I Retired From Wrestling Then The Road Pulled Me Back In

I quit pro wrestling, went “normal,” and spent my days handling puppies while I tried to clear my head. Then my wife Ashley hit me with the truth: I still had the stories, I still had the itch, and maybe it was time to stop telling them only at home. So Making the Towns is back, and I’m back in motion at 51 with a fresh start and a lot of unfinished business.

I walk you through rebuilding the whole hub at IAmYourChampion.com, launching Logan Logic, and why I wanted one place where fans can find the podcast, photos, match footage, and everything tied to my career. Then we get into the part I missed most: the people and the towns. From Southern States to a Wildfire Championship Wrestling loop in the Kentucky hills, I ended up doing the thing I swore I wasn’t ready to do yet: wrestling the Rock and Roll Express after two years out of the ring. Night two gets even crazier with a six-man tag full of curveballs, no cell service, a late referee, and pure make-it-work energy.

After the comeback talk, we crack open my match journal and keep the timeline rolling through 1994: Smoky Mountain Wrestling loops, TV tapings, tiny paydays, big lessons, and why “paying dues” used to mean working your tail off while still getting paid. I also tell the Jim Crockett Promotions reboot story in Chattanooga, including a ring setup problem that had me biting my nails, plus road ribs and the kind of behind-the-scenes moments you only learn by living them.

If you like wrestling podcasts about territory life, Smoky Mountain Wrestling, the NWA, old-school road stories, and the real numbers behind the miles and money, you’re in the right place. Subscribe, share this with a wrestling friend, and leave a review so more fans can find us.

Transcript

The Catchphrase And The Comeback

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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. You know, sometimes you have to go to the top of the mountain just to see which way the wind blows. You need a timeout. You know, I think it was on the Roddy Piper documentary where Bruce Pritchard, I believe it was Bruce Pritchard, said that sometimes that Roddy had to go back home to Portland and they called it the mountain, and that he had to, you know, clear his head and clear his spots. Well, that's exactly where I have been the past eight months. I have I had quit everything. I had retired from pro wrestling, and I was just gonna be a fan. I went out and got a new job as a dog handler, and I was gonna reset my life. This is Making the Towns with Brian Logan, episode five, back in action. Welcome everybody. But yeah, I had to about eight months ago, I decided that I was going to just basically be a normal person and go get a job and sit at the house and just be a wrestling fan and clear my head for a little bit. And that was very good. It was definitely very good for me. But it was there after so many months and telling old stories to Ashley, my wife, that she was like, you know, you really need to go out and do some more stuff. You know, just get out. And basically what she was saying was, I've heard all your stories, you need to go out and tell them to somebody else. And she suggested that I redo the podcast, Making the Towns. And I wasn't sure because we only did four episodes, if there would be a desire for anyone to listen to this. And I put it out on Facebook and asked if anybody would listen to it if I started it back up, and I was overwhelmed with the response from the guys in the business and wrestling fans in general about how much they they enjoyed the podcast and that they wanted to have it back. So there was there was a a spark lit in me. And with part of that, I decided that I was gonna go back and attend a couple of shows, see some of my friends, and was gonna start the podcast over. The first thing I did was is I started a new website. It's IamYourChampion.com, and I wanted that to be a place that celebrated my career, sort of a central hub for everything. Before we had websites and we had social media, and we had the podcasts on the podcast platforms, several of them, anywhere you could listen to the podcast, and we're gonna have that again. So you'll be able to get it wherever your favorite podcast platform is. But I wanted a central place where everything could you could go there and celebrate everything that is Brian Logan. So we created IamYourCampion.com. It's up now. We enjoy it a lot. I've gotten a good response from it. Tons of pictures are on there of me as a child growing up and also in my career. So there's a lot of that to go check out, as well as my new blog, Logan Logic, which will expand more about what's going on with the podcast and and and my career and and my journey back at age 51. I mean, can you believe that? I'm 51 years old. I never thought I'd live past 27, but here we here we are. And so that's what we did. We built the the website. So I decided to go to Southern State's wrestling anniversary show because Wayne Atkins was being put in the Hall of Fame. Of course, I'm a Hall of Famer at Southern States as well, and I wanted to see all the boys, and I'm glad that I went. They had such a good turnout, the crowd was incredible, and it was up, which is great. The anniversary show does so well every year, but they had a