Getting Pretzeled For Fifty Bucks

He worked the same opponents night after night, got twisted into holds he couldn’t escape, and still went home thrilled because someone handed him fifty bucks and another chance to learn. That’s the early reality of Smoky Mountain Wrestling in 1994, and I’m opening my journals to show how “making the towns” really worked when you were young, green, and living on repetition.
We start with my first January matches against Bobby Blaze and why I’m still grateful for how seriously he took wrestling a newcomer. I explain the difference between TV tapings and house shows, how a veteran can “work tight” without it being a shoot, and why running the same match on the loop actually makes you better. From Freedom Hall in Johnson City to smaller stops like Red Jacket, you’ll hear how crowd size changes your energy, what battle royals taught me fast, and why ring setup money mattered almost as much as the booking.
Then the story swings into a wild TV moment: Jim Cornette tells me I’m going to be the Beat The Champ TV champion, and I end up winning, defending, and losing the title across one taping night that later becomes multiple weeks of television. I also share how working Anthony Michaels helped me learn heel work and calling matches, plus a thank-you to Dirty White Boy for influences that followed me for years. We close with a question for every wrestling fan: is “smart mark” an oxymoron, or does the term still fit today?
Subscribe, share this with a wrestling history friend, and leave a review if you want more territory stories and road-tested lessons. Where do you land on “smart mark”?

