Glenn Gilberti
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Glenn Gilberti
Statistics
Ring name(s)	Disco Inferno Disqo Glenn Gilberti
Billed height	6 ft 0 in (1.83 m)1
Billed weight	238 lb (108 kg)1
Born	November 12, 1968 (1968-11-12) (age 40)12 Brooklyn, New York21
Resides	Marietta, Georgia2
Billed from	Brooklyn, New York
Trained by	Steve Lawler2
Debut	November 20, 19912

Glenn Gilberti (born November 12, 1968) is an American professional wrestler, best known for his appearances with World Championship Wrestling as Disco Inferno.³ He is also a former road agent for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling.

Disco was a mostly lower card wrestler during his six-year tenure with WCW, but achieved some success in the form of championships. He was a 1 time Cruiserweight Champion,⁴⁵ 2 time Television Champion⁶⁵ and 1 time World Tag Team Champion⁷⁵ with Alex Wright, as part of the tag team Boogie Knights.

Career

Early career

Gilbertti started wrestling in 1991 wrestling his first match on November 20, 1991.² He wrestled on the Georgia independent circuit, where he was best known for his time with Great Championship Wrestling (GCW) where he won several titles. He also had short stints with World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and United States Wrestling Association (USWA) in 1992.¹

World Championship Wrestling (1995-2001)

Mid-Card Division (1995-1996)

Gilbertti made his name in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) as Disco Inferno. He annoyed the audience with his disco dancer character, which included dancing on the way to the ring and during his matches, the punchline being that fans would chant "Disco sucks!".

Gillbertti signed a contract with WCW in 1995 and debuted later that same year. He gradually rose to mid-card status as a tweener, with his gimmick being that he would forget how to apply his finishing hold, a standing figure-four leglock. Often, he would bring a cheat sheet with a diagram on how to apply the hold to the ring. He mostly competed in WCW's mid-card division shows including Saturday Night, Main Event and WorldWide.¹ Inferno wrestled on many editions of Main Event before pay-per-view events against superstars such as Joey Maggs⁸ and Eddie Guerrero⁹. He also competed on January 23, 1996 edition of Clash of the Champions in a losing effort to Kevin Sullivan.¹⁰ Inferno made his pay-per-view debut at Slamboree 1996: Lord of the Ring in a tag team contest where he teamed up with his future partner Alex Wright against Dick Slater and Earl Robert Eaton.¹¹

Babyface push (1996-1997)

Inferno started making a push in the cruiserweight division by the mid-1996. He began a feud with Cruiserweight Champion Dean Malenko and unsuccessfully challenged him for the title at Bash at the Beach 1996.¹² At World War 3 1996, he participated in the three ring, 60 man battle royal with the winner receiving a shot at the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. The Giant went on to win the battle royal.¹³ Inferno was injured in early 1997 and he took some time off before returning in September. His injury was mentioned after Disco refused to job to Jacquelyn because she was a woman.²

He feuded with Alex Wright who began dancing before his entrance to mock Disco. The two became arch-dancing-rivals. Disco was booked to win the WCW World Television Championship from Wright on September 22 edition of Nitro.²¹¹⁴⁶ He lost to Jacquelyn at Halloween Havoc 1997.¹⁵ He engaged in a feud with Perry Saturn after losing the Television title to Saturn on November 3 edition of Nitro.¹⁶ Disco lost to Saturn in a rematch at World War 3 1997,¹⁷ before finally regaining the title from Saturn in a rematch on December 8 edition of Nitro for his second WCW World Television Championship.²¹⁶¹⁸ Four weeks later, he dropped the title to Booker T.²¹¹⁹

Heel run (1998-2001)

After having two reigns as WCW World Television Champion, Disco once again became a jobber and a mid-carder in the cruiserweight division.¹ He defeated La Parka at SuperBrawl VIII.²⁰ He patched up things with former rival Alex Wright, thus turning heel in the process and the duo formed a tag team of dancers, known as Dancing Fools. The team was used for comedy and often danced before their entrance. They were also joined by a dancing partner Tokyo Magnum.¹ At Bash at the Beach 1998, Inferno lost a match to Konnan.²¹ Inferno and Wright feuded with teams such as The Public Enemy (Johnny Grunge and Rocco Rock),²² and The British Bulldog & Jim Neidhart.²³

After not getting any success, Inferno and Wright split and began focusing on their singles careers again. Inferno started a feud with Juventud Guerrera and defeated him at Halloween Havoc 1998 to become the #1 contender to the Cruiserweight Championship.¹²⁴ He earned his title shot later that night against champion Billy Kidman but lost the match.²⁴ At World War 3 1998, he participated in a three ring, 60-man battle royal with the winner getting a shot at the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at Starrcade 1998 but the battle royal was won by Kevin Nash.²⁵ Inferno became allied with, and eventually joined the nWo Wolfpac.²¹ Around that time, Disco feuded with the likes of Booker T,²⁶ Konnan,²⁷ Buff Bagwell²⁸ and Ernest Miller.²⁹¹

