Wrestling with the truth

Brian Blair, now a county commissioner in Tampa, asserted in a 2002 lawsuit that he had been forced into retirement from his previous career as a professional wrestler after he tripped over a tray of dishes and hurt himself at a Carrabba's restaurant. Blair announced last month that a settlement had been reached with Carrabba's, and thus he would not explain (according to a deposition cited by Carrabba's attorneys) how the "career-ending" injury allowed him to keep lucrative wrestling dates in Japan months after he fell, or how he registered a .089 blood-alcohol reading that evening even though he admitted to only one sip of wine, or how a sober professional wrestler accustomed to being thrown across a ring could be hurt so badly by a simple fall, or how a politician who generally abides a probusiness, anti-lawsuit philosophy could have initiated such litigation. ¦