lot of the Hall of Famers show up, almost all of us that are living, and we got to see each other. And I got to see Wayne go into the Hall of Fame and got to talking with some of the boys and everything. And so it was there that I was invited the following Saturday to Denny Cooley's live event in Ewing, Virginia, just to come in, say hello, and uh sign some autographs. And I thought that you know the the Southern States deal went so well, I I said I would, that I would uh absolutely come in. Ewing wasn't that far away. And we we went, me and Ashley, and got to see the fans and meet a younger audience who may or may not have known who I was, but some of the older fans from the 90s were there, and they were glad to see me, and I was glad to meet them, and it went so well, but through the advertising of that, I was contacted by a good friend of mine, Todd Rowe, who was uh representing Wildfire Championship Wrestling, and they asked me if I would come on a two-day loop to Kentucky. And I said that I was interested. They had been contacting me over the years, and it just never really worked out schedule-wise or opportunity-wise, but it did. The stars lined up, and I said I would do it, and that's when they hit me with can you wrestle against the Rock and Roll Express? And I was like, Man, I I haven't been in a ring in two years. I haven't worked out in two years. I, you know, I haven't done anything but sit on my tail and watch wrestling. But they were adamant that they they that was okay, and that they understood, and they talked me into making this two-day loop, and I'm glad that I did. Talk about that in my first blog that's on IamYourChampion.com. And the first night we wrestled rock and roll, me and the Russian wrestled the Rock and Roll Express, and we were in Sandy Hook, Kentucky. I hadn't been to Sandy Hook in a long, long time. And if you know anything about Kentucky, that is deep up there in the hills. There were no cell service, the roads are two-laned. Once you get off the interstate, you are pretty much in God's country. They have to pipe in sunlight. And we went and wrestled sold the Rock and Roll Express, and the first night was was okay. I gotta tell you the truth on this, and I love Punky and Hoot, but Robert Hoot, Hoot is that's what we call him in the industry, he hadn't wrestled in a long time either, and got out there, and I had made a joke. I said, you know, if we wrestle real hard, we could probably get away with doing about six, seven minutes out there, and and everything be wonderful and tremendous. But he got he got excited and started moving around and doing things, and it kind of scrambled up the whole match. It wasn't the perfect return, but it was fun. I loved it. I loved working the Rock and Roll Express. Of course, if you remember, that was my first match with the Rock and Roll Express. So it was it was great. And then the second night we were in Blaine, Kentucky, and that was just about 30 miles up the road from Sandy Hook, but uh again, no cell service. We stayed the night in Ashland, and I got I actually got lost because the GPS on the phone where there was no service kept going in and out, and I ended up smack dab in the middle of Ashland trying to find this hotel and couldn't find the hotel. So it took me about an hour to get everything, get checked in and all this stuff, find the hotel, and then the next day I had some time to kill. But we went to Blaine, Kentucky, and we ended up having a six-man tag, and it was an unusual situation because my two tag team partner, two great guys, Fuji and let me see the guy's name. I think his name is John. Anyway, they were completely deaf, both of them. Absolutely both of them. John Sanders, that's it. They were both deaf, two great guys, green but very talented, and I was f we were facing the Rock and Roll Express and the local principal from the high school. And we were told before the match that the quote from the principal was I'm not properly trained, I have no business being in this match. So talk about a situation. We got Ricky and Robert and the principal who's not trained. I haven't wrestled but one time in two years, and it didn't go great, and my two partners were deaf, hearing impaired. So they could only read lips, which is a little hard to wrestle when in that situation. But we went out there and we did the best we could, and we had a good little match. The ending was a little scrambled. Oh, and by the way, the referee was late. The referee was riding down with a couple friends of mine from Chicothy, Ohio, from a Bobby Fulton show, so he was late. So Carrie Morton, Ricky Morton's son, had to, in tights and boots, had to put the referee shirt on and get in there and referee. So this whole thing was scrambled from the get-go. And we did the best we could, and it was entertaining, and I think the fans like it. If you'd like to watch that match, just go to Loganlogic on IamYourChion.com. Right after the blog is the video footage of the match, the six-man tag from night two in Blaine, Kentucky. But we got through it, and it was a good fun night, and I enjoyed my experience at Wildfire Championship Wrestling, and I look forward to going back. And I have been bombarded with people, promoters wanting to book me for signings and book me in matches, and I guess at 51 I'm back in the wrestling business. I'm