Inferno won the WCW Cruiserweight Championship from Psychosis on October 4, 1999 edition of Nitro.³⁰³¹¹ He entered a program with Lash LeRoux and had a successful title defense against LeRoux at Halloween Havoc 1999.¹³² He was joined by a new ally Tony Marinara. Inferno dropped the Cruiserweight title to Evan Karagias at Mayhem 1999 after Inferno accidentally attacked Marinara.¹³³ Marinara joined The Mamalukes (Big Vito and Johnny the Bull) while Disco was joined by LeRoux. At Starrcade 1999, Disco and LeRoux lost to Mamalukes after Disco accidentally attacked LeRoux.¹³⁴ Disco aligned with Mamalukes and became an enforcer for the duo.¹

In spring 2000, Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo rebooted WCW and New Blood was formed. The Mamalukes became members of New Blood and Disco signed with The Mamalukes. However, he left the group and joined Filthy Animals.¹ He called himself Disqo, a hip-hop wannabe. Animals feuded with Misfits in Action and Disco unsuccessfully challenged Lieutenant Loco for the Cruiserweight Championship at The Great American Bash 2000.¹³⁵ At New Blood Rising, Disco refereed a fatal four way match for the World Tag Team Championship, which KroniK (Brian Adams and Bryan Clark) won.¹³⁶ At Fall Brawl 2000, Filthy Animals fought Natural Born Thrillers to a no contest in an elimination match.¹³⁷ During the match, Disco turned on Konnan by hitting him a Chartbuster and began feuding with both Animals and Thrillers.¹

Disco reunited with both former rival and tag team partner, Alex Wright as Boogie Knights. At Halloween Havoc 2000, they challenged for the World Tag Team Championship in a triangle match but ended up losing the match.¹³⁸ They were scheduled to win the WCW World Tag Team Championship at WCW Millennium Final on November 16, but Disqo was legitimately injured. General Rection substituted for Disqo and then won the tag titles for Disqo and Wright.³⁹⁷ However, they would drop the titles afterwards. Disqo remained with the company until it was purchased by World Wrestling Federation in April 2001.

After WCW - The WWA

In the late 1990s into the early 2000s, he also appeared on WCW Announcer Mark Madden's sports radio talk show on ESPN Radio 1250 in Pittsburgh as "Mr. Friday Afternoon". Around this time he was also a commentator and wrestler (still using the Disco Inferno name) for World Wrestling All-Stars (WWA).¹ At Inception, he participated in a battle royal which was won by Buff Bagwell. It was a quarter-final match of the tournament for the vacant WWA World Heavyweight Championship.²⁴⁰. He was eliminated by the 'Fruits in Suits', Australian children's TV performers, in a WCW style joke story line. He later threw of the fruits off the top of the steel cage before the main event.

During his time with the WWA Disco continued his humourous gimmick both in and out of the ring. Following the Inception PPV he toured the UK with the WWA. He faced Brian Christopher most nights on the tour, mostly ending in defeat. During these shows he introduced a new finishing move, the Village People's Elbow. This was a mock of the Rock's peoples elbow and involved Disco wearing a hardhat and doing the YMCA dance before dropping the elbow. Also at these shows he joined Jeremy Borash on commentary in the second half of the shows, claiming that he was there as the crowd had not shown him respect earlier in the show.

In 2002 Disco continued with the WWA, appearing at the Revolution PPV in February. During this show he issued an open challenge for anyone to face him, as he had no opponent to face. He sat at ring side commentating in his usual style until eventaully been beaten on by the returning Scott Steiner. The next PPV, the Erruption, saw Disco commentating on the full event and not competing. He tried to intervene on a celebration dance off by Brain Christopher and Ernest Miller. Instead he was attacked by these two and a number of small children.

Later in the year he toured further with the WWA in the UK in December. During this tour, which included the Retribution PPV, he mostly worked on commentary and ring announcing duties. He also credited as being the script writer/creative consultant for this tour. In 2003, he returned to WWA under his "Disco Inferno" gimmick. On May 23 in a house show in New Zealand, Disco faced WWA World Heavyweight Champion Sting for the title but lost the match.²⁴¹ He returned to commentary duties for the WWA final PPV, the Reckoning. During his time with the WWA Disco made for many a classic comedy moments and quotes on commentary. See WWA - Classic quotes and Fluffs.

