Glenn Gilbertti, who came into this world on November 12, 1967, is a semi-retired American professional wrestler, best known for his appearances in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) as Disco Inferno (which he later changed to Disqo to make fun of the singer Sisqo). He trained the one and only Karrion Kross. Glenn Gilbertti is famous for his work for WCW which began in 1995. As he had one of the most scandalous careers, we broke his life’s work into 12 facts.
Disco Inferno: 12 Interesting Things About Glenn Gilbertti’s Scandalous Career
1. Scandals:
Disco Inferno was arrested in connection with a poker game that was played in the basement of a house on Nesbit Bridge Road in Roswell, Georgia in 2007. All charges were later dropped.
In 2009, Disco Inferno began hosting at the Sapphire Gentlemen’s Club, a strip club in Las Vegas where we assume more poker is being played.
Prior to these, the famous Jacqueline feud saw Disco being temporarily fired by WCW in early 1997 for refusing to lose a match with Jacqueline. After Disco shocked everyone on the September 22, 1997 “WCW Monday Nitro” by defeating Alex Wright) for the WCW World Television Championship, Jacqueline confronted him and said that she wanted a match with him. This led to Jacqueline defeating Disco in a non-title match (due to how WCW would/would not sanction an intergender match for a title) at “WCW Halloween Havoc 97”.
2. Disco Inferno’s career began in 1991:
Gilbertti, famous as Disco Inferno, began his professional wrestling career on November 20, 1991. He wrestled on the Georgia independent circuit where he was best known for his time in Great Championship Wrestling (GCW) where he won multiple titles.
He was trained by Steve Lawler and later had short stints with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and the United States Wrestling Association (USWA) in 1992 in Memphis, where he had a few matches with Miss Texas (Jacqueline Moore), who would meet again in WCW in 1997. With Ashley Clark, Disco Inferno held the NGWA tag team titles.
3. Glenn Gilbertti changed his name to Disco Inferno because:
Disco Inferno was named after the song by The Trammps, inspired by John Travolta’s character Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever. Gilbertti credits his peer and fellow wrestler Raven for the birth of the “Disco Inferno” character. He annoyed the audience with his disco dancer persona, which included dancing his way to the ring and during his matches, the catchphrase being fans chanting “Disco sucks!”.
4. Disco Inferno’s 1995 career for World Championship Wrestling lasted till 2001:
Debuting in 1995, Gilbertti aka Disco Inferno signed a contract with WCW and gradually rose to mid-card position like a tweener, with the trick being that he would forget how to apply the final hold on him, a foot figure four leglock. Often he would bring a cheat sheet with a diagram on how to apply the retainer to the ring. He primarily competed on the Saturday Night, Main Event, and WorldWide shows of WCW that included mainly mid-card wrestlers. Inferno wrestled in many editions of the Main Event before the pay-per-view events against superstars such as Eddie Guerrero and Joey Maggs. He also competed on the January 23, 1996 edition of Clash of the Champions in a losing effort to Kevin Sullivan. Inferno made his pay-per-view debut at Slamboree 1996: Lord of the Ring in a tag team contest where he teamed with Alex Wright against Earl Robert Eaton and Dick Slater.
Disco began pushing the Cruiserweight division in mid-1996 and began a feud with Dean Malenko, a WCW Cruiserweight Championship and unsuccessfully challenged him for the title at Bash at the Beach. Disco was booked to win the WCW World Television Championship on the Monday, September 22 edition of Nitro. Lost drive for Jacqueline in Halloween Havoc. She became involved in a feud with Perry Saturn after losing the Saturn Television title on the November 3 episode of Nitro.
Prior to regaining the title from Saturn in a rematch on the December 8 episode of Nitro, Disco lost to Saturn in a rematch at World War 3. Later, he dropped the title to Booker T in a month’s time.
A Television Champion, Disco once again became an enhancement talent and middle-aged player in the cruiserweight division. He defeated La Parka at SuperBrawl VIII. He made peace with his former competitor and aggressor Alex Wright, thus becoming a villain in the process and the duo formed a team of dancers known as the Dancing Fools.
The outfit was used for comedy relief and often danced before their entrance. At Bash at the Beach, Inferno lost a match with Konnan. Inferno and Wright feuded with teams like The Public Enemy (Rocco Rock and Johnny Grunge), Jim Neidhart, and The British Bulldog.
Then Disco Inferno and Wright part ways to resume a solo career. Inferno attacks Juventud Guerrera and defeats him at Halloween Havoc to become the number 1 challenger for the Cruiserweight Championship title. He then catches the game against champion Billy Kidman, but loses the match.