not gonna be traveling full time because, like I said, I work as a dog handler and I love my puppies and I love what I do. It's not really a job, it's a passion. I get to take care of those puppies every day that come in for the daycare. But I'm gonna be a, I guess, a weekend warrior now. I think I've earned that uh right to pick and choose where I go after, you know, hundreds of matches and uh going on for 30-some plus years. I'm gonna, you know, go out and do a couple of things this year and looking forward to it. And we'll get into some of the places and things that I'm gonna be doing later. But yeah, that's basically what what has happened and where I have been. So let's get into it. Let's get into where we started off, where we're gonna start off this week, getting back into the book. If you're new to this podcast, what I've done is is over 30-some years I've kept a journal with all my matches in it. And we were going through it, and we were starting up at the beginning of the book in 1993 and working our way through match by match, making the towns and talking about the matches, talking about the money, talking about the miles. And we are we left off in July of 2694. So that's where we're gonna start. Now, if you're listening to this on Radio Kings app, you can go to your favorite podcast platform or IamYourChampion.com to hear the first four episodes that will lead you into this. So we're gonna we're gonna archive those once they're up on the platform. So it'll go episode four to five in order as if nothing ever happened. That we're just those eight months were just just disappeared. So we had said at the end of episode four we were gonna go back to Chattanooga for Jim Crockett Promotions Reboot. So what had happened was is Jim Crockett was restarting his promotion. He had an office in Dallas, and he was running the first TV taping for the new NWA in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And uh I was booked, went down, set up the ring, and we that night we uh something happened with the ring, and one of the guys that was helping me was trying to put the the side beam in the ring and he didn't get it locked in. And we finished putting the ring up and was testing the ropes and the pole fell off. So the whole ring is together, but it's not connected, and you can't wrestle under those circumstances because you know the ring might fall apart. So we had the option of taking the ring completely down, which we didn't have time to do, or w lifting it and sliding the peg into the slot so that it would connect the pole to the beam, which is you know hundreds of pounds that we're trying to deal with with steel. So the boys came out and we lifted that ring up and we slid that pole in and bing bang boom, it locked in and everything was fine, and the ring was fine. I was I was biting my nails to say the least. It was nervous because I was on the hook. It would have been my fault no matter what, even if someone else did it. But we got the ring up and it was great. I wrestled several times on this card, and my first match was Brian Logan versus the nightmare, Ted Allen, and it was the first match in the new NWA history, and of course I lost to Ted Allen, and there was a picture, Marty Funk, uh Dory Funk's wife, was there taking pictures for Japanese wrestling magazines, and she took some pictures of me holding Ted Allen in an armbar, and you can see that on the website as well. And those pictures went into a Japanese wrestling magazine, and I think they're the best pictures of me ever, ever taken, and I cherish that picture so much. But that picture of me and Ted, and of course I love Ted. Ted was such a great guy and funny, and he would go out, we'd go out to the clubs, and he was the best wingman you could ever have. He was, and I'm just gonna say it, I mean, this is politically incorrect, and I don't want to, you know, this is the best way I can describe it. He liked large ladies, he was a chubby chaser, and it was great because, you know, usually in my experience, women travel in a pack, and there's always the one girl who never gets as much attention as some of the other girls, and there's never anybody that really wants to talk to her. Well, Ted loved those girls, so we would go out, he would be the best wingman, he would pick up these girls and talk to them, and he would want to be with with the the bigger girl, and then her friends would come hang out with the rest of the guys. So Ted was a great wingman. I love him to death, I miss him, and he's he's passed on now, but he was he was a big part of my career. In the next match, I wrestled Chris Candido, which was the first time I got to wrestle Candito because usually we were on the same team, same sides, heels, but I was a baby, so wrestled Chris Candido, and he won, obviously. But we came back in the third match, and me and the nightmare, who I had already wrestled that night on the TV taping. Now each week these are not for the same tapings, these are three different tapings. I mean, same taping but three different uh episodes. So it would have been two weeks on TV later before me and Ted teamed together. So me and Ted and Mike Mendels. Yeah, I think his name is Mendels. It's hard for me to read his name, but there was a six-man tag versus Dory Funk Jr. and Mark Von Erich. I have no idea who Mark Von