Guest Author - Vance Rowe

There have been many flamboyant and ambiguously gay wrestling characters throughout the history of professional wrestling. There was Gorgeous George, Rico with Chuck and Billy, the Adorable Adrian Adonis and even the gender confused Goldust. However, there was none as flamboyant and as tough as the Exotic Adrian Street along with his valet, Miss Linda. Adrian Street danced and pranced around the ring. He wore glitter and make-up and his hair was in pigtails. However, when it came down to business in the ring, that is exactly what he was; all business.

Pound for pound, The Exotic One, was one of the toughest wrestlers in the business back in the 1970’s and 80’s. One of his signature moves was to kiss his opponents when he was about to be pinned and this “stunned” his opponents and allowed him the psychological advantage to capitalize and win his matches. He would also often put make-upon his opponents when they were debilitated His manager and real life wife, Miss Linda is a bodybuilder and was one of the first female managers to interfere in Adrian’s matches against the baby face wrestlers. She also designs and sells wrestling gear. Mick Foley is a friend of Street’s and even went to his Skull Krushers wrestling school to brush up on his wrestling skills. Miss Linda also designed Foley’s “Dude Love” gear that he wore in his memorable bouts against Steve Austin.

A lot of wrestlers have tried to imitate his style and persona and one of those was Rico and Miss Jackie. Adrian taught Rico Constantino how to be flamboyant in the ring and his gear was designed by Miss Linda as well. They carried this very well into the WWE. Soon he was managing the ambiguously gat duo of Chuck and Billy, (Chuck Palumbo and Billy Gun.) Billy is now wrestling in TNA Impact as Kip James. Goldust even adopted his face painting technique for his own character.

Outside of the ring, Adrian Street is an accomplished artist and some of his art can be viewed and bought on his website. When part of his wrestling school and apartments were destroyed by Hurricane Ivan, Street decided not to rebuild and devote his time to their business of art and selling wrestling gear. Exotic Adrian Street also contracted lung cancer and when he underwent chemotherapy, he lost all of his hair. Street has recently resumed his wrestling career sporadically as well. Adrian Street was one-of-a-kind and he is one of those wrestlers that will be often imitated but never duplicated.