Transcript

Welcome And The Journal Format

First 1994 Match With Bobby Blaze

TV Versus House Show Match Style

Working Maskless As Brian Keyes

The Touring Loop And Repetition

Freedom Hall Debut And Battle Royals

January Pay And Ring Crew Money

Cornette Makes Him TV Champion

February Towns And Crowd Differences

March Money Jump And Skill Growth

Life On The Road With Smoky Mountain

Dirty White Boy Influence And Gratitude

Smart Mark As An Oxymoron

Live Show Plug And Listener Questions

Patreon Updates And Next Week Tease

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. Welcome everyone to the Three Crow Studio in Mooristown, Tennessee. This is Making the Towns with Brian Logan. I am your host, of course, Brian Logan. We are back this week to continue the journey through my 30-plus year career in professional wrestling. Over the years, I kept detailed journals of the towns that I had made and the wrestling matches that I had wrestled in. And on this show, we're going to go through those journals and talk about each of the matches and the different areas that I was in and the uh stories behind the matches, if you will. When we left last week, I had spoken about breaking into the business, training for my first match, and this week I want to start out with January of 1994. I had had my first match in December of 93, and we took off for Christmas and came back, and on January 8th, 1994, at a house show in Morristown, Tennessee, the Hornet made his house show debut against Bobby Blaze. And uh I want to talk a little bit about Bobby Blaze. Man, I love Bobby Blaze, he was so kind to me when he didn't have to be. He took the job of wrestling a newcomer to the sport very seriously. He took it as a teaching experience, and that's exactly what I needed. We had several matches, as you'll find out as we go along today. And but let me tell you just a little bit about Bobby Blaze, of course. Bobby Smedley is his shoot name, if you will, but Bobby Blaze is what we all know and love him as. He is from Ashland, Kentucky. You know, he gained most of his in-ring success for Smoky Mountain Wrestling. He was eventually the Smoky Mountain Heavyweight Champion and the Smoky Mountain U.S. Junior Heavyweight Champion for a record four times. And he held the Smoky Mountain Beat the TV Championship twice. So he was the his gimmick on TV was he was the underdog. He came in and he he didn't win at first, and then all of a sudden he started getting victory after victory after victory, and then eventually, as we all know who know Bobby, he did the upset on Jerry the King Lawler and became the Smoky Mountain heavyweight champion. But on this particular night in 1994, he he with the luck of the draw drew the young kid the Hornet. So the difference between TV tapings and house shows is on TV you don't want to sit in a hold and give the audience a chance to turn the channel. So it's more action-packed, it's more upbeat and faster. Whereas on a house show, you have an opportunity to tell more of a story with the match. And the story that Bobby told with the Hornet was I can stretch the Hornet. He uh we wrestled around and had a good match, good solid little match, but he kept tying me up in like a pretzel. He had been trained by the Malincos, Boris and Dean, and uh, I'm sure Joe was in there helping as well. So he he knew what he was doing, and he would put me in different holds and expect me to reverse out of it. And first in this match, I had no clue. I had no idea how to get out of these holds, and he would laugh and then take the hold off and put another hold on. And now the crowd had no idea this was going on. This was not a shoot fight. This was what they call, you know, just working, working tight, working stiff, working, you know, working it the holds out, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. So he would put me in a hold and he would want me to get out. And in this first match, I didn't do so well getting out of that. So the match went about 10, 15 minutes tops. He made a comeback and he beat me, so I lost that match. But at the end of that night, they handed me$50 again, and I just absolutely loved it. The next time me and Bobby would meet would be just a few days later, January 10th, 1994, in Chilhoe, Virginia. This time I wrestled as myself, Brian Keyes, which was my birth name. Now let me back up just a little bit. My name is Brian Logan legally now, but I was born Brian Thomas Keyes back in 1974, but I changed my name legally because it got to where everybody knew me as Brian. The only people that didn't know me as Brian Logan were people that knew me as a kid. Even the people I went to high school with learned that I was going by Brian Logan. So I and but I hadn't changed my name yet. So I wrestled without a mask and wrestled Bobby Blaze. Now this match was another affair that was about 10 minutes in Chilhowie, and again I lost to Bobby putting him over, and they handed me the same amount of money. Then on January 14th, 1994, the Hornet was back in action in Berge, Kentucky, wrestling Bobby Blaze again. And see, you see a pattern. We kept working the same guy opponents because during the month you you work the loop, you you you film what you do on TV, and then you go and work those guys on the house shows. And you would typically have the same match in every town. See, that's something that the the younger guys nowadays I couldn't ever understand get them to understand when they were working for me when I was promoting, was do the same match. They were saying, well, all we do is wrestle the same guys. Yeah, because you have to tour that around the loop, and every town has to see it. And you want to do the same thing so it gets easier every night, and the performance gets better. So as I was wrestling Bobby each and every night, he would I would learn a little more, he would give me a little bit more, we would become more comfortable with each other, and the match would become a better quality product because of the experience that I was getting. And eventually he would put me in those holds and I could reverse it and get out of it. And Bobby did not think that was funny. I did. He stopped laughing and I started laughing, and the matches then became