Erich was, and the third person, Moadib, who if you can remember from Global was Ahmed Johnson. And of course, we lost that match. And then I went on and I wrestled one more time. Me and the Mike fella wrestled Greg Valentine and a guy named Ares, and we lost that. So I worked four times, set up the ring, and I made a total of$75. And was so happy because I was part of the new NWA. And, you know, it didn't last very long. I I didn't do any other tapings other than that. But I was on TV for several weeks, and I don't think he did any tapings past that. I know he did some stuff in Dallas, but he just the the new incarnation with with Jim Crockett did not last. But now the NWA lineage from that moment has lasted till today. So with Billy Corgan having the the new NWA, it can trace its beginnings all the way back to July of '94. So the next time I wrestled was July 29th, 1994, Albany, Kentucky, for Smokey Mountain Wrestling, Kendo the Samurai versus the Dirty White Boy in the main event, and it was a title match. And then I did a Battle Royal that Dirty White Boy won, and I made$50 losing both times. But that was the deal, as you know, with some of the other we we explained before that you tour, you do you do the angle on TV, and then you toured to the little towns. So on 8 194, we went to Lebanon, Kentucky. The Hornet makes his debut in a title match against the dirty white boy. And I lost that and I made$50 there. So I'm working more, but my pay is went back down from where we were to basically bare minimum. But we've got Into Jamestown, Kentucky on 8394, and I was a referee for the first time. And I refereed, I believe it was a fair situation where they bought the fair, and I was the referee, and I remember I refereed the main event, and I got a little nervous with rock and roll wrestling somebody. I don't know who they wrestled. But anyway, they came to the ring and they hadn't even gotten the ring yet, and I started counting them as if to get in the ring because I was so nervous because I had never refereed before. And Robert looks up at me and goes, We haven't even started the match yet. And I was like, Oh god, I'm an idiot. But yeah, I got the referee for the first time that night, and like I said, I made 50 bucks. The next time we are in Beckley, West Virginia, on the 7th, 8794, and the Hornet faces another student from Tim Horner Smoky Mountain School, James Ellis. And I won in Beckley, so I won in my hometown as the Hornet, and I made 50 bucks. Of course, James. If you do remember the other the first four podcasts, we talked about how, or in the first episode, we talked about how I was supposed to come to the wrestling school to be somebody for Anthony Michaels to beat up. And it turned out that I was a pretty good, pretty good at it. And they we were gonna, you know, we started working out together, but we didn't have anybody so we could work out with and be a team against or basically bump around the other person to learn all more offense. And James was that kid, so he would come down and he wasn't that bright. He really didn't understand the wrestling business. Super guy, salt of the earth kind of guy. But he just he just didn't get the wrestling business. He wanted to be, he had two ideas. He wanted to be Spike, the dog off of Looney Tunes. And he was he was short and built like a like a bulldog, but not not as big as you would think when you say bulldog. Of course, you think of Davy Boy Smith, he was not like that at all. So they shot that idea down, and he wanted to be the Indian outlaw. Now, this is a white guy, a Caucasian man, who wanted to be the Indian outlaw, and uh that was when that song had first came out. And they told him, they were like, Are you an Indian? And he's like, No, I just want to be the Indian outlaw. And they were like, That's just crazy, that's just stupid, because you don't look like an Indian and you're not an Indian, so you can't be the Indian outlaw. So James, his career didn't last long. He worked a few m matches for you know for Smoky Mountain, maybe a couple other little independent outlaw shows, and that was that was about it for him. So the next deal was on 8-8, 1994, we went to Saltville, Virginia. It was a Smoky Mountain TV taping, and it was me and Jason Skyfire, who everybody knows is easy money, versus the gangsters. And we lost that match. Also later that night, I wrestled Tracy Smothers in a TV match, and we had a good little match, and that match is on YouTube. If you want to check that out for Smokey Mountain Wrestling, it me and Tracy, one of my favorite matches. He he actually let me get a little offense in there. Of course, I lost, and then the next one was me in a singles versus Lance Storm for the TV title, and Boo Bradley interfered and ran into a no contest, and Boo Bradley ended up being Balls Mahoney from ECW fame. So a lot of talent right here going from the gangsters of ECW, Tracy Smothers of ECW, and Boo Bradley, Balls Mahoney from ECW. A lot of foreshadowing there for the future, and I ended up putting all of them over and I got 75 bucks. So, you know, that was that was a little bit better. But we're doing pretty good there, and we're making loops and we're making the towns. The next time we the next day match out, we are on the 19th, 8, 19, 94, Marietta, Georgia. And I didn't end up working because the Hornet