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Eugene Otto Zumhofe, 62, an 80s pro wrestling star known as Buck “Rock and Roll” Zumhofe with the AWA and various other promotions, was arrested on 5/27 and charged with 12 charges of criminal sexual misconduct related to his daughter.
Zumhofe at press time was being held on $500,000 unconditional bond and another $100,000 conditional bond (based on avoiding all contact with the victim and refraining from drinking alcohol) at the Kandiyohi County jail in Willmar, MN.
County attorney Jennifer Fischer noted that the nature of the crimes were such that she is going to attempt to keep him out of circulation for the rest of his life.
Zumhofe’s daughter, now 29, claimed that her father had sex with her approximately 1,800 times between the ages of 15 and 27, when she finally left in 2011. She didn’t know her father until the age of 13, and he talked her into moving in with him at the age of 15. She claimed to county law enforcement officials when coming forward in March that he started almost immediately with inappropriate conduct and molested her and had intercourse with her the first time approximately two weeks later.
Zumhofe is only being charged for the period from June 1999 to 2001, when his daughter was under the age of 17.
Fischer was appalled at the story, noting that one of the worst aspects of it was that so many people in the wrestling community were aware of it and did nothing for more than a decade.
Three counts from June 1999 related to oral sex. Counts four through 12 related to sexual intercourse and a variety of other sexual acts between July 1, 1999 and May 5, 2001, the day before his daughter’s 17th birthday. He faces a maximum of 30 years in prison and a maximum $40,000 fine for each of the first six counts, related to a period when she was under the age of 16. For the other six counts, while she was 16, the counts carry a maximum five years in prison and a maximum $30,000 in fine.
The victim originally told the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office about abuse that she claimed took place in Kandiyohi and Pope Counties in Minnesota between May 1999, right after her 15th birthday, and June 2011. She claimed that at one point she thought she may have been impregnated by her father.
She said that Zumhofe had a one-night stand with her mother in 1983, she was born on May 6, 1984, and first met her father in 1998. When a paternity test showed that Zumhofe was the father, he contacted her at school and said he wanted to meet her. She spent spring break with her father in 1998.
A year later, in 1999, Zumhofe told her that he wanted to reunite with his family. She claimed that for her 15th birthday, when wearing a two-piece bathing suit, he insisted on rubbing baby oil on her, including rubbing under her swimsuit bottom saying that he didn’t want her to get a funny tan line.
She moved in with him a month later at his home in New London, MN. The first night she moved in, he began touching her breasts. After two weeks, he began doing a variety of sexual acts with her. He also had her dance in front of him wearing nothing but her bra and panties, and also watched pornography with her.
Within weeks, Zumhofe wanted to have sex with her two or three times a day, injuring her and never giving her time to heal. At one point it took eight weeks for bleeding to stop because of the non-stop sexual abuse.
In July 1999, the victim’s mother moved in with Zumhofe. After he was abusive to the victim’s mother, the mother went to move out in September 1999 with her daughter to leave the state and wanted to call law enforcement. The victim said she stayed because Zumhofe threatened to kill himself if she left.
She estimated that for years, he continued to have sex with her multiple times a day in the early years, and two to three times a week in later years.
Zumhofe had been running independent shows since 2000 in Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin and parts of Illinois since 2000 under the banner of “Buck Zumhofe’s Rock & Roll Wrestling,” playing on the fame he had in the area from the 80s.
During the period, he regularly brought his daughter on the road with him and she was part of the shows. Fischer noted that she was astounded that so many people within wrestling could see what was happening and nobody ever came forward to say anything. His daughter said she was afraid to say anything for fear of reprisals from those in wrestling.
Police received corroboration from another woman, who in 2001, at the age of 17, while they were living in Cyrus, MN, said Zumhofe wanted a threesome with she and his daughter and she witnessed Zumhofe inappropriately touching his daughter when turning down the offer.
