Brian Knobbs

Brian Yandrisovitz[2] (born May 6, 1964), better known as Brian Knobbs, is an American professional wrestler, best known as one half of the tag team The Nasty Boys along with Jerry Sags.

Brian Knobbs
Birth nameBrian Yandrisovitz
Born (1964-05-06) May 6, 1964[1]
Allentown, Pennsylvania, United States[2]
ResidenceTampa, Florida, United States[2]
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)Brian Knobbs[2]
Billed height6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)[1]
Billed weight295 lb (134 kg)[1]
Billed fromAllentown, Pennsylvania[2] ("Nastyville")
Trained byBrad Rheingans[1]
Debut1985[1]

Professional wrestling career

The Nasty Boys (1986 - 1997)
Main article: The Nasty Boys

Knobbs was born and grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and started his career in the American Wrestling Association as the masked Terrorist in 1985. In 1986, he formed a tag team called The Nasty Boys with Jerry Sags and wrestled in the Tennessee territory until they moved to Florida Championship Wrestling, where they won five Tag Team titles from 1988 through 1990.

In 1990, they went to the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA)'s Jim Crockett Promotions, which had been purchased by Ted Turner and would be renamed World Championship Wrestling (WCW) before The Nasty Boys left a few months later. They feuded with Rick and Scott Steiner over the WCW United States Tag Team Championship, but could not defeat them.[3] Later that year, they went to the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) where they were managed by Jimmy Hart. They won the World Tag Team Title from The Hart Foundation before feuding with and losing the title to the Legion of Doom.[4][5] The Nasty Boys then wrestled many of the WWF's top face teams, including The Rockers, The Bushwhackers, and High Energy, before turning face in the fall of 1992 to feud with Hart's Money Inc. over the tag team title, which they were unable to regain.[5]

They left the WWF for WCW in 1993 and were quickly placed with manager Missy Hyatt, who led them to the WCW World Tag Team Championship.[3] After she left them, they feuded with Harlem Heat, The Blue Bloods, and the team of Dick Slater and Bunkhouse Buck.[3] They won the tag team title a second time later in 1993, but they were defeated by Cactus Jack and Kevin Sullivan the following year.[3] In May 1995, they defeated Harlem Heat for their third and final WCW tag title at Slamboree, but lost the belts back to Harlem Heat on a late-June episode of WCW Worldwide. In 1996, they were tricked by the nWo into thinking they were going to become members, but were attacked as soon as they received their shirts.[6] Sags had been injured previously in a shoot altercation with Scott Hall and had to retire due to this injury.[7]

Singles wrestler; later career (1997 - present)
Knobbs at the Hulkamania Tour

Following Sags' retirement, Knobbs left WCW and became a singles wrestler. When he returned to WCW. Knobbs entered WCW's hardcore division. He feuded with Norman Smiley and defeated Bam Bam Bigelow at SuperBrawl in 2000.[8] In addition, he won the WCW Hardcore Championship three times.[6] He lost the belt simultaneously to all three members of the boy band stable Three Count, but he regained it from them later.[6] Fit Finlay was briefly his manager as the Hardcore Soldiers with partner The Dog.[6] He also was briefly in Jimmy Hart's The First Family.[6]

After leaving WCW, Knobbs has since returned to wrestling, including wrestling at the New Alhambra Arena (formerly the ECW Arena) for Pro Wrestling Unplugged on June 16, 2007. On November 20, 2007, Knobbs and Sags reformed as The Nasty Boys, performing in a dark match at the SmackDown! tapings from Tampa, Florida to wrestle their first WWE match in years. According to reports, the match was disastrous, and the team were accused of unprofessionally working stiff with their opponents, Dave Taylor and Drew McIntyre.[9] Knobbs and Saggs won the match.

On January 4, 2010, The Nasty Boys made an appearance on Total Nonstop Action Wrestling's television show, TNA Impact!, starting a feud with Team 3D.[10] On the January 21 edition of Impact!, the Nasty Boys competed in their first match for TNA, defeating the team of Eric Young and Kevin Nash.[11] At Against All Odds The Nasty Boys defeated Team 3D in a tag team match, when Jimmy Hart made his return to the company and interfered in the match on the Nasty Boys' behalf.[12] On the February 25 edition of Impact!, Team 3D defeated the Nasty Boys in a tables match, when Jesse Neal interfered on Team 3D's behalf.[13] The Nasty Boys and Hart continued their feud with Team 3D by defeating them and the returning Brother Runt, a replacement for Jesse Neal, whom the Nastys attacked prior to the match, in a six-man tag team match. After the match Neal attacked the Nastys and helped Team 3D put Sags through a table.[14] On March 29, 2010, news broke that the Nasty Boys had been released by TNA following an incident at a TNA function with Spike executives present.[15][16]

In February 2012, Knobbs was reportedly involved in an altercation with fellow wrestler New Jack, with New Jack allegedly knocking out Knobbs.[17]

Personal life

Knobbs has been married to Toni (Greg Valentine's wife's sister) since January 1994. The couple have 1 child.[18] He is a close friend of Hulk Hogan. In recent years he has been bothered with knee issues. In 2019 he was in hospital with a blood infection. His medical bills were paid by fans through a GoFundMe campaign.