was scheduled to wrestle the Dirty White Boy. I got paid 50 bucks, but Dirty White Boy didn't show. So I ended up working and get or not working and getting paid for him not being there. Now I have no idea why he didn't show. Don't know anything about it, never asked, never found out. So a week later, we're in on the 25th of 1994 again. The Hornet wrestled the Dirty White Boy, and this time he did show. This was in Albany, Kentucky. And of course he beat me on that one because he's, you know, Dirty White Boy's the man. And I made 50 bucks. So the pay is coming down. It's almost like I was starting over. But I was working a lot and I was getting a lot of ring time. I was meeting a lot of people, and I felt that my career was going very well. And this is what they talk about about paying dues. You know, yes, you have to set the ring up for a while. Yes, you have to learn the referee for a while, yes, you have to learn all these jobs, and then you have to do some jobs in the ring, losing to people. But that was paying my dues. But notice I was getting paid for every bit of it. Nowadays, from my understanding, is the promoters want the guys to pay dues, and they think that that's working for free or for a hot dog, and that's not how it worked. Yes, you did all the grunt work, and yes, you you you you did multiple jobs and you worked your behind off and got very little pay, but you got pay. So, you know, that's that's the way it went back then, not the way it is now, from what I understand. So the next day on the 26th, I think we already did that one. We did Tracy some others. Let me turn the book. We were in on 9394, Johnson City, T Tennessee, one of my favorite towns. It was another Smoky Mountain TV taping, and the Hornet wrestled Lance Storm and lost. And I got fifty bucks, only worked one time, which, you know, was nice for the pay, but I was used to working multiple times, and that was kind of a bummer to not get uh all you know multiple matches in and get that ring time. On 9594, we went to Cumberland, Kentucky, and me and Anthony Michaels wrestled the gangsters and lost, and was in a battle royal, and I got paid a hundred bucks for that, which was kind of nice. A nice little house town house show town boost in money. So, you know, that that was kind of making up for some of the TVs. Now, I like to say this too. I don't think, now I don't know for sure because I never saw the the the m the books, so to speak, the financial books of Smoky Mountain, but I think this was right around the time that the business was slumping. Smokey Mountain was getting over, but the economy and the towns weren't drawing as well as they had been before for the first half. I think the economy was taking a downtick, and I think this was the beginning of Smoky Mountain starting where it would ultimately go, which would be shutting down a little over a year later. So there were signs. There were signs for that. But it had such a great run from 91, I believe, till 95. And we were just happy to be there, though. No matter, you know, we were such a prestigious company, and I'm so happy that that I got to be a part of that and learn from those guys. I know I probably sound like a broken record every time that I I do a podcast or an interview, but without the Dirty White Boy and Tracy Smothers and the Gangstas and Tim Horner and Bobby Blaze and the Rock and Roll Express, then you know, I wouldn't be who I am today without them. I wouldn't have a wrestling career, I wouldn't be the man that I am, I wouldn't have learned the lessons in life, and I just am so thankful, and I never waste an opportunity to tell them thank you for what you've done. On 9-9, 1994, I was in Savannah, Tennessee, and I wrestled Bob Bullet Bob Armstrong for the first time, which was huge. He he was just larger than life and a legend in his own time and so adored by everybody. And the Hornet wrestled Bullet Bob, I lost, but I made a hundred bucks for the for the town, so that was good. I mean, I got to wrestle a legend and I made a hundred bucks for the match, and I was so excited to to wrestle the bullet. I got to wrestle him several times throughout my career, and I just I I love the Armstrongs. I love the Armstrong family. And a little, don't want to let the cat out of the bag, but I think we're gonna be going back to Alabama this year, and Scott Armstrong has a little promotion down there. We're gonna we're gonna be taking some of our own stuff and doing our own towns, but Scott's gonna work with us, and I get to see Scott again, and I'm pretty excited about that. But more on that later when when we have more information to tell you about the Alabama stuff, but just know that there are some Alabama things coming up for the people down there. So about this time, rock and roll, they would go everywhere, they were working almost every day. So they decided that they would wanted to take me and Anthony on the road. And the we were gonna be the infernos and face rock and roll, and we were gonna tour it to these little independent shots. So on 92394, we go to Cuba, Missouri. The Infernos versus the Rock and Roll Express. We lost, of course, in the main event, and I got a hundred bucks. Because rock and roll was so good to me, but I had never been around them twenty-four hours at a time. So this was they rented a Lincoln Town car, and