From Fan To Pro

He quits a wedding reception early to catch a wrestling show, walks down an armory stairwell, and accidentally runs into the person who opens the door to his entire career. That’s the moment I keep coming back to as I tell the real origin story of how I went from a diehard fan in Oak Hill, West Virginia to training and working for Smoky Mountain Wrestling. 

I rewind to the 1980s when professional wrestling on TV was appointment viewing and the territories felt endless, from Mid-Atlantic to WTBS to WWF and AWA. Then the path gets personal: meeting Tim Horner, signing a deal, and getting my first taste of “the boys” at the 1993 Legends of Wrestling convention in Philadelphia. I share what it meant to be treated with kindness by Kerry Von Erich, the weird sting of an Ultimate Warrior autograph gone wrong, and how a master like Terry Funk could work a kid with one quiet line. 

From there it’s the grind: moving to Tennessee on June 2, 1993, learning what “make a town” really means, and training the hard way with conditioning, bumps, and fundamentals before flash. That foundation leads to a moment that still doesn’t feel real: December 6, 1993, a borrowed yellow mask, a new name, and my first match on Smoky Mountain TV as The Hornet against the Rock and Roll Express, followed by a $50 check that felt like winning the lottery. 

I also explain why I’ve kept detailed wrestling journals for 32 years and how the next chapter starts with 1994 as we go match by match through the ride. If you enjoy wrestling history, wrestling territories, old-school training, and honest locker room memories, subscribe, share this with a fellow fan, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Cold Open And Big Dream

SPEAKER_00 0:01

I am your champion. Oh man, that's classic, I love it. I'm gonna climb that ladder of success all the way to the top. Have you ever fell in love with something so strong that it became the air that you breathed? That's what happened when I saw professional wrestling. I wanted to consume so much of this new discovery. The characters, the violence, the stories. Little did I know at the time I would dedicate my life to this find. I also had no clue as to how many ups and downs this would give me over the years, decades of adventures. I was in, and it was all the way. Hello everybody, I'm Brian Logan, and this is Making the Towns with Brian Logan. I have spent 32 years in professional wrestling. I've wrestled all over the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico, and I want to share with you my story. I grew up in a small town in West Virginia called Oak Hill, West Virginia. It's in the bottom half of the state near Beckley, West Virginia. It was a coal mining area, and it was a very politically charged area. There was a definite divide between the haves and the have nots. But the decade of the 80s was the decade of decadence, and everything was larger than life, including pro wrestling. And I think that that had something to do with each other. The 80s were defined by wrestling, and it was just everywhere. You could watch it for numerous hours on Saturday mornings. It would come on WTBS first thing at 7 o'clock a.m. which was the old Ole Anderson feed. And then world class would come on at noon. And when I saw the Von Ericks, I just was amazed by them, and they immediately became my heroes. Mid-Atlantic would come on around 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, somewhere in that area, and we would get to see the Dusty Rhodes and the Tully Blanchards and the Midnight Express and the Rock and Roll Express. And then it would 605 would come on, WTBS, which was the flagship show for the NWA. And it was, you know, this was way before TiVo or streaming or anything like that. You had to, it was appointment viewing. You had to be in front of the television to watch it. And I was there all the time. And then WWF would come on, spotlight or challenge at 10 o'clock, and then at midnight the AWA would come on. But also on Sundays, the WWF would have their All-American show. And during the week, you would get on ESPN, you would get AWA wrestling at 4 30 or world-class legends at some point. So there was plenty of wrestling going around. And I watched all of it and bought all the wrestling magazines and read up on it and everything. And I just loved the escapism of professional wrestling. So Smoky Mountain began promoting in the early 90s out of uh Morristown, Tennessee, Knoxville area. And their show came on WAY in Oak Hill. And I loved it immediately. It was an old school territory that looked like the NWA with a lot of familiar faces. Jim Cornette, the Rock'n'Roll Express. But with new people also, like Brian Lee and Dirty White Boy, even though Dirty White Boy had been around for a long time. He had never wrestled in an area where I could watch him. And they decided to start doing house shows in Beckley. And a friend of mine was getting married, and I went to the uh the wedding, and I got out of we got out of the wedding, we went to the reception, and I decided to leave the reception early and go over and catch the the matches in Beckley. And this changed my life because where I was late because of the wedding, I was coming into the Raleigh County Armory and going down the steps to get to the m you know the arena floor, and I bumped into a