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Joe Exotic Thought Group Of Wrestlers Were Carole Baskin's Spies

Posted: Apr 27th 2020 By: Kavan Flavius

Netflix's Tiger King: Murder, Madness and Mayhem has captivated millions of viewers around the world given the sheer bizarreness of the revelations documented in the series.

The show is centered on Oklahoma zoo owner Joe Exotic, who is now serving a 22-year prison sentence after being convicted of two counts of murder for hire and several wildlife violations. Joe, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, allegedly tried paying a hitman to kill rival and animal rights activist Carole Baskin. Turns out the hitman was an undercover law enforcement agent.

Apparently, Passage also had a bit of a run-in with a group of Ring of Honor wrestlers, whom he thought were spies for Baskin. That is according to ROH star Matt Taven, who told ESPN's Brian Rowitz he went to Exotic's zoo with Jay Lethal and Dalton Castle and they were somehow pegged as being under Baskin's employ.

Taven said they had a show in Texas and were in Oklahoma City the following day when they saw several billboards showing off 240 exotic tigers. The wrestlers were intrigued and opted to pay a visit.

He says things got weird when Lethal mentioned he was from Tampa (where Baskin is from) but he did not find out they were being eyed until years after.

“Because that ends up being where Big Cat Rescue and Carole Baskin is from. They thought we were some sort of spies instead of some random guys walking in without a family like everybody else to this tiger zoo," he explained (H/T Wrestlingnews.co)

"They thought we were some sort of animal activists or spies. I think after they saw our reactions to like, ‘Woah woah, we’re just here to see some tigers. They realized that we had no other intention besides exactly that.”

Tiger King portrays Joe as a very paranoid individual and, considering the above, it appears that the mere mention of Tampa was enough to get him spooked.

Fortunately, suspicion was as far as it got.