me and Anthony got in the backseat and we took off, and I remember my dad telling me who had gone, he was in the coal industry, and their main office was in St. Louis, and he said, Whatever you do, do not go to East St. Louis. Okay. So we drive, I think it was like 11, 12 hours to Missouri. We get there at 2 or 3 in the morning, and the first thing they do is drive to East St. Louis, park the car in the middle of the hood. I am just freaking out. And they get out of the car and start yelling, rock and roll, rock and roll express, looking to hook up, looking for something, just screaming it. So finally a guy came out to sell Punky Ricky Morton whatever they were trying to purchase. I don't know for sure because I was sitting in the car shaking. But what ended up happening was he would give the money to the guy, and at this point, you know, other people had gathered around the car. So Robert opens up the hood or the trunk, and he gets in there and gets his gimmick pictures out and starts selling Polaroids and pictures to all these people sitting there. So they made their own money back on gimmick sales while trying to buy drugs. And it was it was hilarious looking back now. It's a wonder we didn't get shot. But, you know, I was sitting in the car, I never got out, I never did any drugs uh on this trip. And I, you know, they they did their thing, and we went on, we went to the hotel, and we we were so tired. We get in the hotel, we get our room, and all we want to do is go to sleep. But Ricky and Robert are up because, you know, they got the Snabitz, and they, you know, they're doing their thing. And there's a diner, an all-night diner, next door in the parking lot, and they decide to go over and eat. Well, we we fall fast asleep, just as soon as our heads hit the pillows. And then the phone rings in the hotel. Of course, there were no cell phones back then, and I answer the phone, and it's Ricky's like, Oh my god, you gotta wake up, you gotta wake up. We're it's 11 o'clock, we gotta get out of here. You guys have overslept, we're gonna be late. So in a panic, we jump up. We didn't even think to look at the clock. That's how green we were. We got up, we got dressed, we got our gear, and we came outside. They're like, meet us over at the diner next door. So we go in and the diner is packed, and you could smell eggs and bacon and all this stuff, and we're thinking it's morning. And we sit down and they're like, You want some breakfast? And we're uh we thought, well, aren't we late? Uh we got time to eat? And they were like, Oh no, it's only been 15 minutes. We just got here. We just thought maybe you'd be hungry. So they ribbed us. They ribbed us and waited until we got good enough sleep and then put us in a panic. So we ended up going back and uh going back to sleep. So that night, which was the next day from the previous town we made, we went to DeSoto, Missouri, the Infernos versus the Rock and Roll Express. We lost that match again in the main event and made another hundred bucks. So we had done a two-day loop and I had made 200 bucks, traveled ungodly amounts, got no sleep, watched the drug deal, and saw the business practices of Robert Gibson in the process. And I loved every second of it. I thought it was just the greatest thing in the whole wide world that I was on the road in the main events making a hundred bucks. It was great. So on 929.94, I'm in Roan, Georgia, and I'm facing my tag partner, opponent, Ted Allen. I lost by DQ and I made 60 bucks, and it was the first time that I had worked. I don't even know who what the company was. I remember they ran there on a regular basis, and Ted had Ted might have been booking the show, and that's how I ended up on it. But I got down there and we we had a good little match, and it was a night off with Ted every time and made a little bit of money, and Rome, Georgia wasn't that far from Worstown. Now we go to on October 1st, 1994, we go I go to Gap Creek, Tennessee, where I worked for Mike Duggar for the first time. And I don't know if anybody knows about Mike Duggar or the Duggar family in East Tennessee. Let me say this before I say what I'm about to say. I love Mikey. I love O Dog. I respect him. I love him to death, but I can't do business with him. If I ever do, if I ever work for him or we get anything business-wise, I always work for Freak. Because you can't make a business deal with these people. The dad, Mike Duggar, was a crook. He was a part-time preacher, part-time wrestler, full-time con artist. And we wrestled that night, and I wrestled a guy named Storm Shadow. And it's exactly what you would think if you're familiar with G.I. Joe, which by the way, I'm a huge G.I. Joe mark. That more on that some other time. I'd wondered how this guy got away with basically wearing a cosplay costume at the time of Storm Shadow, but we we wrestled and I won that match, and I made$75. But the problem was is that we I had to wait so late. Duggar would pull this in in other I mean I got my pay back night, but Duggar would pull this on a regular basis. He would book 10, 15 matches and wait all night long in hopes that you would just get frustrated and go home so he didn't have to pay you. And he did this to everybody. He did it to Ricky Morton all the time. And of course we stayed and got our money. But uh later on I learned to just