guy. And it turned out it was Tim Horner. And we started talking, and he's like, You're you're a pretty big kid. And you know, what do you are you an athlete? And I said, Yeah, I I play baseball and I I wrestle in high school and play tennis and I'm a lifeguard. And he's like, Well, I'm starting up a training school, and I we're looking for students. Why why don't you send put together a resume of all the amateur athletics that you've done and send it in? And you know, maybe maybe we can give you a shot. So I did that. And I was at the time I I had graduated in 1992. Like I said, I wrestled in high school, lettered my freshman year, which, you know, it was unheard of. It was me and another guy who who he played football as a freshman, and I I wrestled and became a letterman in my freshman year, which is just really cool. So once I graduated, I went to Alderson Broadest College in Philippi, West Virginia. Went up there to play baseball. I never made it onto the field because the uh fall semester I was there. I was in the dorm room, and the phone rings one day, and it's Tim Horner again. And he says, We're starting that school that I was telling you about. We got your packet, and we uh think that you fit the mold, and we'd like to offer you a contract to come down to Tennessee and be a professional wrestler. And I couldn't believe it. The the thing that I loved most in life, I was gonna get an opportunity to do it, and more importantly, it was gonna get me out of West Virginia, so it was gonna be something that I loved and it was gonna be a new beginning. A couple of weeks later, Smoky Mountain would be coming to Bluefield, West Virginia to do a house show, and I went down there, met with Tim Horner, signed a contract. It's guaranteed me that it was a typical wrestling contract. It benefited them and not necessarily me. I was guaranteed that I was gonna have 17 television matches once I got done with training. But I was gonna have to pay them$2,000 to train, and that they would train me and then they would give me a guaranteed placement for 17 matches. But I had that. I had it's I had the money saved up from where I had lifeguarded all summer, so I paid my own way, and I was ready to go, but I had to finish the first semester of college first because I couldn't move it down there until the summer. So I continued back to Alderson Broadass, and I started having the I had the opportunity to go up to Philadelphia in January of 1993, and they had a Legends of Wrestling convention in Philly, and my mom took me and my girlfriend at the time up there, and this was the first opportunity that I had to be close to wrestling. Before I had just been a fan and bought tickets and watched the show. Well, this time I was up there, I had an inn, and I had never seen a convention, I'd never been to a convention, and the access to the boys and to the sport was just unreal. I'd never experienced anything like that. And I'm I'm 16 at the time because I started school early and I graduated early, so I'm about to turn 17, so I'm around 16, 17 years old. And I go up there and there's tons of stars up there. The Von Eric, uh, Carrie Von Eric's there, British Bulldog, Sid, Animal of the Road Warriors, Woman, Terry Funk, Eddie Gilbert, just a lot of who's who on the independence scene at that time, and and and well-known stars. And I got to go up there and I loved it. And real quick, I have took a lot of pictures. That's where I started out in my career was taking pictures before I learned how to wrestle. So I have kept these pictures for all these years, and I put these up on Patreon more on that later, but I'm going to show you guys all these pictures if you want to take a look at them, so you can see, you know, when I was younger and see some of these guys and see what it looked like. But I went up to the convention and I hung out for the weekend, and everything was really cool, and and I just loved it. I looked older than I was. So I I was able to go into the lounge, into the bar area. So on Saturday night, I walk into the the bar, and you know, Sid's there, so I talked to Sid for a minute, and Sandman, when he was still surfer, Sandman, was there. I talked to him a little bit, but Road Warrior Animal was sitting at the bar. And I go over to him and introduce myself, and I asked him, could I buy him a beer and us talk about wrestling? And he looked at me and he said, uh, I'll drink with you as long as you want to drink, but let's talk about football instead of wrestling. And I said, Okay, absolutely, let's talk about football. So I sat there at 16, 17 years old drinking beer with Road Warrior Animal and talking football for the whole night. And that was my first night, I guess technically, in the business, even though I wasn't smart to the business. I had no idea what I was doing. I was a complete mark, a complete fan. And I just loved it. I ate it up. And one of the things that I one of the people I met what during the convention was Carrie Von Erich, who was like I had stated earlier, the Von Ericks were my heroes, and I I watched them all the time. And I went up to Carrie, and he was so nice and so personable, and just we just talked, and he gave me so much time with him. And I told him, I said, I'm getting ready to go train in Tennessee. And Carrie's like, he says, I hope that I get to work with you one day. And