Other work

Knobbs has appeared in several episodes of Hogan Knows Best and Brooke Knows Best, and was an on-screen trainer for Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling and Hulk Hogan's Micro Championship Wrestling.

During the 2009 Major League Baseball season, Knobbs performed a "Pit Stop" on Raymond, the Tampa Bay Rays mascot.[19] Knobbs serves as the "10th Man" for the Tampa Bay Rays.[20]

Championships and accomplishments
gollark: I can breed you some.
gollark: I may have collected... too many reds.
gollark: I can do that as well I think, loads of spare incubates available.
gollark: Thanks to Halloween distracting everyone, I managed to get a zyumorph *and* thunder in the same biome just now.
gollark: I really need to categorize my dragons better, or at all.

References
  1. "Brian Knobbs Profile". Wrestlingdata.com. Retrieved 2012-04-18.
  2. "Brian Knobbs Profile". Online World Of Wrestling. Archived from the original on 2009-06-17. Retrieved 2008-03-20.
  3. Cawthon, Graham (2014). the History of Professional Wrestling Vol 4: World Championship Wrestling 1989-1994. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 1499656343.
  4. "History Of The World Tag Team Championship - The Nasty Boys". WWE. 1991-03-24. Archived from the original on 2005-11-26. Retrieved 2008-02-25.
  5. Cawthon, Graham (2013). the History of Professional Wrestling Vol 2: WWF 1990 - 1999. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ASIN B00RWUNSRS.
  6. Cawthon, Graham (2015). the History of Professional Wrestling Vol 5: World Championship Wrestling 1995-2001. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 1499656343.
  7. "Jerry Sags recalls a shoot incident with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash". prowrestling.net.
  8. Powell, John (February 21, 2000). "Super Brawl equals Super Bore". SLAM! Wrestling. Retrieved 2009-08-07.
  9. "Nasty Boys Getting Major Heat For Horrible Smackdown Dark Match". 411mania.com. Retrieved 2008-07-20.
  10. Keller, Wade (2010-01-04). "KELLER'S TNA IMPACT LIVE REPORT 1/4: Jeff Hardy, NWO reunion, Hulk Hogan, TNA Knockout Title match, more surprises - ongoing coverage". PWTorch. Retrieved 2010-01-05.
  11. Wilkenfeld, Daniel (2010-01-21). "WILKENFELD'S TNA IMPACT REPORT 1/21: Ongoing "virtual time" coverage of Spike TV broadcast". PWTorch. Retrieved 2010-01-22.
  12. Caldwell, James (2010-02-14). "CALDWELL'S TNA AGAINST ALL ODDS PPV REPORT 2/14: Ongoing "virtual time" coverage of A.J. Styles vs. Samoa Joe, Nastys vs. 3D". PWTorch. Retrieved 2010-02-14.
  13. Wilkenfeld, Daniel (2010-02-25). "WILKENFELD'S TNA IMPACT REPORT 2/25: Ongoing "virtual time" coverage of Spike TV broadcast". PWTorch. Retrieved 2010-02-26.
  14. Caldwell, James (2010-03-15). "CALDWELL'S TNA IMPACT REPORT 3/15: Ongoing "virtual time" coverage of Spike TV show - A.J. Styles vs. Jeff Hardy". PWTorch. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
  15. Caldwell, James (2010-03-29). "TNA News: Nasty Boys reportedly released by TNA". PWTorch. Retrieved 2010-03-30.
  16. Martin, Adam (2010-03-29). "Report: The Nasty Boys gone from TNA". WrestleView. Archived from the original on 2010-04-02. Retrieved 2010-03-30.
  17. "NEW JACK KOs FORMER WWF STAR LAST NIGHT - PWInsider.com". www.pwinsider.com. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  18. "19 Superstars you didn't know were related". wwe.com. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  19. "Hart Foundation, Nasty Boys reunite at Legends of Wrestling Night Aug. 24 in Miami", by Jim Varsallone, The Miami Herald.
  20. "Rays' '10th Man' is a Nasty Boy from Whitehall". mcall.com. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  21. Duncan, Royal; Will, Gary (2006) [2000.]. "(Memphis, Nashville) Tennessee: Southern Tag Team Title [Roy Welsch & Nick Gulas, Jerry Jarrett from 1977]". Wrestling title histories: professional wrestling champions around the world from the 19th century to the present. Waterloo, Ontario: Archeus Communications. pp. 185–189. ISBN 0-9698161-5-4.
  22. "Southern Tag Team Title". Wrestling-Titles. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  23. "Pro Wrestling Illustrated Award Winners - Tag Team of the Year". Wrestling Information Archive. Archived from the original on 2011-05-22. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
  24. "Pro Wrestling Illustrated's Top 500 Wrestlers of the PWI Years". Wrestling Information Archive. Archived from the original on 2011-07-07. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
  25. "Pro Wrestling Illustrated's Top 100 Tag Teams of the PWI Years". Wrestling Information Archive. Archived from the original on 2008-06-16. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
  26. "Xtreme Wrestling Federation Title Histories". titlehistories.com. Archived from the original on 2008-07-20. Retrieved 2008-07-15.
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