leave. It wasn't worth it. Just go get your ring time and get out of there. But I got paid that night. Smoky Mountain TV returned on October 3rd, 1994, to Morgantown, Morganton, North Carolina. Spelled like Morgantown, but pronounced Morganton. And I wrestled The Inferno, which was Anthony under the mask, and it got me a win on Smokey Mountain TV as myself. Me and Sean Casey wrestled The Gangsters and lost. And then later, me and The Inferno wrestled Brian Lee and Jay Lance Storm. I almost said James Storm. He wasn't even in the business at that point. But anyway, me and the Inferno versus Brian Lee and Lance Storm, and we lost that. I made$75 for the entire trip. So the next week, October 8th, 1994, we're in Morgan Morristown, Tennessee. It was a little independent shot that uh Tim was working with and halfway booking, and the Hornet wrestled Keith Hart, and I won. And Keith Hart is a local legend, no kin to the hearts of Calgary. But he his mom actually was the first seamstress that I had, and she made the Hornet outfit and some of the other tights and stuff that we had. Now he was different. I'm not going to say there was anything wrong with him, especially in today's standards, but he was a very different cat. Nice guy, incredible worker. But there he was just something a little off about him. He just wasn't, you know, like the rest of us, and you know, that says a lot because, you know, we we're all definitely off to begin with. But he was a nice guy, and the matches was great. He used to do a lot of jobs on WCW on TV. So later that night I wrestled Kendo and Killer Kyle, wrestled Tim Horner and Scott Armstrong. And so I wrestled as the Hornet, and then I came back as Kendo, and I lost that. And then I was in a battle royal and I made$25.$25. And at that point, I had had 92 matches. So I had 92 matches under my belt as of the 10th of October, 1994. So wow. That is a lot going on there. 92 matches is not so bad in under a year. I got a lot of experience and met a lot of people. So I was moving right along with my career. And everything was going really, really well. And I couldn't complain. I was growing up a little bit. And I know it was going fast, but it I was learning so much. It was like a sponge. I was learning so much at that time. And the guys were just so great. And I had traveled, I mean, I had been through Kentucky and Missouri and Tennessee and Virginia and West Virginia and Georgia across the whole Smoky Mountain area and working these, starting to work these little independents. And the funny thing about the independents was is see, I had worked for so long. If you notice, I wrestled several matches before I really, other than the cab company for Gypsy Joe that Tracy took us, that you can listen to in the second episode that is archived. I never did an independent show or or as they call it, an outlaw mud show now, which is funny because it's actually an old term that's come back into fluition because of Cornett saying it's an outlaw mud show. Well, there was a lot of outlaw mud shows that was about to be in my career, and I didn't even realize that that. And then these guys would book me because they wanted to wrestle me because I was uh off of TV. I wasn't a star. The Hornet might have been at that point, just a small, small star. But you know, me as myself wasn't really, I was very seldomly on tell television as myself, but enough to be seen and enough to be used. So it was it was just a great time in my life and so much going on, and I'm so thankful for everybody. But real quick, I want to go over where you can follow me and find me on social media. On Facebook, it is making the towns. You can follow me there. Also, Brian Logan underscore making the towns. You can find me on Instagram. And then I want to talk a little bit about I Am Your Champion exclamation point on YouTube. So it's at I Am Your Champion Exclamation Point. If you'll go over there and subscribe and hit the bell if you want notifications, but I put a lot of work into this YouTube channel and I'm very, very proud of it. And if you guys would go over and give me a subscribe, that would really help me out so that we can do some live streaming and stuff from that, from shows and stuff in the future, because you have to have you know so many subscribers before you can go on and do some cool stuff. If you want the notification, that's cool. I love that. You'll catch everything that I'm going to be doing. But if you don't want the notification, you don't have to hit the bell, it won't be anything, no trouble to you. But if you would go give me a subscription, go over there and subscribe. It doesn't cost anything. Just hit that subscribe button. And on the YouTube right now, we have 142 matches. There is all kinds of content over there. Basically, I've been saving up video footage for my whole career. Didn't really know what I was going to do with it. I've done compilation DVDs before. We've put them out on some of the page streaming channels, and you know, we're done with the page streaming channels. We're moving on from that. We'll talk about that here in just a minute. But we're done with that. But there's so many matches with me again as the disciple, Damien versus, you know, like Brock Lesnar, Shelton Benjamin, Randy Orton, Leviathan, Batista, who's Leviathan. All that stuff is on there. Also, I