that just that touched my heart because that was the first time being accepted by one of the boys. Little did we know that that was going to be one of his last two appearances and that he would end up committing suicide two or three months later, and I never got to see Carrie again. But the impact that Carrie had on me, it was just the way he treated me is he treated me like I was one of the boys. Now, at the time I didn't know. At the time I didn't appreciate that, but I've learned over the the years that he didn't have to do that, and a lot of the boys didn't do that to fans. I mean, nowadays you you come up and you say, Hey, I'm getting ready to get in the business, and they're like, Well, of course you are, because everybody gets in the business, you know. But back then, there were still territories, and kayfabe was very much alive. But I didn't even know what Kayfabe was, I'd never even heard that term. So for him to open up and be like that with me, it just it just meant the world. Also at the convention, I met the Ultimate Warrior, which is probably the opposite of Caribon Eric. He was not personable, he was not really that nice, I guess. He wasn't rude, but he wasn't that nice. And I remember that I had Hasbro, because I always collected wrestling dolls, wrestling action figures, and that was a huge thing. To this day, I still collect all the Mattels and the wrestling figures and all that. I have a huge collection, it's a big part of my life. So I had an Ultimate Warrior Hasbro, the one in the purple, and I had the warrior sign it, and there was the table he was sitting at, he signed it on the back with the magic marker, and he the on the table was a plastic tablecloth, and he slid it across the table, and it just smeared all of the ink that was on his autograph, and it just ruined it, and he didn't care. And I was I wasn't heartbroken, but I was like, man, that's that's not cool at all. But I got to uh watch the show, and they gave me access, they had a show, they had an ECW WWA joint show that at that convention, and British Bulldog wrestled, and Eddie Gilbert and Terry Funk was the main event in a Texas deat match. But I took pictures and Kevin Sullivan was supposed to be there with woman, but his something happened with his flight and he didn't make it. So they did a gimmick to where it was gonna be woman's choice versus Salvatore Bellomo, who at this time was like a Roman centurion, which was I thought was really cool because it was in stark contrast to what Salvatore was when I saw him on TV. So what they did was is they got Carrie Von Erich to be her choice under a hood. Well, he had his full Carrie Von Erich boots on with the tassels and you know the purple knee pads and the trunks and the big nice robe and everything, but he had a black mask on. So, and on the back of the jacket, it had Carrie. So when he came out, everybody knew it was Carrie Von Erich, but he had the mask on. And then as the match goes, he ends up taking the mask off. He had a good little short match with Sal Bolomo, but I was able to go into the what I guess would have been their gorilla position. It was a kitchen off of the main ballroom. And there I was able to get access in that area, and I took tons of pictures of Carrie and some of the other boys and everything. And I can't to this day I can't believe that they let a kid with just a regular camera go back in that area and have that access. But that's the way it was was when I got accepted by hanging out with the boys, I was okay. I was one of them. So they let me in. Again, I'm not smart to anything. I can't overstate that. I was not smart to anything in the business, but I was taking those pictures, and it was it was quite an experience, and I really, really enjoyed that, and I treasure these pictures. I watched Terry Funk and Eddie Gilbert have the famous Texas deathmatch that was in all the magazines. I got to see it, you know, firsthand, and because I was taking pictures, I was uh right up near ringside when they fought around the building. I was right there, you know, taking pictures. And one of the things that stands out with that is and to show how green I was, I mean, just green as green can be, Terry Funk takes a bump on the floor and he looks up at the people, you know, there's like three or four of us taking pictures, and then the regular crowds like behind us, and he looks up and he goes, I really hurt myself. I think I broke my ribs. And I bought into that. I was like, Oh my gosh, he he he broke his ribs, and I've got pictures of it, and and he said this, and no one else heard it. And what he did was is he completely worked me. He worked me a hundred percent because he that's just how good he was. You know, I wasn't smart, of course I was being worked, but I thought I was getting to see something behind the curtain because he let me in on it, and that was so cool that Terry did that, and that was nothing for him. That was nothing at all for him to do something like that, but it was a cool little detail that that is overlooked in wrestling now. You know, it's just something so subtle that means 110% that people just don't do anymore like that. But yes, it was it was great going to the legends of wrestling in Philly. Again, that was January 23rd and 24th of 1993. Now, a couple of months later, I would go to Nashville for the WFIA convention