competitive. Also, we started working Battle Royals, and I had my first Battle Royal in Berge, Kentucky, and Tracy Smothers won the Battle Royal that night. I don't know what I was eliminated, but I was definitely eliminated quickly because I'd never been in a battle royal before. But they were fun and I enjoyed it, and it added an extra time that I got to be in the ring. On January 22nd, 1994, I made my Freedom Hall in Johnson City, Tennessee debut, and I wrestled my roommate and tag partners to be Anthony Michaels. The Hornet would wrestle Anthony Michaels, and Mark Curtis was the referee. Some of you guys remember him from WCW. Anthony was from Copeg, Long Island, and that is right next to Amityville, where the Amityville Horror House was. And I talked a little bit about him in the last episode, and he started out at doing wrestling conventions in New York and eventually met Tim Horner in this sort of the same fashion that I did. And he came down to Tennessee. He was down there a couple months before me, so he was a little bit ahead of me. But in these matches with him, though, you know, we were both green. So Mark Curtis was kind of telling us what to do. He was kind of saying, you know, calling the spots, if you will, and we were just kind of doing what he was saying. But we had a good, good little match there that we worked out. And the the we were able to get together and practice that and get it ready so that when we were in Johnson City, then you know, we were able to look like we knew what we were doing. Now, Freedom Hall is a big civic center. You know, WWE still comes there and TNA has come there. So it was a big show. So this was a big deal for us to be on this event. And of course, that night they had a battle royal again. I was eliminated fourth by Ricky Morton. I made a note of that. So Ricky Morton seemed to always throw me out of the Battle Royals for some reason. I guess he would, you know, I guess where I was just comfortable being around him, I worked with him in the Battle Royals and stayed close to him. I finished up the month of January on the 28th of 1994 with the Hornet versus Anthony Michaels again. And then also there was a Battle Royal, and I was eliminated by Ricky Morton. So the total for January that I had made was$250. Now that's$539.47 in today's money, which is not bad for the first month in a business. I was very thankful to have what I had. I mean, my rent was$200. So that kind of, you know, I was making rent, but also we were putting up the ring every night. So we were getting$60 a night and for putting up the ring. And then the house shows that I wasn't booked on, I was still making money putting up the ring. So it was covering my expenses. I mean, we weren't having any vacations, of course, there were no time for vacations, but we were we were making it. And you know, I was getting by, and it was I was so happy because I was in the wrestling business and living it day in and day out. And then February 7th, 1994, the next TV taping, I came in and Jim Cornette told me, he said, You're gonna be the TV champion. So I had had a handful of matches at this point. I think I'd had, let's see, I'd had one, two, three, four, five, six, seven matches. And I was gonna be the beat the champ TV champion. So the way this worked was Chris Candito was having an angle with Tracy Smothers, where in this particular week they were betting on their proteges. Tracy's protege was Robbie Eagle, who was the champ, and he had beaten Candito the week prior with help from Tracy to become the champ. Well, Candido goes out and gets the Hornet to be his guy, and that was the first time that I was on TV in an interview segment, and I actually got to talk, and that was pretty cool. I don't think that anybody planned for me to talk, but there at the end of the interview, I just kind of started talking and felt natural at it, and they left it in, so they didn't hate it. But I wrestled Robbie Eagle and I won the TV title. Of course, there were a lot of shenanigans with Candido and Tracy. Now on TV tapings, instead of my first TV taping, I just had one match. But this was a full TV taping. So I had we did multiple weeks, so I had to come back and defend the TV title against the dirty white boy of all people. Well, Dirty White Boy was in an angle, Dirty White Boy and Dirty White Girl against Brian Lee and Tammy Fitch, who is Sonny from WWE. And previously in the evening, Sonny had beaten Anthony Michaels with the help of Brian Lee. Well, as I'm wrestling Dirty White Boy defending the TV title, Kimberly, the Dirty White Girl, jumps in the ring and knocks out the Hornet. And I take an ST plunge type bump and I sell it really, really well. And she stands over top of me all you know fire and glory and fist and fire and fury. And he gets disqualified. So I've beaten the dirty white boy to defend my title. Well, the third week comes up, and I have to defend against killer Kyle. Well, that was my run as the TV champion. I lost the TV title, lost the match to Killer Kyle. So all in one night, I won, defended, and lost the TV championship. Now this would come in later on because it would play out on TV. So I would actually be the TV champ for two weeks in the arena defending the belt. Well, actually, it was defending the check because you there wasn't a belt, but there was a championship check. It was modeled after the beat the champ in the LA area. Cornette loved that gimmick as a kid and wanted to have a beat the champ champion. So for all this TV taping, I was given$75 for the whole for the whole taping. Extra$25 plus the$60 for setting up the ring. And I thought this was great. This was extra money for working extra matches. Again, I would have worked the extra matches for free. I was just happy to be there. But I didn't tell them that, and I happily collected the money. On February 12th, we wrestled in Knoxville, Tennessee. I wrestled Anthony Michaels again, and I lost. And they paid me$50 again. That seemed to be the going rate, was$50.75 per TV. And me and Anthony were able to have our match. The match that we we had now, though, we were getting to where I could call the match as the heel. So we were progressing along and learning our craft and learning by repetition. And