> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.gwawrestling.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Scott Darkness - URL: https://www.gwawrestling.com/scott-darkness/ - Published: 2026-10-15T13:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-15T13:00:01.000Z - Description: Scott Darkness came to the GWA in 1988 in face paint and taped fists, talking about heavy metal. Crowds laughed at him until he walked out behind The Phantom on Night Trials. - Author: Josh Schairbaum - Tags: Profiles, wrestlers, territory-southwest, territory-sierra-nevada, territory-television, traditions-era *Scott Darkness wrestled in the Great Western Wrestling Alliance, the American territory promotion chronicled across this site. He worked the* [*Southwest and Sierra Nevada territories*](https://www.gwawrestling.com/territories/) *in 1988 and the GWA's television programs from 1989 to 1993, and he teamed with* [*The Phantom*](https://www.gwawrestling.com/phantom/) *as Phantom & Shadow in 1989 and 1990.* ## **AT A GLANCE** - **Ring name:** Scott Darkness - **Nickname:** The Shadow - **Born:** 1962, Fontana, California - **Billed from:** The Shadows of the Inland Empire - **Height:** 6'2" - **Weight:** 245 lbs - **Active:** 1988 to 1993 - **Territories:** [Southwest](https://www.gwawrestling.com/tag/territory-southwest/), [Sierra Nevada](https://www.gwawrestling.com/tag/territory-sierra-nevada/), [Television](https://www.gwawrestling.com/tag/territory-television/) - **Era:** [Traditions](https://www.gwawrestling.com/eras/) - **Team:** Phantom & Shadow, with The Phantom, 1989 to 1990 ## **EARLY LIFE** Scott Darkness grew up in Fontana, in San Bernardino County. His father drove a bread delivery route and his mother worked a supermarket checkout. Out of high school he loaded amplifiers for metal bands on the club circuit between Hollywood and Riverside, and he spent the early 1980s watching shows from the side of the stage. In 1986 he trained at the Stars & Stripes Wrestling Federation's training center in Phoenix and wrestled on the SSWF's small-town cards for two years. He left the SSWF at the end of 1987. ## **CAREER** ### **Southwest and Sierra Nevada (1988)** The GWA's Southwest office in Phoenix took him on in 1988\. He came to the ring slow, with no smile and long pauses, and then broke into an air-guitar solo halfway down the aisle. He stopped his own interviews to explain which album a lyric came from. Crowds in Phoenix and Reno laughed at him. He wrestled the first matches on the card and lost most of them. He spent the year chasing El Fantasma del Norte around the Sierra Nevada loop. Darkness called himself the shadow in the corner of the arena and mocked El Fantasma's mask, his lucha style and his legend. El Fantasma beat him with speed Darkness could not match, with his partner Ken Coyote in his corner. The Sierra Nevada territory closed at the end of 1988. ### **Phantom & Shadow (1988 to 1990)** Late in 1988 the two of them carried it onto *Night Trials*, the late-night program out of Seattle. At one taping El Fantasma had Darkness beaten and Ken Coyote came off the apron to help put him down. [The Phantom](https://www.gwawrestling.com/phantom/) walked out, took both men apart, and walked back up the aisle without a look at Darkness on the canvas. The next week Darkness walked out a step behind him. The Phantom let him stay. Nobody explained it on the air. The Phantom did not speak. Darkness talked for both of them, at full volume, about darkness and the abyss and the encore, with the masked man standing silent behind him. The crowds that had laughed at him in 1988 stopped laughing. Through 1989 Phantom & Shadow met El Fantasma and Coyote on *Tuesday Night Tradition* out of Phoenix and on *Night Trials*. Two masked men faced each other across the ring, El Fantasma in his lucha mask and The Phantom in black and silver, while Coyote and Darkness did the talking. They met to the end of the year without settling it. In 1989 and 1990 they also met [Felix Frenzy](https://www.gwawrestling.com/felix-frenzy/) and Vinnie Voltage, two fast men who kept the pace high and laughed at Darkness every time they had a microphone. Darkness answered each joke in earnest. The Phantom answered them with the Last Roundup. On *Night Trials* in 1989, [Deacon Dark](https://www.gwawrestling.com/deacon-dark-the-twilight-tyrant/), out of the ring by then and preaching from a pulpit between matches, sermonized against heavy metal and named Darkness from the pulpit. Darkness interrupted the broadcasts to defend the music. The Phantom, who had once stood beside Deacon Dark, stood at the back and watched him. At the end of 1990 The Phantom stopped coming to the ring with him. Nobody explained that either. ### **On his own (1991 to 1993)** In 1991 [Mack "Mosh" Morrison](https://www.gwawrestling.com/mosh-morrison/) came after him on *Tuesday Night Tradition* in a flannel shirt, calling him a hair-metal dinosaur. Darkness answered in the voice of a British rock star, with lectures on musicianship and life on tour. Morrison won the series. Darkness stayed on *Tuesday Night Tradition* and *Night Trials* until the GWA closed in 1993, with the odd appearance on *GWA: The New Style*. ## **IN THE RING** ![Scott Darkness in red, black and white face paint and black tights with a silver skull design, one taped fist raised overhead making the heavy metal horns, his other hand gripping that arm.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e1/2a/e12a6d47-8023-4862-bf2c-4dc09b758c7c/content/images/2026/10/scott-darkness-promo-1.jpg) Scott Darkness, 1988. Darkness came out to "Can U Deliver" by Armored Saint, a Los Angeles band from the club circuit he had worked. He walked slow with both hands making the horns, stopped halfway to the ring for an air-guitar solo, and climbed to the second rope to conduct the crowd. He wore a full face of paint: white base, black around the eyes and mouth, red across the brow and up into a red streak in his long dark hair, and a white chin. He wrestled in full-length black tights with a silver skull design down both legs, black boots with white trim, and white tape on both fists. He stood six feet tall, thick through the shoulders and soft at the middle. He was a brawler. He threw punches from the opening bell, mixed in headbutts, stomps and chokes in the corner, and stopped between flurries to play to the hard camera. He had no finishing hold and won with his fists. ## **IN HIS OWN WORDS** He talked low and sarcastic, chuckling at his own remarks, until the subject turned to metal. Then he shouted. > "Scott Darkness doesn't wrestle. Scott Darkness PERFORMS. These other guys are the opening band, man. They're up there tuning while the people are still getting beers. Then the lights go down, and the Shadow comes out, and you know what you got? You got a SHOW." ## **LEGACY** Darkness never held a championship. He wrestled six years in the GWA, two of them beside The Phantom, and he was still on its television programs when the company closed in 1993. More [GWA wrestler profiles](https://www.gwawrestling.com/wrestlers/).