Assailant: “Joey Porter Wasn’t So Tough When I Shot Him in the Ass”

Joey Porter, middle linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers and one of the NFL’s preeminent trash talkers and intimidators, is not quite the tough guy he appears to be, if you believe the words of one Ricky “R-Dub” Wallace.

“Jerry Porter is a little bitch,” Wallace said from a Denver jail cell yesterday. “Believe that.”

Wallace, it turns out, was the man who opened fire on Porter and a group of his associates during a confrontation outside a Denver-area sports bar following the 2003 Colorado State – Colorado football game. During the attack, Porter was struck in the left buttocks and left in serious condition, nearly ending Porter's NFL career.

While never arrested for the shooting, Wallace is now serving consecutive life sentences for an unrelated double homicide, and was more than happy to recall his run-in with one of the NFL’s hardest men.

“Porter had beef with one of my boys, and he kept running his mouth, saying "You know who I am? Do you know who I am?? You don’t want none of this!’” Wallace recalled.

“So I pulled out my nine and just started blastin'. Everyone else was either diving behind cars or firing back, and this “nigger starts running in circles hollering ‘dey shootin! dey shootin!’ at the top of his lungs. I’ve never seen nothing like it.”

“After a couple of minutes, one of my boys begged me to do something to stop his screaming,” Wallace continued. “So I shot him in the ass.”

This depiction of Porter is in direct contrast with the 3-time Pro Bowler’s on-field and locker room persona. Over the years, Porter’s physical style of play and propensity for aggressive sound bites have built his reputation as a man not to be messed with.

After riling up the Colts during the divisional round by saying they were a “finesse” team that relied on tricks and wouldn’t play smashmouth football, Porter has livened up what had been a stoic, uneventful build-up to Super Bowl XL by engaging in a war of words with Seattle Seahawks’ tight-end Jerramy Stevens.

After Stevens casually mentioned that the Jerome Bettis-returning-to-Detroit story will not have a happy ending, Porter went on the offensive. After guaranteeing that he would “make sure Stevens owns up to his words,” Porter then added that the Steelers defense would “tap out as many people as we can,” hinting that many a Seahawk would be leaving the field injured or exhausted come Sunday.

Porter closed his diatribe by adding, “I’ve got my first taste of blood and now I’m thirsty for more,” an assertion Wallace found laughable.

“That motherf**ker didn’t like blood so much when I shot him in the ass,” Wallace chuckled. “He passed out as soon as he saw the hole in his drawers. When he came to, he started screaming like one of them dudes from ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ beggin to his mama to come home. When we left, he was still curled up in the fetal position, crying. Even his crew started apologizing to us for him.”

So does that mean Porter’s reputation as a tough-guy is undeserved?

“I’ll tell you what,” said Wallace. “I’ve shot me a lot of people in my day, and none of them was a bitch like Joey Porter was a bitch. It was really pretty sad.”