on April 9th, 1993. This was the second convention I had ever gone to, and it was it was totally different. The the one in Philly was for the mass public. This was for the wrestling fans international club that I saw in a magazine and went. So the fans were a little more smart to what was going on, except for me. I wasn't, I wasn't smartened up to none of this. But that's where I met Al Costello and he of the fabulous kangaroos, and he had a seminar that you could get into the ring, I think it was like 50 bucks or something, and you would get in there with Al Snow. I'd never heard of Al Snow. He him and Denny Cass was going to be the new kangaroos managed by Al Costello. Well, I signed up. It was me and another kid. There was only two there. He the other kid was probably 14, 15, and again, I'm 16, 17, and the other kid was not an athlete at all. And I I had wrestled a little bit, like I'd said. But I got to get into the ring for the first time. And all these old timers were there, like Dickie Steinborn, and you know, Al was there, and some some of these other guys that had just been around the Nashville area. And I got in the ring and I worked out, and we amateur wrestled, and Al Snow had me in a riding position, and I sat out, turned in, and got around and reversed it on him. And everybody was surprised. And nobody was more surprised than I was. But at that point, the the training changed. He they started showing me headlocks and headlock takeovers, stuff that was clearly a work. And they did not want to do any more amateur wrestling, probably because they didn't want to hurt me. I would assume that. I'm surely Al Snow was not worried about me hurting him, but the opposite. They probably thought I would get in there and try to shoot, and they'd have to stretch me and all that stuff. But it was great, it was fun, and the headlock takeovers, we did those. We hit the ropes and ran the ropes a little bit, and that was basically it. I think I was in there for like an hour, maybe tops, maybe half hour. It wasn't very long at all. You know, one of those gimmicks for them to make money. But to me, it was the first time in the ring, and I was in heaven, absolute heaven, because now I was starting to be a wrestler. And cherished every second that I could be in that ring. Later on in the convention, we would go to the USWA and watch them at the fairgrounds, which is a place that I would later on, and we'll get into that in in future episodes, when I wrestled for the USWA, I wrestled in in that same building. But we went there and I got to see USWA live for the first time. And the I had read about USWA, but I had never seen it live or anything out of a magazine. So when I got to see Jeff Jarrett and Brian Christopher and Wolfie D and Jamie Ice and You know some of the other guys, Miss Texas, and you know, just these guys that were in the magazines that came to life, and I got to see it. And more importantly, I got to sit front row. I never sat front row at a wrestling event ever. I mean, I'd sat second row or back in the bleachers or whatever, but I got to see it firsthand up front and see these great matches. And I watched Jeff Jarrett wrestle Brian Christopher that night, and I thought to myself, these guys, this could be for the Intercontinental title. These guys look like WWE or WWF at the time, superstars. And so the following night, we went, Debbie Combs had her own independent show that she promoted. So we took cabs, we all took cabs, and we went to some other building in Nashville. It was a high school, and we watched that event, which was, you know, an independent show, but the main event was Eddie Gilbert versus Dutch Mantell in a Texas death match. So I got to see Eddie again, and this was another match that was in the magazines later on, and I was there, you know, to witness it. And it was it was just amazing. And that's where I met Dutch for the first time. And Lamore on Dutch later, he he played a significant role in some of my international parts of my career. But the whole event was such such a good experience. And I had been around the boys now, I had traveled a little bit, and it was time for me to move to Knoxville. And I had never I had grown up in Oak Hill, and we went places. We went on vacations and stuff. So, you know, the beach or to a ball game in Cincinnati or, you know, King's Island or something like that, Bush Gardens, somewhere, you know, something around that kind of kind of deal. But I had never really left the state of West Virginia on my own. I had lived for four or five months in the dorms in Philippi, which was about two or three hours from home, but it was still college and a school environment. On June 2nd, 1993, I packed up, put everything I had, which wasn't very much some clothes and whatnot, in a in my S10 truck, and I moved to Tennessee. My dad came down and we went to Tim Horner's house and I gave him the money. And dad looked at Tim and said, Well, he's your kid now. Take care of him, don't let him get hurt. Then my dad ended up going back to the hotel, and Tim was like, Well, we've got to make a town. And I was like, What do you mean? And he's like, Well, we're going to Williamson, Kentucky tonight for the Spot Town, for the spot show for Smoky Mountain Wrestling. So I immediately I took my stuff to the hotel, unpacked it, got back in the truck, and