Tobacco Avenue

Veteran Richmond news anchor Gene Cox has reportedly gone “absolutely apeshit” over his rejection by Style Weekly on its annual Power List, sources confirmed this evening.

According to several bystanders, the Cox tirade - held just after today’s regular 6 p.m. broadcast on NBC12 - included claims by the anchor that he should have been included on the newspaper’s annual ranking of the region’s most powerful people “after all I’ve done for this town,” “because you’d better believe I darn-well deserve it,” and the 63-year-old’s incessant belief that simply keeping thousands of local citizens informed was “more than e-goddamned-nough” for at least a Top 20 Power List placement.

“You should have seen him, just gets up from the desk after doing a story on a Petersburg fire, unfurls his red tie, just unleashes some of the worst obscenities you’ve ever heard toward the camera and tells no one to bother him, he’s gone to his dressing room for a scotch,” said NBC12 producer Jon Mockenhaupt.  “Everyone just kind of stood around silently and let him finish.”

“That’s the best thing to do when this happens,” Mockenhaupt added.

Style editor Jason Roop said Cox had been considered for the list, but was dropped for several reasons, the foremost being that the act of simply including the powerful anchorman - who is rumored to bench-press nearly 900 pounds, has killed several species of wild animal, can fishtail a car around a corner like in the movies, and slept with more than 15,000 women in 1972 alone - could have caused the alternative weekly to burst into flames.