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'The Crusher' smashes Guinness record

Merrick strongman performs in Macau, China

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Merokean Steve “The Crusher” Weiner stood in awe and soaked in the sheer size of the theater where he would attempt to break the Guinness world record for curling metal frying pans with his bare hands.

“It was a huge, huge stage,” recalled the 6-foot-2 Weiner during a recent interview at his home in the Gables neighborhood.

In early December, the management of the Venetian Macao, a five-star resort-casino in Macau, China, called Weiner to ask if he was interested in performing with a contingent of Guinness world record holders at a Jan. 10 spectacular for the hotel’s high-stakes rollers.

Though Weiner, 51, already held the record for the most frying pans curled in a minute –– 12 –– he thought the call was a joke or a scam. He had never heard of Macau, a 6-square-mile island in the South China Sea and a former Portuguese colony that is now a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China. Eventually, though, he realized that the call was legitimate.

The Venetian’s management offered to pay all expenses for Weiner and his wife, Stacey, during the four-day trip. It was an offer he couldn’t refuse. That’s how the Merokean, who is a New York Power Authority budget manager by day, wound up on such a large stage, part of one of the most bizarre and wondrous collections of acts in the world.

“I was blown away by the whole thing,” he said. “It was like I was a movie star.”
The resort flew him and his wife to Macau first-class, provided limousine service back and forth from the airport to their hotel –– the Holiday Inn, which was a resort itself –– and dined them at gourmet restaurants. “Everything was very, very professional, very well run,” Weiner said.

The theater where he performed seated 1,800 people, and the ceiling was 120 feet high. “It was cavernous,” he said. “I was very, very humbled and honored to be there.”


No doubt, he said, the 16-hour flight was worth it.

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