followed him to Williamson, Kentucky. I didn't even get to ride in the car with him. I had to drive my own self up there and follow him. So because I wasn't, you know, I wasn't smartened up yet, so I couldn't get in the car. So I went up there and immediately that night I sat the ring up and took the coats and ring jackets of the boys and took the ring down and came back to Morristown that night and got up the next morning and we started training. We went to a little gym called Optimus Fitness in Jefferson City, Tennessee, which is just outside of Morristown. And we went down, we worked out. We worked out with weights for three hours, which is way too long. I had lifted, you know, as an athlete, I've lifted. I had I had weight class, weightlifting class in high school. And you, you know, you 45 minutes is about a workout. But now this was the real deal. And we worked out three hours with weights and cardio, and it was it was unbelievably hard. I was exhausted. And as soon as we were done with that, we went downstairs to the racquetball courts, and there were tumbling mats, karate mats, and they put that on the on the floor, obviously. And we started working out wrestling. We did some amateur wrestling, and I held my own a little bit with Tim. Of course, Tim is an amazing shooter, and you know, he loves that sugar hole to this day. He he always wants to sugar somebody. If you know Tim, you know that that's that's his thing. But after we did that for a little bit, we were it was me and him in the racquetball courtroom, and he locked up with me, and he showed me how to stand up straight and where to put my hands compared from an amateur to a professional. And he said to me, We're just going to go about one-fourth speed. So that way you don't hurt me and I don't hurt you. So we were walking through lockups, and I told him, I said, Well, I'd worked out with Al Snow, and now he thought I was a little bit smarter to the business than I was. So he he was like, Well, you can snatch a headlock, and I was like, Yeah, I can do that. So basically I could lock up, snatch the headlock, and then later he showed me how to take an arm and do an arm ringer. And like I said, we were going at 1-4 speed, and he's he basically was saying, This is how you do it, without telling me this is how to lighten up and all this. And I thought to myself, if this is only what wrestling is, I'm gonna make a fortune. Because I was scared, you know, I was a tough kid, and I I'd been in fights and I'd played sports and you know, done things here and there, and West Virginia was a tough area to grow up in, you know. So I, you know, I wasn't a weakling. I had some experience fighting and and get you know, doing it, you know, I I fought adults as a kid. You know, I would get into it and I'd have to fight adults, and so that was typical to me. So I thought these guys were the greatest thing on earth, and I was intimidated by them big time, big, big time intimidated. And when I found out that this was what it was, I was like, this is this is gonna be amazing. So over the next six months, I continued to work out with the weights three hours a day, and we would go in and we would learn to take falls on karate mats on concrete. For three months, we took flat back bumps on the concrete on the mats. We would do sunset flips, we'd do small packages, we would do suplexes. We did everything you could do in a ring without having a ring on concrete with just a little bit of an inch, inch and a half mat. And what it was doing was is it was toughing me up. When I say us, there was another student there, Anthony Michaels, who would be my first tag team partner. He was training also. His experience was similar. He was from New York City, well, Long Island. He was from New York, Copeg, Long Island. He had met Tim Horner at a convention up there, which was similar to my way of finding my way into the business, sort of. And he ended up moving down there to train. And he was maybe maybe a couple of months ahead of me. So it was basically they they were going, they they signed me up so that Anthony would have someone to beat up in practice. Come to find out, they never thought I would stay in the business. They wanted my money and they wanted somebody that could could wrestle with Anthony and not hurt Tim Horner. So they had no idea that I was going to take to it as naturally as I did, which I did. I took it like a sponge and soaked up every possible thing that I could. And it ended up being that we had to get more students because there was now two of us that needed somebody to beat up on. And we we finally got to get in a ring three months later. We went to a TV taping for Smoky Mountain Wrestling, and we got to get in the ring for the first time and actually put it all together. But we had such a basic knowledge of chain wrestling and amateur wrestling and basic holds, headlock, arm bars, body slams, that when we got in the ring, all we had to do was put it together and work on timing. And see, that's the thing that's not that doesn't happen a lot now. All these kids get in the business and they immediately are hitting the ropes and doing high spots and doing all these things. They don't learn their basics. So when they get a match and they make a mistake, which is going to happen, everybody makes mistakes, they have no basics to fall back on. And