Glenn_Gilberti

Glenn Gilberti

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

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, 2 time Television Champion and 1 time World Tag Team Champion 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. 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.

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. Inferno wrestled on many editions of Main Event before pay-per-view events against superstars such as Joey Maggs and Eddie Guerrero. He also competed on 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 up with his future partner Alex Wright against Dick Slater and Earl Robert Eaton.

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. 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. 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.

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. He lost to Jacquelyn at Halloween Havoc 1997. He engaged in a feud with Perry Saturn after losing the Television title to Saturn on November 3 edition of Nitro. Disco lost to Saturn in a rematch at World War 3 1997, before finally regaining the title from Saturn in a rematch on December 8 edition of Nitro for his second WCW World Television Championship. Four weeks later, he dropped the title to Booker T.

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. He defeated La Parka at SuperBrawl VIII. 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. At Bash at the Beach 1998, Inferno lost a match to Konnan. Inferno and Wright feuded with teams such as The Public Enemy (Johnny Grunge and Rocco Rock), and The British Bulldog & Jim Neidhart.

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. He earned his title shot later that night against champion Billy Kidman but lost the match. 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. Inferno became allied with, and eventually joined the nWo Wolfpac. Around that time, Disco feuded with the likes of Booker T, Konnan, Buff Bagwell and Ernest Miller.

Inferno won the WCW Cruiserweight Championship from Psychosis on October 4, 1999 edition of Nitro. He entered a program with Lash LeRoux and had a successful title defense against LeRoux at Halloween Havoc 1999. 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. 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. Disco aligned with Mamalukes and became an enforcer for the duo.

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. 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. 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. At Fall Brawl 2000, Filthy Animals fought Natural Born Thrillers to a no contest in an elimination match. During the match, Disco turned on Konnan by hitting him a Chartbuster and began feuding with both Animals and Thrillers.

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. 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. 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

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 (still using the Disco Inferno name) for World Wrestling All-Stars (WWA). 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.In 2003, he briefly returned to WWA under his "Disco Inferno" gimmick. On May 23, Disco faced WWA World Heavyweight Champion Sting for the title but lost the match.

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.

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2003-2004, -Present)

Sports Entertainment Xtreme (2003)

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

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. 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. 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. 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. 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 IPW 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.