This week’s induction—the Stacy Keibler pregnancy—has been on our to-do list for a while now. How long? Try seventeen years. As RD noted in his induction of Miss Hancock vs. Major Gunns:
“And please, don’t email me and explain that it was actually the start of Stacy’s pregnancy/miscarriage angle – I’ve not built up the tolerance to cover that whole fiasco yet.”
Little did I know that when I read those words back in Summer 2008 that—four presidential administrations and two site re-designs later—I would be the one who’d have to do it.
The story began when Stacy Keibler, billed as Miss Hancock, faced Major Gunns in a sleazy ROTC (“Rip Off the Camo”) mud match…
…a bra-and-panties match where pinfalls counted in or out of the mud, at any stage of undress.
The match’s rules weren’t the only thing confusing; at the end, Hancock keeled over clutching her stomach.
Major Gunns rolled her up to win, but her celebration turned to horror. Pregnancy horror! Just what everyone wanted on a wrestling program.
The woman who was Miss Hancock’s bitter rival just seconds earlier was now scared out of her wits that Hancock was miscarrying. Boyfriend David Flair jumped right into the mud to check on her. And while no one actually said, “miscarriage” or “pregnancy”…
…Miss Hancock was rushed out of the arena on a stretcher crying and driven to the hospital…
…all while the announcers pretended to break kayfabe. Referring to Miss Hancock by her shoot name, they speculated about Stacy Keibler’s “abdominal pains”…
…which they had assumed were “part of the match” but clearly were not.
“This is very serious”, Tony Schiavone told the viewers.
“ICP are f*gs!” shouted one concerned audience member.
The next night, David Flair showed up to the arena, still in his muddy clothes, rambling to no one in particular.
When Major Gunns came down to cry some more, saying how sorry she was for kicking Stacy in the stomach during their match. “For some reason, it feels like it’s my fault!”
“What do you mean it’s your fault!?” yelled David. “What did you do to her!?” This was apparently Flair’s first time hearing that his girlfriend had had a wrestling match.
David yelled these same questions at Gunns for the next minute until Stacy came out and told him, “I’m pregnant!”
Suddenly, everything was okay. Flair strutted around the ring and swept Stacy off her feet. What great news! The woman just hospitalized for a kick to the gut was pregnant!
It made you wonder what everyone else thought was wrong with Stacy. Indigestion?
***
At the earliest (televised) opportunity, David did the honorable thing and asked Stacy to marry her. But a certain faction wouldn’t let the lovebirds have their moment, instead launching a four-on-one beatdown on David.
It was Misfits in Action, the good guys.
With David prone in the ring, Stacy yelled at him for screwing up the proposal, fished the ring out of his pocket, and put it on herself.
In a subsequent interview, Mike Tenay pressed the young Flair over his decision. Aren’t you just marrying her because you got her pregnant? Isn’t she a gold-digger?
When Stacy ended the interview in a huff, the gleefully snarky Professor told the viewers they wouldn’t last half a year.
The stopwatch was set to start on Nitro weeks later.
But a cloud hung over this shotgun wedding (besides, you know, the pregnancy):
Stacy received a disturbing letter, delivered by Jimmy Hart. What it said, no one knew. Perhaps that she’d have to use “Crank It Up” for her processional.
The bride and groom brought all their best friends to the wedding: For Stacy, one of the Nitro Girls. For David, his ex-best friend, his ex-girlfriend, and his dad’s best friend.
They didn’t have a ton of friends.
Also in attendance were Stacy’s actual father and mother, the latter of whom Mark Madden found quite the MILF. Worst of all, Probably not coincidentally, this was the last time Mrs. Keibler would ever agree to go on a wrestling show.
But the biggest wedding guest was David’s estranged father, the Nature Boy Ric Flair, appearing for the first time in months. But shockingly, within minutes he was escorted out in handcuffs before they’d even served drinks!
Ric’s bogus arrest by Vince Russo left the groom distraught, but not as much as the bride, who ran out of her own wedding.