it shows through the product. Where back then we had a hundred different ways to cover up any mistakes because we had already done that for three months. Three months, day in, day out, five days a week with going to the live events on the weekends. You know, so it was it was a great experience by the time we got there. We just by the time we got into the ring, we had so much basics. I mean, we we had basics coming out of our ears, to be honest with you. We we were we could do all of the chain wrestling for sure. But that was the way Tim taught. Tim taught that if you were asleep and someone counted to three, you kicked out on two. I know that's an old joke, but it really was like that. And we would be wrestling, practicing, and all of a sudden Tim would start shooting with us, and just in case that would happen. And we would learn to go from going through these holes to someone's got me hooked in a in a in a shoot hold. How do you get out of it? How do you protect yourself? So Tim was teaching me not only the basics, but how to protect myself from getting hurt. And what he was really doing was teaching me how to be a man. He was teaching me how to be a professional athlete instead of just an amateur one. He was teaching me how to protect myself in life and in the ring. And that's things that you don't get taught nowadays. It's something that gets overlooked because there's so many people that are getting trained off of a carbon copy of a carbon copy off of a carbon copy, where some guy gets halfway trained and he starts training someone else. And then that person starts training someone else, and it's so diluted that by the time you get to the last person, he doesn't even know what he doesn't even know anymore. And that's that's a shame that it's like that. But back in the territory days, you know, you had to you had to learn your product, you had to learn your craft, and you had to be able to do it with everybody safely, no matter what. And and God forbid you made a mistake because you were scared to death that if you made a mistake, this guy's gonna shoot on me and he might hurt me, and I might not get to do this anymore. That's how serious it was, but it was so fun. So I trained for six months total, and then I ended up coming into the TV taping December 6, 1993, in Jefferson, North Carolina. That day, somebody didn't show up for TV. And I walk into the locker room, and Cornette says, Do you have your gear? And I was like, Yeah, yeah. And the funny thing about the gear was is you know, usually people get uh guys break in, they get black boots or white boots and a pair of long tights or a pair of trunks or whatever, and they're solid and all this stuff, and it's very bland because you don't know who you're gonna be, you don't know what you're gonna do. So you want to just have something that fits everything. Not me. I didn't do that. I bought a pair of yellow boots, bright yellow boots, 18-inch high, calf leather, nicest boots you can get, totally yellow. And I had black, long tights and yellow trunks to go over top of it. I said, Yes, sir, I do. I have I have my gear. And he said, Well, we're gonna we're gonna use you on TV tonight. Just try to do your best, and you know, you're you're gonna have your first match. Well, Jimmy didn't want to have me out there looking like myself because I looked like a 17-year-old kid, and I was 17 at this point, and you know, I looked really young, plus my hair was you know shaggy, it wasn't long, it was in that weird middle state. And I, you know, I looked I I looked older in real life, but in wrestling, I looked like a little kid compared to these grizzled old vets. So Chris Candido is there, and he says, Hey, I've got this yellow mask that you can that you can borrow. And I put the mask on with the outfit, and Jimmy said, The Hornet. That's you. That's who you're gonna be. You're gonna be the Hornet. So that night I wrestled the Rock and Roll Express. We it was my first match, and it was me and a guy named Tony Collins, who I saw for the first time that night, and never saw him again in the business ever again. I have no idea what happened to him, but it was the Hornet and Tony Collins versus the Rock and Roll Express. And my first wrestling match ever was on television for Smoky Mountain Wrestling. I mean, can you imagine that today where you would show up and you're immediately on TV with you know the top babyface team of all time in professional wrestling? And I was scared to death, but I was so excited. And Ricky and Robert were so good to me for going to shows, and they were, they really were, they took care of me and Anthony. We hung out with them because we've been going to all the shows and setting up the ring and doing odd jobs and whatever. So I got into the match, and basically they took my legs, the double leg takedown, worked on the legs a little bit, did a couple of double team moves like gut shot neck breaker or gut shot knee lift, and then all of a sudden they hit me with the double drop kick and pinned me. One, two, three. But I had a I had a match, and I was a professional wrestler. And at the end of the night, I got handed a check for$50, and I couldn't believe it. This is something that I would have done for free every day for my entire life until I was dead, and they were gonna give me money to do it. I mean, it was amazing, and