The KISS Demon

[WolfofWords]

Dale Torborg was born into a baseball family. His father, Jeff Torborg, was a professional baseball player and manager for Major League Baseball. Jeff played in the minors for the Los Angeles Dodgers and eventually made his way up into the majors where, among other accomplishments, he caught Sandy Koufax’ perfect game in 1965. Jeff went on to become a coach which led to him becoming a manager. He led the White Sox, the Mets, the Expos, and the Marlins to some success. His son Jeff tried to follow in his father’s footsteps. He played in the Appalachian League until his injuries became too numerous to continue on. The last injury was when he took a fastball to the face which caused a permanent change in his depth perception.



The next year, Dale found his way into the world of professional wrestling, working for a somewhat obscure indie company called the American Wrestling Federation. It was here that he briefly tried to continue to honor the world of baseball by portraying a baseball-themed character known as the MVP. The company ended up being a who’s who of jobbers and mid-carders for the WWF and WCW. However, when the company dissolved, Dale was snapped up by the Power Plant which was World Championship Wrestling’s infamous wrestling school. The Power Plant churned out a lot of wrestlers for WCW but many of them never went too far. There are some allegations that trainers at the Power Plant focused more on appearance than skill and talent.



While Dale was training at the Power Plant, a little music group called KISS was experiencing a resurgence. For those who don’t know, KISS was a hard rock band that operated from 1973 to 2023, a full fifty years. The band had recently reverted to things that originally made them famous. The four original members of the band (Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss) reunited in 1996. They started wearing their famous elaborate makeup and costumes again and returned to huge stage shows. The reunion caused a huge resurgence in not only their diehard fans but introduced a whole new generation to the group. The group was known for their characters The Demon, The Starchild, the Spaceman, and the Cat. Famously, Gene Simmons was a sucker for merchandising everything and that extended to KISS.



So it was that KISS was looking for opportunities and so was WCW president Eric Bischoff. Bischoff (also known as ATM Eric) sought out a deal with KISS because of their sudden return to popularity. After discussing things with the band and their management, Bischoff came up with the idea of the band creating wrestling gimmicks based on members of the band. The first of these characters would be known as The Demon (sometimes stylized as The KISS Demon) who was patterned after the character portrayed by Gene Simmons. Wrestler Bryan Adams was originally tapped to portray this character but ultimately turned it down. Power Plant graduate Dale Torborg was recruited for the character. On August 23, 1999, KISS appeared on WCW Monday Night Nitro and introduced The Demon by playing their song “God of Thunder” in Las Vegas.



Unfortunately, Eric Bischoff was fired and was no longer in control of World Championship Wrestling and so the greatest supporter of The Demon was no longer around. Those who were left booked The Demon poorly out of spite toward Bischoff. This was an absolutely poor business decision but a lot of pro-wrestling’s history is powered by spite and bad feelings. A major part of the deal with KISS was that The Demon would be booked in a main event match at a pay-per-view. Originally, this was going to be against the recently debuted Vampiro, a wrestler more patterned after punk band The Misfits. Instead, the Demon languished for a while until the company decided to put him in a "Special Main Event" with The Wall at Superbrawl 2000. This match was actually the fourth match out of eleven when the main event is usually the last and sometimes also the second-to-last match on the card. The Wall won the match in less than four minutes.



The Demon’s next storyline began when comedy wrestler Norman Smiley stole The Demon’s gimmick including his entrance. Eventually, the two became an odd couple tag team with The Demon being a vicious beast and Norman being a little gremlin who looked up to The Demon. The two worked pretty well together (somewhat because Smiley was an awesome performer) but this was far different from the original intention of KISS and WCW. There was a little bit of effort put in to rehabilitate this character at this point with some great victories and hard-fought matches.



The real turn for Dale and The Demon came with a new storyline that added some layers to The Demon character. In this new direction, Dale appeared as himself and claimed that The Demon was a separate thing, a dark power that he could call upon to fight in the ring. However, he did not like what The Demon was doing to him. He swore to his wife Asya (who he met at The Power Plant) that he was putting The Demon behind him. However, Vampiro started to antagonize Dale by assaulting him and kidnapping Asya.



This led to Vampiro tricking Dale into taking on the mantle of The Demon again (no longer The KISS Demon) again. The Demon teamed up with Vampiro instead of opposing him. He joined with Vampiro, the Insane Clown Posse, and The Great Muta to form the group known as The Dark Carnival. The group primarily feuded with Sting. Eventually, Sting was able to help Dale break free of Vampiro’s influence. This led to redemption for Dale Torborg.



Unfortunately, not long after this was the sale of World Championship Wrestling to the World Wrestling Federation. The WWF offered Dale a tryout to possibly be absorbed into the newly merged company. Dale turned the offer down and decided to return to the world of baseball and became a strength and conditioning coach. He eventually settled down with the White Sox where worked from 2003 to 2022.



People have since become more nostalgic for this character even though it often fell flat. TNA Wrestling brought in Dale for a few appearances based on his experiences in both the world of pro wrestling and major league baseball. Along with Torborg, baseball players AJ Pierzynski, Johnny Damon, and David Eckstein all appeared and backed various wrestlers. More recently, in 2021 and 2023 The Demon actually returned to the ring for a few spots although Dale remains largely retired from wrestling.