After some convincing backstage, the ceremony reconvened that night, but when it came time for the objections, the bride herself raised her hand.
Stacy dropped the bomb: David was not the father.
His world shattered, Flair chased after his would-be bride…
…the emotional impact lessened slightly by the Partridge Family bus brawl.
***
The next day, Mike Tenay sat down with Ric Flair and asked if the rumors were true: Was he the father of Stacy Keibler’s baby? Naitch cut off the interview without answering.
On Thunder, David Flair accused random guys of being the father, starting off with, of all people, Fit Finlay. And he escaped with all his teeth!
Still in his wedding shirt, David confronted Stacy Keibler in the ring but couldn’t get an answer. It would have been riveting drama if either of them could act.
On Nitro, Mike Tenay found David Flair in his home wallowing in filth and accusing his brother Reid—an eleven-year-old—of impregnating Stacy.
But he soon turned to a less disturbing possibility: the mailman…
…whom he locked in the figure four before running away from his own house.
Enter Ice Train, who had re-branded as MI Smooth (Ha!). David handed him over a wad of cash in exchange for tape of Stacy Keibler and another man in a limo…
…after which he nailed Smooth with a crowbar (but let him keep the money).
Flair watched the video, looked up the creep’s address, and tracked him down to his home: 977 Oglethorpe.
When a deranged Flair arrived, the only one home was an old man.
“What are you doing in my house?” asked the old man, who had already let a camera crew inside before Flair showed up. It turned out, this was 975 Oglethorpe.
The real house was next door, but Flair could only bang on the door in vain—
—no one was home, not even a camera crew.
***
Along the way, Mike Tenay sat down with Stacy Keibler for an interview that boiled down to a few basic questions:
- Why are you such a slսt?
- How does it feel to be such a slսt?
- How can you live with yourself being such a slսt?
- Well, well, well. (Not technically a question)
But other than that, it was pretty professional.
The Professor started off implying that ofcourse Stacy got pregnant, given her table dancing and short skirts.
Tenay then accused her of getting down with upwards of ten guys since she’s been with David, and the only reason Tenay himself wasn’t on that list was because he was a married man.
His next question was what kind of sick person would “impregnate an innocent 20-year-old who was headed to the wedding altar with David Flair”?
So now Stacy was innocent?
Also, he’d got the order all wrong—Stacy was pregnant before David proposed. Or did someone pull a switcheroo with the fetus?
And didn’t Tenay just get through saying he would have impregnated her, had he been single?
Still pushing for that Pulitzer, Tenay noted that the pregnant Stacy Keibler was now too fat to compete in next week’s swimsuit contest.
Stacy was no victim, said Tenay despite calling her an “innocent 20-year-old” no more than thirty seconds earlier.
Finally, Stacy Keibler ran off in tears just two minutes into her interview. Yes, Tenay managed to squeeze all that into two minutes!
“Boy, she’s gonna make a terrific mother”, said Tenay, gloating about how Stacy had ruined her life.
Right to Censor’s fake Chyna interview was more sensitive than this!
***
On the October 2nd Nitro, David Flair dragged a hooded, handcuffed man to the ring, having tortured him for who knows how long. This was the creep from the video tape, and now he’d let the world see who it was.
But first, he’d undo the handcuffs as long as his captive promised not to beat him up.
It was Buff Bagwell. And he broke his promise. Frankly, someone so dishonest just had to be the father. (Mark Madden, sounding like the 40-Year-Old Virgin on poker night, praised Bagwell for having “scored with a hot chick”).
That month, WCW went to Australia for two weeks and continued this angle down under. Mark Madden, figuring you caught more flies with honey, praised Stacy’s glowing beauty, but she still declined to name the father. They flew her to Australia just for this.
Only then did he take the Tenay route, wondering whether Stacy was too drunk or too promiscuous to even know who the father was.