not only that, but they're gonna let me do it again, and they're gonna let me continue to do this and pay me. It was a dream come true for a 17-year-old kid. I'm there with my heroes, the people that I had spent countless hours watching on television, the the the guys that I idolized, and they they all treated me like I was their kid, like I was their little brother because I was, and that was the fraternity of the boys back then. When you were in, you were in. We don't have that fraternity like that anymore. I mean, the real boys are the real boys, and they'll always be the real boys. But in the independence now, there's a lot of guys out there, a lot of good guys out there, but they're not the boys. They they don't dedicate enough time to their craft, they they aren't as smart as they think they are. And it's really they're missing out on something. It's not me complaining that like an old guy, well, these kids don't do it right. No, it's they're missing out, they're completely missing out on the entire experience, and I think that's something that the business has has lost. But I loved professional wrestling and totally it changed me. I have a tattoo that says June 2nd, 1993, forever changed, because at that moment the person that I grew up as ceased to exist, and now this young man was a professional wrestler, and I was a new, a new person. So that's how I got into the wrestling business. I went from a young kid that was a fan in Oak Hill, West Virginia to Morristown, Tennessee, and was now part of Smoky Mountain Wrestling. I had one match under my belt in 1993, and the roller coaster ride had just begun. Before I go, I've enjoyed talking with you guys. I hope you've enjoyed my story. I'll be going in more depth. When I started the business, Sandy Scott took me aside and he said that you need to keep a notebook, a journal, and you need to write down every match that you have and every big moment and as much details as you can. So I've kept journals for 32 years. And what we're gonna do on this podcast is we're gonna go through that book starting in the next episode. We're gonna start with 1994, and we're gonna go all the way through to current times. And I'm gonna go through every match and opponent and all the experiences that I had, and I'm gonna share that with you guys. I hope that you're gonna go with me on the ride, and I hope that you're gonna enjoy it. Before I leave you today, I want to tell you where I will be at next. Southern States Wrestling presents Night of Champions, brought to you by Dalton, Direct Carpets Imploring, May 23rd, Belltime, 7:30 Mount Carmel, Tennessee at the Armed Forces Center. On the card, title versus title, Southern States Wrestling versus Appalachia Mountain Wrestling, the Champions, Title versus Title, Marty Clay, the AMW champion versus Chase Emery, the Southern States Wrestling Champion. Also, AMW Southern Champion, Lord Murphy Costigan versus Jeff Conley. Mike Mann challenges Wild Bill for the Southern States Legacy title, plus many others appearing. This is going to be a great night of action. It's been planned for some time now. These two kids in the main event are going to be spectacular. This main event is going to be something that you guys want to see. These are two young kids that have a bright future. You're going to see a lot more of these kids in the coming years. This is a chance to see them right at the beginning. I mean, they both have been wrestling for a few years, but I really feel that their story and their legacies are just beginning, and that this may be the most important match in both of their career. Title versus title, Marty Clay versus Chase Emory, two guys that I really just I enjoy being around and I enjoy watching them wrestle. I think it's going to be a stellar match. Murphy Costigan and Jeff Conley is going to be a great matchup. Murphy is on fire. I don't necessarily like his attitude, but he's really showing people what he's made of and really defining what is what Southern States Wrestling is all about. Mike Mann is a great challenger. Wild Bill, a great champion, but legacy title is so important to Southern States Wrestling. And it's going to be a great night of action there. That's May 23rd, belltime 7 30, Mount Carmel, Tennessee, at the Armed Forces Center. If you get a chance and you're listening to this, go there on the 23rd and check this card out. This is going to be a very, very good night of professional wrestling. I want to thank Pirate Flag Radio available on the Radio King app. I had mentioned earlier about Patreon. Please go to patreon.com backslash Brian Logan Making Towns. I will have pictures there. My goal is to put up pictures every week that correspond with what we're talking about. Also, I'll be putting video on there. We'll have some exclusive interviews. I'm not going to interview people on this specific show, but what we're going to do is we're going to do special episodes where I can interview guys and we're going to put those on the Patreon. Be sure to follow the show on Facebook and Instagram at Making the Towns with Brian Logan. This has been a Three Crows Entertainment Production to 2025 All Rights Reserved. On the next episode, we'll start the discussion on the year 1994, my first full year in the industry. For now, I'm Brian Logan, and until next week, remember, I am your champion.