Nicholson, known to wrestling fans as Hannibal, wrestled Abdullah the Butcher in 2007 and claims that his opponent cut them both with the same razor. He blames the subsequent commingling of fluids for giving him hepatitis C, a disease that has ruined his pro-wrestling career. (He remains an alternate for Canada’s Greco-Roman Olympic wrestling team.) Graham backs Nicholson’s campaign against Abdullah. “I would love to talk to you about that pile of dung,” he wrote when I e-mailed him. “Abdullah the Butcher is possessed like a demon.” Graham says he has seen Abdullah blade other wrestlers—usually younger ones, like Nicholson, too naive to stop a match and object—until their faces were fountains of blood.

Does Nicholson have a case? Video of one match clearly shows Abdullah flicking at his own head and Nicholson’s until blood flows. Graham and others say that during his fights, Abdullah has used precisely this motion to draw blood with a razor concealed under a thumb bandage. But wrestling is an inherently violent sport. And Gabe Feldman, a sports-law expert at Tulane University, says the law makes it hard for plaintiffs to collect damages for injuries that athletes could reasonably be expected to incur: stepping into a ring with a fork-wielding maniac named Abdullah the Butcher could constitute a kind of liability waiver in itself.

As for hepatitis C, late last year, a number of wrestling Web sites reported that Abdullah had “tested positive,” though Abdullah denies that he has it. (Many wrestlers, including Billy Graham, have the virus. It is a silent legacy of “double-blood” matches, wherein both wrestlers shed blood—or, in wrestling’s carny-inflected lingo, “juice,” “color,” or “claret.”)

Over the years, Abdullah has punctuated encounters with unsuspecting journalists with some claret-shedding. After checking to see whether my shots were current, I asked him for an interview. He agreed, and told me to present myself at Abdullah the Butcher’s House of Ribs and Chinese Food, his restaurant in southwest Atlanta. Its walls feature portraits of Abdullah, rival wrestlers, and assorted luminaries (including Rosa Parks and Jimmy Carter, who once called Abdullah “my favorite wrestler”). From there, I was to follow Abdullah’s driver, Phyllis, as she delivered her boss’s daily dose of medicine and fried food in the restaurant’s hand-painted BBQ-delivery van. After careening through a tasteful, wooded neighborhood at nearly 60 miles an hour, we arrived at Abdullah’s one-story ranch house, and Phyllis ushered me into a pink-walled room where Abdullah was watching a Jerry Lewis movie at high volume.

An incorrigible entrepreneur, Abdullah demanded that I pay him $20 for the car chase and a taste of his food. (Out of politeness, I took a fried shrimp off his plate and drank a ginger ale.) He sat slumped and shirtless in a blue easy chair, his flab pouring over the edges like a gastropod’s. He can barely walk nowadays; half a century of body slams and recreational phlebotomy have left him weakened and in need of a hip replacement. (For their 2007 matches, Nicholson had to hoist Abdullah into the ring. Although Abdullah is not currently able to wrestle, he vows to return.) His left armpit is discolored from a burn sustained when a fellow wrestler spat gasoline on him, and self-slicing has left his scalp rutted with grooves so deep, he can (and does) stick quarters in them.