wrestling in Knoxville was at the Civic Auditorium where they had had wrestling since the 50s. And it was a huge, huge arena, and the crowd was always up, and it was always a great show. And it was one of our bigger shows, so it had, you know, the different matches on it that were the culmination of angles or the grudge matches, if you will. And it was just very exciting to be a part of that, to go from say Chil Howie, Virginia, where there may be three or four hundred people, to Civic Auditorium, where there was near a thousand. And the crowds were just spectacular. And I know those aren't the right numbers. I mean, I'm guessing the numbers. I could look up the numbers just as well as you can. But uh basically what I'm saying is that you know some of the smaller towns had smaller crowds, and the bigger towns had had bigger crowds, obviously. The next day we went to Red Jacket, West Virginia, talking about a small town that's a very small town in West Virginia. And you actually we got to it by going up through Kentucky and over the mountain the back way. That's how far away it was. It was actually quicker to get there through that through the mountains than it was to go to West Virginia and go through. You know, and of course, coming through these towns, you know, it's an old saying in music that uh the promoters would put a dartboard with the names of the towns on the wall and just throw darts at it. And Smoky Mountain Wrestling was no different. We did not do these in in order that made sense. So we would do Johnson City and then Knoxville, and then we went to Red Jacket, or we would end up going to Beckley, which was the farthest of the loop and made it farthest to get home. But in Red Jacket, I wrestled Anthony Michaels and had a Battle Royal, thrown out fourth again in the Battle Royal, but this time Bobby Blaze won the Battle Royale. A week later, we went to Barbersville, Kentucky, which was a really hot town for Smoky Mountain, where a lot of things happened. I love Barbersville. I haven't been there in years, but it was a fun wrestling town, and the crowd was really into it. And we did house shows there, we did TV tapings there, we did big events there. It was one of the mainstays for the Smoky Mountain area. And again, I wrestled Bobby Blaze and just honing my craft. And I just love Bobby. I know I've already said that, but Bobby just, I'm so thankful that he took the time with me. Again, he didn't have to do it. And me and him have become good friends over the years. And last time I saw him, we went out and we had dinner together and had a few beers, and we were talking about Logan's World TV, and that's you know, came and ran its course. But Bobby's a special person and an incredible, incredible wrestler. We would finish out the month on the 26th, and again another match with Bobby Blaze and another 50 bucks. At this point, it was becoming making the towns. We were wrestling so often, and everything was the same. The only thing that changed was the miles and which town it was. And that was good because we were getting in the repetitions, we were we were making the dates, we were touring the product, and it was a full-fledged touring wrestling company, entertainment company, if you will. It was something that was like the circus. We would pack up and we'd all go to a town and have the wrestling matches and then pack up and go to another town. For the month of February, I made$275. So I'm making more money each month as we go. And again, that$275 is$593.42 in modern times. And you'll see a drastic difference here as we get into March. So I got the booking sheet for March, and we're gonna head towards home with this week of the first week of March. On March 3rd, 1994, we pulled into Edwards, Kentucky, and the Hornet wrestled Bobby Blaze again. Of course, you see the pattern again wrestling the same guys, and I'm gonna get more into that here in just a minute. And then on March 4th, we went to Lenore, North Carolina, the Hornet versus Anthony Michaels. Of course, I lost both of those matches because I was the heel and was there to put over the baby faces. March 5th, 1994, Morris back in Mooristown, Tennessee. So we came full circle with the loop. We started out in Morristown and we've come all the way back. The Hornet wrestled Anthony Michaels. And then on March 6th, we pulled into Beckley, West Virginia. The Hornet made his debut in my hometown of Beckley, West Virginia against Bobby Blaze. And of course, I lost that match. Now each of these matches, I made$50. So for the first week of March in '94, I made$200. So I went from making a little bit of money over the course of a month to making it what I had made that first month in the business in one week. So my hard work was starting to pay off. But already my income was about to double, maybe even triple. And I was wrestling Bobby Blaze and his style. Was that almost a Japanese hybrid style, half half shoot, half Japanese high spots? And he was teaching me how to structure matches, how to put it together, and do one big move after another while coming back and and establishing a hold. This is something that I I couldn't go without as young in the business. This was a fundamental that I was being taught. Tim taught me the moves and the psychology, but Bobby taught me the practical application. And then where I would wrestle, Anthony, it was teaching me to be the villain, the heel, and call the match, and learning how to structure it myself. So by alternating Bobby Blaze and Anthony each night, I was able to take what I had learned from the night before and put it together and really just start honing my craft. If you remember in the first episode, I had talked about signing a contract with Smoky Mountain Wrestling that guaranteed me 17 matches. Well, by the first week of March, I had already had those 17 matches, so they had fulfilled their contract, which was incredible to think that it was just that quick. So we went from June 2nd of 93 to March of 94. They had collected the money for me to train. They had given me the fundamentals of wrestling and promoted me in the 17 matches that they had guaranteed. And that was basically over as far as the contractual obligation. Now, luckily that they decided I