Other witnesses saw Zumhofe french kissing his daughter, dirty dancing with his daughter at the New London/Spice High School dance. Multiple witnesses said they knew that Zumhofe would share the bed with his daughter.
The daughter eventually got married and moved away in June, 2011, and claimed Zumhofe became violent, threatening both her and her new husband, as well as threatening suicide. The state felt he was a flight risk and was a risk to both his own and public safety which is why the bail was so high.
Zumhofe had spent 36 months in prison at Stillwater Prison in Stillwater, MN, after being convicted on January 23, 1989, of fourth degree sexual conduct with an unrelated underage girl. Zumhofe was AWA world light heavyweight champion when he was sent to prison, a championship Verne Gagne created essentially for him, since he was a very popular undercard wrestler in the early 80s, but considered too small to challenge the headliners.
In the late 1990s, there were minor legal issues involving Zumhofe and a girlfriend he had at the time, largely domestic violence situations. He had a 1999 conviction for violating a domestic violence order for protection in Kandiyohi County involving that previous girlfriend, that he broke up with just before he talked his daughter into moving in with him.
Gagne created the title in 1981, and put it on Mike Graham, who would be brought into the territory occasionally for world title defenses against Zumhofe. Zumhofe also feuded regularly in prelim matches with Bobby Heenan, most notably “Weasel Suit matches.” Zumhofe eventually beat Graham for the title on June 19, 1983, in Zumhofe’s home town of Hamburg, MN. Zumhofe feuded with Heenan in matches where Heenan would fail to make the 215 pound weight limit, but then beat Zumhofe in non-title matches, leading to returns and comedy about trying to make weight. Eventually, Zumhofe feuded with “Mr. Electricity,” Steve Regal (not the WWE wrestler, but an AWA wrestler who used the name in the United States prior to the current William Regal starting his career in the U.K. with that name) over the title through 1986, when he left the promotion due to another criminal issue, and returned in 1988.
Zumhofe later worked as television enhancement talent for WWF in the 90s. He was the first wrestler put in a body bag when The Undertaker was doing the gimmick, and remained with the promotion working on occasions for several more years, including losing to HHH when he first started in April, 1995.
Zumhofe was originally trained at the Gagne training camp in 1975 by Gagne, Billy Robinson and Khosrow Vaziri (the Iron Sheik). He was one of only four men who were able to complete the camp, with Richard Blood (Ricky Steamboat) Jan Nelson and Scott Irwin (who later became one of the Yukon Lumberjacks in WWWF and Super Destroyer in Georgia and Mid South).
Early in his career he worked for a number of different promotions, most notably on the West Coast for Roy Shire in Northern California, Don Owen in the Pacific Northwest and Al Tomko in British Columbia as a prelim wrestler.
When he returned to the AWA, he wore a jumpsuit and carried a big boom box, which the heels, like perennial rival Heenan, would destroy on occasion to build to grudge matches. Because the AWA at the time revolved around older babyfaces, Zumhofe ended up being arguably the most popular largely prelim wrestler in the country. His gimmick of listening to music, usually oldies as opposed to modern music since Gagne was behind the times, was the first time entrance music was used in the AWA, aside from Crusher coming out to the “Beer Barrel Polka.”
He also had a run with World Class Championship Wrestling as an undercard babyface during the heyday of the promotion, holding the American tag team titles twice with Iceman King Parsons as part of the “Rock n’ Soul Connection.”
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I remember watching an interview at least 5 years ago with Greg Gagne (pretty sure it was Greg, if not it was someone older from AWA) and Feinstein asked something along the lines of Buck living in a barn with some girl and he acknowledged it. It was weird and out of place and quickly dropped but apparently everyone did know.
_________________ Drop In wrote: I'm picturing a 12 year old Bob Loblaw bitching out a Randy Savage Wrestling Buddy for botching his finisher. Also envisioning Bob Loblaw getting bitched at for lighting the living room table on fire for said finisher.
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