This brought David Flair himself out before That 70’s Sidekick Crowbar intervened as the voice of reason. But Flair thought Crowbar was the father. Madden thought Mike Awesome was the father. And Stevie Ray heard Tony Schiavone was the father.
But the solution to this whodunher might have come at Halloween Havoc, where David Flair had been granted a “DNA Match” with Buff Bagwell. Whatever that was.
But to be on the safe side, David confronted his dad (while wearing a labcoat) and demanded he take a DNA test, too.
Ric Flair, like Stacy Keibler, had been flown halfway around the world to participate in this angle.
Then, in a fit of total lunacy, David accused Mark Madden of impregnating Stacy Keibler and tried to take his blood. And no, as you’re probably wondering, he wasn’t talking about some other guy in WCW also named Mark Madden.
Back in the states, the WCW announcers tried in vain to explain that a “DNA Match” was just a stupid name for a First Blood match. But as they couldn’t use the words “blood” or “bleed” on Turner TV, they made it sound like it was a regular match where Buff had to get tested if he lost.
“There may be a little DNA spilled in that match, if you know what I mean”, said Tony Schiavone with a wink and a nod. God, I hope he meant blood.
Even Buff Bagwell himself wasn’t sure what a DNA Match was, thinking he could clear his name by winning. “Do you think I knocked her up?” asked Bagwell to Flair. “I guess we’ll find out at Havoc.” But only if he lost.
But—just Buff’s luck—he actually won the match, making Flair bleed (a word they could use on pay-per-view).
Fortunately, his friend Lex Luger then did a swerve, bloodying Bagwell’s mouth and allowing David to collect his blood after all (mixed in with a lot of his own).
The amateur phlebotomist handed off the sample to two technicians, who rushed off to the lab.
It took just twenty-four hours later (in the year 2000) to conclude definitively that Buff was not the father. (The test of whether he was The Stuff proved inconclusive)
So that was a waste of time. But so was this whole storyline, which was built around two people who could barely wrestle.
***
The accusations continued; one night, Flair demanded Rey Mysterio look him right in the eye and tell him he wasn’t the father. While the first request proved difficult, the second did not: Rey denied paternity.
Then he beat him in a match. Well, if WCW was hellbent on putting David Flair in the ring, the random paternity accusations were the only excuse to do it.
The very last lead in the case came from Jeff Jarrett, who, while feuding with Ric, admitted to fathering Stacy Keibler’s child.
But it was just a trick to hit David with a guitar, and he immediately recanted.
In late November, Stacy showed up with a visible baby bump to tend to her ex(?)-fiancé. This was the last WCW fans would see of Stacy Keibler for months, and the last they’d see of David ever, as he was released shortly after.
Who was the father? It seemed no one cared anymore. The top suspect, of course, was Ric Flair, but rumor had it that Vince Russo was to be the culprit before he stepped down.
After so many months and so many suspects—
- Ric Flair
- Fit Finlay
- Reid Flair
- David Flair’s mailman
- Buff Bagwell
- Mark Madden
- Crowbar
- Mike Awesome
- Tony Schiavone
- Rey Mysterio
- Jeff Jarrett
—WCW had just given up on the whole thing. Or had they?
***
Fast forward to March 2001. Stacy Keibler showed up on Nitro pushing a carriage and talking about how she’s a changed woman thanks to her baby. It seemed WCW had sat Stacy out for the remainder of her storyline pregnancy, bringing her back only after her storyline due date.
Now, WCW could put Stacy back on TV again, no longer “pregnant”. Had they really derailed her career for months just so they didn’t contradict a bad storyline?
Absolutely not! They did both.
Stacy introduced viewers to her “baby”: Shawn Stasiak.
But obviously she hadn’t been carrying a grown man for nine months (unless you count David Flair). So what was in the baby carriage?
Why, 8×10 photos of Shawn Stasiak!
So what happened to Stacy’s pregnancy? Did we even want to know?
Only WCW could run a pregnancy angle for the length of an actual pregnancy and still bungle the conclusion.