had done such a good job, they decided to keep me around, and that my journey was just beginning with Smoky Mountain, and that I would continue to work there and have matches and home my craft. And I just I still was a wide-eyed optimist and just loving every minute of it. I mean, we were totally exhausted. We were going driving to these towns, and we were setting up the ring, and then, you know, on a TV taping, I'd wrestle three or four times, and then we'd have to take down the ring and we'd have to drive to the next town. And, you know, of course, we would be tired from the road, and we'd always have to go get something to eat and maybe a few beers and see what kind of nightlife each town had. And trust me, every town had a nightlife, even the small ones. If there wasn't something going on in that town, we would drive to the next big town where there was going to be a show and hold up for a couple of days and enjoy ourselves. And it was just, like I had said before, it was the carnival had come to town and I was part of the circus, and it was amazing. It was just completely amazing to me that this 18-year-old boy was getting to travel and be with his heroes and learn so much from them and just get to do this and make a living at it. So I got to work with the Dirty White Boy, I'd mentioned that earlier, and on TV in Jellico, Tennessee. And the Dirty White Boy has taught me so much and had such a great influence over my career. The troublemaker personality gimmick that I used later in my career was based a lot on Dirty White Boy. I had watched Smoky Mountain and enjoyed seeing him because, like I had said before, I didn't get to watch him in the other territories. But now that I was in the industry, I was had access to other shows and encouraged to watch it. And I could see what he did in Memphis and Continental, and the the angle that he had with Tom Pritchard and Continental was so spectacular. Where the 1986 angle of the year, I read about that in a magazine. I have to talk to Tom, and about Dirty White Girl claiming that she was abused by Dirty White Boy, which was just a double cross for them to attack Tom. It was it was a stellar angle, one of the best all-time angles. And of course, we covered that later. Three Crows would do a documentary on the career of Dirty White Boy. And so that was kind of the icing on the cake of a long career. But I want to thank Dirty White Boy for all that he has taught me in wrestling. And there'll be more on Dirty White Boy as this story unfolds. I get to work with him a lot over the years. I want to thank Bobby Blaze for teaching me what he did and having the matches with a young green kid that didn't know what he was doing, and just booking him on shows later on. I was so lucky, and I wrote this in Worker Last of a Dying Breed, that my forefathers in wrestling were the best, man. In Smoky Mountain, the Bobby Blaze was the greenest guy, and he had been in the business like 14 years. And all these guys had been around forever, and they just taught me so much, and I just soaked it up like a sponge. It was like going to school every single day, but going to school with the coolest kids there would be, you know, and these guys just really taught me everything they they they knew. They didn't hold back. Once I was part of the Brotherhood and the Fraternal Order, they just, if I wanted to learn, they were there to teach me. And I'm so, so thankful. And then to have Anthony Michaels, who I spent so much time with, maybe too much time with, to be able to work out with him and wrestle him and just try to show the things that we had learned previously and put it together in our own little match, where it was just two young guys that were working hard and trying to get out there and make a name for themselves and keep a job and get a job. So these guys, I'm just so thankful that they were there to help me in my career. Real quick before we go, I have uh one last thing that I want to go over here. I'm reading the definition of oxymoron. It's a figure of speech that juxtaposes concepts with opposite meanings within a word or a phrase, a self-contradiction. And this comes up a lot in wrestling. The term smart mark. Well, it's an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp. It exists, but it should not exist. If you are a mark, then by definition, you are not smart to the business. If you are smart to the business, you are no longer a mark. Therefore, you cannot be a smart mark. And it's just a little pet peeve of mine that I hear all the time. And I just want to put it out there and you know, let me know what you think. Do you think the term smart mark has something to do in this business nowadays? Or do you agree with me that it's an oxymoron and it cannot exist within itself because once you are smart, you are no longer a mark. And if you are a mark, you cannot be smart. This Friday, May 23rd, I'll be in Mount Carmel, Tennessee at the Armed Forces Center, Belltime 730 for Southern States Wrestling. Title versus title, AMW versus SSW, Marty Clay versus Chase Emery. Also on the card. AMW Southern title, Murphy Costigan versus Jeff Conley. The Southern State Legacy title is up for grabs when Mike Mann challenges Wild Bill, plus many others. Be sure to follow on Facebook and Instagram, Brian Logan Making Towns. Check out the Patreon for exclusive content. We now have uh The Ride Home with Dallas Danger. He is following up with questions based on this podcast. If you have questions and you'd like to have them asked to me directly on the ride home, send your questions to threecrowsentertainment at gmail.com or go to the podcast app and there's a text button there right at the top. You just click to text the show and text us your questions and comments, and we will use it on air, good, bad, or indifferent. New to the Patreon this week, we have a match between highlight clips of Brian Logan versus Bo James from Ashland, Kentucky from many, many years ago. Also, we have added some new pictures. The Patreon.com Making the Towns with Brian Logan. And uh we're gonna be putting up more and more each week. Next week we will continue in 1994 with the arrival of the Thrill Seekers, Chris Jericho and Lance Storm. Until then, I am your champion.