Inferno finally wins the Cruiserweight Championship title at Psycho on the October 4, 1999 edition of Nitro and teams up with his new ally Tony Marinara. Inferno loses the cruiserweight belt to Evan Karagias at Mayhem after attacking Marinara by accident. Marinara joins The Mamalukes, while Disco joins LeRoux. At Starrcade, LeRoux and Disco lost to Mamalukes.
In the spring of 2000, Vince Russo and Eric Bischoff re-started WCW once again and the New Blood was formed. Disco joined The Mamalukes, then The Filthy Animals, changed the name to Hip Hop Inferno and then to Disqo (a play on words for R&B singer Sisqo, whose single “Thong Song” was a huge hit at the time). The Filthy Animals faced off with Misfits In Action and Disqo unsuccessfully challenged Teniente Loco for the Cruiserweight Championship at The Great American Bash.
In Fall Brawl, Filthy Animals faced the Natural Born Thrillers in an elimination match. During the match, Disco turned on Konnan by hitting him with a Chart Buster and began brawling with the Animals and the Thrillers.
Disco was reunited with his former rival and tag team partner, Alex Wright as The Boogie Knights, both of them going head to head. At Halloween Havoc, they contested for the World Tag Team Championship in a triangle match, but ended up losing the match. They were scheduled to win the World Tag Team Championship at the Millennium Final on November 16, but Disqo was legitimately injured. General Rection stood in for Disqo and went on to win the tag titles for Disqo and Wright. They dropped the title afterwards. He ended up parting ways with Wright and forming a brief partnership with Mike Sanders. Disco’s last appearance with WCW came on the March 19, 2001 (second to last) edition of Nitro, in which he discussed his new partnership with Sanders and lost a match with Jason Jett. WCW was purchased by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) later that week.
In April 2001, after the closure of WCW, Disco joined the World Wrestling All-Stars.
After WWE purchased WCW in March 2001, they did not accept Disco’s contract. He went on to independents, making appearances for Border City Wrestling (Ontario, Canada), World Wrestling All-Stars, the International Wrestling Cartel (Western Pennsylvania), Toryumon Japan, and various other promotions, as well as being in and out of TNA from 2002-2004.
5. At TNA, Disco Inferno changed back to his real name, and started a talk show:
Disco Inferno then joined Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), changing his alias to his real name. His name was often misspelled using “Glen Gilberti” or “Glenn Gilberti”. On the July 31, 2002 TNA weekly pay-per-view, Disco Inferno debuted on their weekly talk segment titled Jive Talkin’ after announcing that he would host a talk show the previous week. The talk segment ran for three weeks, ending on August 14, 2002 with weekly guests like Goldy Lock and The Dupps.
6. SEX and NYC:
After Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), he becomes a member of Sports Entertainment Xtreme (SEX) and becomes the leader. On May 7, 2003, he won the Anarchy Battle Royal to become the No. 1 NWA World Heavyweight Championship. He meets champion Jeff Jarrett but loses the match.
After Sports Entertainment Xtreme (SEX) has disbanded, Gilberti aka Disco Inferno forms the New York Connection (NYC) with Simon Diamond, David Young, Johnny Swinger, and Trinity. Gilbertti teams up with Diamond and Swinger in a 6-man match against 3Live Kru (Konnan, Ron Killings and BG James) for the vacant NWA World Tag Team Championship. After starting his team, Gilberti starts a team with Young while Diamond and Swinger form another team. In 2004, Disco Inferno joined Swinger and teamed with Turning Point against Pat Kenney and Johnny B. Badd. Disco Inferno leaves the TNA and takes part in the independent circuit.
7. After the independent circuit, he made guests appearances for Impact Wrestling and TNA:
Gilbertti appeared in a taped interview segment with Mike Tenay as Disco Inferno on the October 18, 2007, edition of Impact!, and came back a few years later after losing in a squash to Abyss.
In late 2007, he contributed to the creative team with Vince Russo and on the side he worked for TNA as a road agent. Sporadically being featured on TNA’s Lockdown fan interaction, Gilbertti appeared in Lowell, Massachusetts on April 12, 2008.
On the October 8, 2008 edition of Spin Cycle Disco Inferno appeared as a guest. Spin is TNA’s online exclusive show.
On November 2, 2008, Gilbertti aka Disco Inferno was released from his contract with TNA, with them citing budget cuts as the reason.
Disco Inferno made an appearance on Mr. Anderson in the Scorpion Sitdown interview segment, during the 2011 edition of Impact Wrestling, where Anderson asked him to bury Sting. Anderson refused and was defeated by Anderson until Sting helped him out.
8. His semi-retirement began in 2005:
In 2005, Gilbertti returned to work on the independent circuit in Georgia and Minnesota. Disco also fought for Vince Russo’s Ring of Glory and the Southern Wrestling Alliance. Four years later, Gilbertti was employed as a trainer for Future Stars of Wrestling in Las Vegas and was featured on the company’s independent shows from time to time.