In 2005, he went back to working the independent circuit in Georgia and Minnesota. He also wrestled for the Southern Wrestling Alliance and Vince Russo's Ring Of Glory.¹

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2003-2004-2008)

Sports Entertainment Xtreme (2003)

Gilbertti then went on to join Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), changing his alias to his real name.² He was a member of Sports Entertainment Xtreme (S.E.X.) and even became their leader near the end of that angle.²⁴² On May 7, 2003 PPV, he won an Anarchy Battle Royal to become the #1 contender to the NWA World Heavyweight Championship.²⁴³ The next month, he earned his title shot against the champion Jeff Jarrett but lost the match.²⁴⁴

New York Connection (2003-2004)

After S.E.X. disbanded, Gilbertti formed New York Connection (N.Y.C) with Simon Diamond, David Young, Johnny Swinger and Trinity.² On November 26 PPV, Gilbertti teamed up with Diamond and Swinger in a 6-man tag team match to face 3Live Kru (Konnan, Ron Killings and B.G. James) for the vacant NWA World Tag Team Championship.²⁴⁵ When their stable fell apart, Gilbertti began teaming with Young while Diamond and Swinger formed a separate team. In the late 2004, Gilbertti reunited with Swinger and the duo teamed up together at Turning Point 2004 in a losing effort to Pat Kenney and Johnny B. Badd.²⁷ Gilbertti left TNA and returned to independent circuit.

On October 18, 2007 edition of iMPACT!, Glenn Gilberti appeared in a taped interview segment with Mike Tenay as Disco Inferno and talked about his runs as WCW Television Champion and a TNA wrestler, and a comeback to TNA as Disco Inferno. He returned later in the show, losing in a squash match to Abyss.²⁴⁶ As of late 2007, Gilbertti has been working for TNA Wrestling as a road agent. He also writes columns and does audio features on Wrestlezone.com. In addition, he can be seen interacting with other members of the WrestleZone.com message board forums.

2008

Most recently,On April 19, 2008 Gilberti attended an Armageddon Convention in Wellington, New Zealand in which he won the Impact Pro Wrestling NZ Armageddon Cup. He also appeared at the Christchurch convention where he lost the cup on April 26, 2008. He also wrestled a tag team match on April 27, 2008 at the same convention. His partner was IPW Champion "The Deal" Dal Knox. He also attended TNA Lockdown's Fan interaction in Lowell, MA on April 12th, 2008. Glenn also was a guest on the October 8, 2008 edition of online show TNA Spin Cycle.

On November 2, Gilberti was released from his contract with TNA, with them citing budgetary cuts as the reason.

In wrestling

• Finishing and signature moves

• Chart Buster / Last Dance (Sitout three-quarter facelock jawbreaker)
• Spike piledriver
• Standing figure four leglock
• Village People's Elbow (Village People YMCA theatrics followed by an elbow drop)
• Swinging neckbreaker
• Russian legsweep
• Second rope axe handle elbow drop
• Inverted atomic drop

• Nicknames

• The Boogie Man - in WCW while as a part of the Dancing Fools
• Hip-Hop Inferno - in WCW while wrestling as Disqo
• The Brooklyn Stud - in TNA while as a part of the New York Connection

Championships and accomplishments

• Great Championship Wrestling

• GCW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)⁴⁷
• GCW Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Johnny Swinger⁴⁸
• GCW Television Championship (3 times)⁴⁹
• GCW United States Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)⁵⁰

• Mid-Eastern Wrestling Federation

• MEWF Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

• North Georgia Wrestling Association

• NGWA Tag Team Championship (1 time)

• Palmetto Pride Championship Wrestling

• PPCW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

• Swiss Wrestling Federation

• SWF Heavyweight Championship (1 time)⁵¹

• World Championship Wrestling⁵

• WCW Crusierweight Championship (1 time)⁴
• WCW World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Alex Wright⁷
• WCW World Television Championship (2 times)⁶

• Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards

• Best Gimmick (1995)

• Other Titles

• HPW Tag Team Championship (1 time)
• Impact Pro Wrestling NZ Armageddon Cup (won at Armageddon Wellington in New Zealand as part of an Impact Rumble (battle royal))

Personal life

In 1986, he was a delivery driver for Domino's Pizza. He had a "heel" character back then he called, "The Mongoose"

In 2007 he was arrested in connection with a poker game run in the basement of a house on Nesbit Ridge Drive in Roswell, Georgia.³

References

External links

Professional wrestling portal

• Glenn Gilberti at the Internet Movie Database
• Glenn Gilberti at TV.com
• Interview with Glenn Gilberti by Genickbruch.com - Part 1
• Interview with Glenn Gilberti by Genickbruch.com - Part 2