Eugene Wolfe Jr. (August 8, 1957 – February 2, 1986) was an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, Gino Hernandez. He is best known for his appearances with the Dallas, Texas-based promotion World Class Championship Wrestling between 1976 and 1986. Hernandez' death was initially ruled a homicide case, but police later concluded that he had died of a drug overdose.
Professional wrestling career
At the beginning of Gino Hernandez' career, he wrestled as a rookie babyface for Ed Farhat's Big Time Wrestling out of Detroit. Gino was a young, fresh-faced, inexperienced wrestler who got over with female fans due to his long black hair and good looks. He won the United States Heavyweight Championship in the Detroit area by defeating "Bulldog" Don Kent. Gino also wrestled at least one match around this time in the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF). Gino eventually lost his United States Heavyweight Championship to the man who ruled Detroit for many years: The Sheik (promoter Eddie Farhat's in-ring Psycho-Arab heel persona).
Southwest Championship Wrestling
"The Handsome Halfbreed" started wrestling in 1975 in Southwest Championship Wrestling (SCW) after being trained by Jose Lothario. He formed a team with Lothario and eventually turned on him, starting a feud that saw Hernandez lose his hair to Lothario as the result of a hair vs. hair match.
World Class Championship Wrestling
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Gino went to World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW), then known as Big Time Wrestling, where he feuded with David Von Erich over the NWA Texas Heavyweight Championship, which he won and lost to Von Erich.
He returned to SCW and formed a tag team called "The Dynamic Duo" with Tully Blanchard that was quite successful. They were the top heels in Texas.
Working the Mid South territory
In 1982, he instigated a feud with Chavo Guerrero by hitting him over the head with a beer bottle and later insulting the Guerrero family name. This would lead to a short-lived multi-territory feud.
Return to WCCW
He returned to WCCW in 1984 and feuded with the Von Erichs; Mike, Kevin and Kerry Von Erich. In the summer, he was paired with Nickla Roberts, who was billed at the time as Andrea the Lady Giant.The duo was paired in a series of mixed tag team matches between Sunshine and Mike Von Erich, with Sunshine's aunt Stella Mae French also getting involved.
He formed a tag team with WCCW newcomer, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, in August 1984. He also formed a team with Chris Adams, also called the "Dynamic Duo".This version proved to be the most famous, as Adams and Hernandez drew in high revenues and television ratings for World Class in their feud with the Von Erichs.
The duo invented the famed gold scissors, and were known to cut hair off of their opponents after each win, a trend which would later be used in the WWF by Ed Leslie, aka Brutus Beefcake.
Adams and Hernandez lost a hair match to Kevin and Kerry Von Erich at the Cotton Bowl on October 6, 1985.After the match, Hernandez attempted to escape, but was tackled by Chris Von Erich, who was at ringside, and eventually had his hair shaved bald.His hair quickly grew back in two months, while Adams' hair took longer.
He soon turned on Adams in December 1985 (two months after losing their hair at the Cotton Bowl) and started a feud, which was to have been the top storyline of 1986 for World Class.On January 27, 1986, during a grudge match in Fort Worth, Hernandez threw "freebird hair cream" (a "hair-removal product" previously established in WCCW storyline continuity in 1983 by Freebird Buddy Roberts) into the face of Adams, who was to sell his blinding injury so he could spend time in England with his new wife Toni and his family.
Hernandez was scheduled to compete on a house show the following Thursday and a non-televised wrestling card at the Sportatorium in Dallas the following Friday.Gino did not show for either of those matches, and phone calls made to him were never returned.
Death
On February 4, 1986,concerned with Hernandez's well-being, two World Class officials, David Manning and Rick Hazzard, and several local law enforcement officers broke into his Highland Park apartment and found Hernandez dead. He had been dead for approximately three to four days. Initially, Hernandez's death was ruled a homicide case, but following autopsy reports, his death was ruled as a result of an overdose of cocaine.
His cocaine addiction was not a secret to many World Class mainstays, including manager Gary Hart, who tried to encourage him many times to drop the habit.On the DVDdocumentary The Triumph and Tragedy of World Class Championship Wrestling, Hart said that he had pictures of all of the wrestlers he managed except for Hernandez, because it made him too upset to see a picture of Gino.