He appeared at the Wrestlecon Supershow during WrestleMania 31 over the weekend in San Jose, California. He defeated Mr. TA.
Disco teamed up with Eli Drake on March 11, 2018 at Future Stars of Wrestling in Las Vegas. The two lost to Raven and Tommy Dreamer.
9. He came back to Impact Wrestling in 2018:
Gilbertti appeared on the Thanksgiving 2018 episode of Impact Wrestling and had a plan to impress Scarlett Bordeaux. Disco Inferno was then featured in Eli Drake’s 2nd Annual “Gravy Train Turkey Trot”, where he teamed with Ohio Versus Everything member Jake Crist, Katarina ( Katarina Waters ), the Desi or Indian member Hit Squad Rohit Raju and his captain Eli Drake in a 5-on-5 mixed tag team match.
During the 5-on-5 mixed match, Gilbertti’s team went face to face with a team consisting of Dezmond Xavier, Kikutaro, Alisha Edwards, KM (Kevin Matthews) and team captain Fallah Bahh. Gilbertti was caught by Fallah Bahh after a Bonzai Drop. Since Disco Inferno aka Gilbertti got caught up in the fight, he was forced to wear the Turkey outfit.
10. Podcasts and other work:
Glenn Gilbertti also known as Disco Inferno wrote columns between 2007 and 2009 and did audio features on Wrestlezone.com.
In 2014, Gilbertti began appearing as a guest on Major League Wrestling Action Radio’s podcasts and in early 2015 briefly had his own podcast ‘Hot News’ alongside Mike Sanders.
Gilbertti is currently on a podcast called “Keepin It 100” with Konnan on the Jericho Network. He has been with the show since it debuted on The One Podcast in 2016. The show is currently on Westwood One. Gilbertti also appears weekly on Vince Russo’s Brand Network in a show called Lane Toys, Bros and the Disco (previously called Lions, Tigers, Bears and the Disco).
11. Booking career:
In June 2000, Gilbertti helped book WCW shows. During that time, the reserve committee consisted of Gilbertti, Vince Russo, Account Banks, Ed Ferrara, and Terry Taylor. During the booking sessions, Gilbertti would occasionally joke with the creative team about potential angles: one included doing a Martian invasion plot where the story would begin with antennae coming out of Miguel Tenay’s head; the other would include a pre-recorded vignette showing an empty locker room followed by an exposition titled “The Invisible Man: Coming Soon”.
In Vince Russo’s book String Opera, Russo says when he was close to resigning as the WWE creative team’s front writer in mid-2002, he requested that Gilbertti be brought with him; According to Russo, word got around about Gilbertti’s reservation to the point that Vince McMahon questioned Russo’s decision about introducing Gilbertti in due to legitimate concerns about Gilbertti’s ideas, and referred to the “Martian Invasion” angle to him. Russo ended up not signing with WWE later on and Gilbertti was consequently not signed as well.
12. Philosophy on his preference for the entertainment aspect over action:
Gilbertti had a brief stint on the creative team at TNA in late 2007 to early 2008 when Russo brought him in. Post-WCW, during interviews and columns he had written, Gilbertti was known to be very vocal about his preference for the entertainment aspect over the action-athletic component of professional wrestling.
In September 2015, Kayfabe Reviews, who produce the DVDs of wrestler interviews, released “Guest Booker with Glenn Gilbertti” where Gilbertti discussed his wrestling philosophy as well as his joke ideas such as the Martian invasion, the Invisible Man, ” and the Tilín de Cuenta: The Bad Architect “; when asked what his favorite storyline or character he booked, Gilbertti stated Lance Storm’s booking in WCW where Storm was pushed week after week to the point where he held three titles at the same time.
In that same interview with Guest Booker, Gilbertti explained his philosophy in reserving the action of professional wrestling:
“There was never a book written about the act of fighting. The book that has been written about the action of fighting is in the ego of the minds of the people who have done it before us, those who have booked before and have been successful They think they wrote the book because they did the things that proved right This doesn’t mean this is the only thing you have to do… You can call yourself [pro fighting a male soap opera, good versus evil led to its over the theater, but in this day and age, in the age of positions, wrestling action is a three-hour block of television that you are free to put on whatever you want on it to get people to watch the show. “
On April 8, 2014, WWE Countdown ranked Gilbertti’s Disco Inferno character as the sixth most infamous gimmick in wrestling history. Many of his WCW teammates, who now work for WWE, such as William Regal, Bill DeMott, and Scott Armstrong, defended Gilbertti, embraced the gimmick, and were able to successfully top it with the fans.