The syndicated World Class broadcast (scheduled for a February 15 airing) was scheduled to have aired a match involving Gino Hernandez, originally taped on January 24 at the Dallas Sportatorium. That match never aired; instead, announcer Bill Mercer made the announcement of Gino's death, and a different match aired.
Both Mercer and Marc Lowrance treated Hernandez's death as well as Chris Adams' blinding angle as equally significant during a time when World Class was about to go forward with their feud beginning at Texas Stadium. Adams returned the following May, and won the World Class Heavyweight Championship two months later.
The funeral service and its expenses were handled by a criminal known as "John Royal", with whom Hernandez had become friends. Family members were uncomfortable with Royal and his men overseeing proceedings, with many unsure of who they were.
Skepticism
Although police dropped the homicide investigation into Hernandez' death, some still believe he was murdered in a drug-related incident. According to David Manning, Hernandez had three times the amount of cocaine in his system that would have resulted in a fatality, and he and Kevin Von Erich stated that Hernandez also had cocaine in his stomach. Manning also suspected foul play due to the fact that Hernandez's dead bolt on his door was not locked, as he made it a habit in the past to lock the dead bolt at all times. In the weeks before his death, Hernandez had expressed to Manning and others the belief that his life was under threat.
Former rival Michael Hayes said in a 2016 interview: "I have a real, real hard time believing that Gino Hernandez OD'd... he was most definitely hanging with the wrong crowd, and either ran his mouth too much, or knew too much, or all of the above." Asked about Hernandez' death, Jake Roberts said: "Gino was attached to some heavy people... he was running in some pretty big circles, man, that maybe he didn't belong [in]." Hernandez's mother Patrice Aguirre and ex-wife Janice Marie Bancroft expressed the belief that he was probably murdered; Aguirre reported that criminal "John Royal" had told her of debts owed to him by Hernandez. She later tended toward the overdose ruling, however, after receiving a recorded message from a gangland source who was close to Hernandez.
Both Aguirre and Bancroft have explored the possibility that Hernandez faked his death, given that he had once talked about doing so, and because the autopsy report was replete with errors about his race and physicality. The family never saw his body, which was concealed by Hernandez's manager Walter Ayman due to its decomposed state, and honored in a closed-casket service.
Wrestler Brutus Beefcake has rejected the murder theory, saying that Hernandez "had a serious drug problem" and was an "intense, crazy partier".
A documentary on Viceland TV, part of the Dark Side of the Ring series, called "The Mysterious Death of Gorgeous Gino", aired on May 8, 2019.
Personal life
His mother was Patrice Aguirre and his father was Charles Eugene Wolfe Sr. with this latter's identity being unknown to the point that wrestling fans speculated that Wolfe's father was actually Houston Wrestling promoter Paul Boesch, due to how close they were. Wolfe was married twice, both times to Janice Marie Bancroft. They were first married on April 10, 1976 in Harris County, Texas, before divorcing soon after on January 27, 1977. During their first marriage, they had a daughter, Lisha. The pair remarried on April 12, 1978 before divorcing again on July 19, 1979. Wolfe adopted the Gino Hernandez name after his stepfather, Luis Hernandez, who trained with him when Gino was a child.
According to former WCCW colleague Jake Roberts, Hernandez was involved with the gay community in Houston.
Championships and accomplishments
- Big Time Wrestling
- NWA United States Heavyweight Championship (Detroit version) (1 time)
- NWA Big Time Wrestling / World Class Championship Wrestling
- NWA American Heavyweight Championship (4 times)
- NWA American Tag Team Championship (5 times) – with El Gran Markus (2 times), Gary Young (1 time), and Chris Adams (2 times)
- NWA Brass Knuckles Championship (1 time)
- NWA International Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
- NWA Texas Heavyweight Championship (6 times)
- NWA Texas Tag Team Championship (3 times) – with Jimmy Snuka (1 time), Pak Song (1 time), and Bruiser Brody (1 time)
- NWA World Six-Man Tag Team Championship (Texas version) (1 time) – with Chris Adams and Jake Roberts
- NWA Texas Heavyweight Championship Tournament (1984)
- Pro Wrestling Illustrated
- Ranked #162 of the top 500 singles wrestlers of the "PWI Years" in 2003
- Ranked #65 of the top 100 tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Chris Adams in 2003
- Southwest Championship Wrestling
- SCW Southwest Tag Team Championship (5 times) – with Tully Blanchard
- SCW World Tag Team Championship (2 times)– with Tully Blanchard