think we put on the social media today as we are taping me clips against me and Buff Bagwell. The full match is on there. And that's what we're doing. We've been putting highlights on the social media, and then the full matches are on this YouTube. And it's uh it's it's really fantastic to see all of that to go from you know a 17-year-old kid working matches all the way up until the Rock and Roll Express last weekend. Like I said, 142 matches. It's just great. Also, go to I Am Your Champion on TikTok. Now I am trying to learn TikTok. We're putting out daily stuff, content on TikTok. My good friend Brian Reznor suggested that I get on TikTok. And my wife Ashley had said that we should be on TikTok. And so we're on TikTok. We're out there doing the Tok Techs. Also on X, go to it's Three Crows Entertainment, but it's at LoganYourChamp is the handle. At LoganYourChamp. What had happened was is we had several Twitter accounts. And when they chance transferred over to X, my personal one didn't make it because I wasn't active on Twitter. So it didn't transfer over. So we lost all of our Twitter accounts because they didn't cross over, which is my fault because I just hadn't logged in and hadn't dealt with it. But now the three crows one stayed. So I've turned that into my private Twitter account, X account. And if you'll go over there and follow me on Twitter, find me on Twitter, whatever the buzzword, I'd love to have you on there because we we tweet out every day or X out every day. I don't know. Tell me how what that is. Is it Xing? Is it Twittering? What is it? I don't know. I need educated. But yeah, we we're going up, but the most thing one of the things that we're gonna do, we do is when I am at work doing the puppies, I take a picture of my buddy of the day. There's always one puppy that wants to sit on my lap or hang out with me, but I do pupper of the day on X. So you can see buddies like Gertie and Ripper and some of my puppy friends that uh I just love and adore. And all that's on there. So check out the social media. We're really working hard on social media. Now, if you don't want to go and individually find all that, because that's a lot. Making the towns, Brian Logan making the towns, I am your champion, I am your champion on TikTok, at Logan Your Champ on X. If you don't want to do all that, all you have to do is go to IamYourChampion.com and on the very first page, scroll to the bottom, and there are links to every social media platform we have. So there's all kinds of stuff there, and you just click on that, give us a follow, give us a like, give us a whatever it is, and we're all connected, and you can see everything, Brian Logan. And again, even if you're just the casual social media user, I would really appreciate the subscribes and the likes. It probably means nothing for you to do it for a second, but it means the world to me to get as much as I can on there and really use these platforms to get the word out. Also, I want to talk a little bit about the ride home with Dallas Danger. Now, before when we did this, for three episodes, we we do a QA episode and we were putting it on the Patreon. And Dallas basically the format is Dallas will listen to the making the towns. He comes up with questions, and the premise is like, you know, this is me telling, I'm talking on the way to the town, explaining the wrestling business to everybody. But the ride home is where the boys sit and they talk about the show and they rebook the territory and come up with suggestions and you know, just have a have a session of putting their heads together, a brainstorming session, and that's what the premise is for the ride home with Dallas Danger. Now, before, like I said, we had put that on Patreon and had asked people to pay a small fee for that. We're not doing that anymore. We are gonna have its own podcasting on the platforms, and we are not gonna charge for it. So it is totally free, completely free for the ride home. We're gonna be taping this next week, right after this, a few days after this, and basically he's gonna be asking questions, and we want your questions. So here's what you do. You can do this a couple of different ways. You can go to any of the social media platforms and say, Hey, I got a question, ask the question. We will address it. I guarantee you, if you ask it, no matter what it is, we will address it and we will put it on air. But if you want, you can go to IamYourchampion.com to the contact page, just put in the subject question, and we will you'll get the question sent directly to us and we will address it on the air. You know, maybe you want to know about a certain match or a certain guy or a certain town or you know, whatever. We will we will deal with it, but there is no paywall involved at all with uh with the new ride home with Dallas Danger. So we we want to make that free for everybody. And of course, we are on Pirate Flag Radio on the Radio Kings app. If you are listening to me right now, you are probably on the Pirate Flag Radio app. We are gonna they're gonna actually be probably a week or two ahead of the of the social media platforms just by the nature of the scheduling of the tapings. But we are very happy to be on Pirate Flag Radio. We love Mike Vanick and everybody over there. They've been so good to us. That was another thing I wasn't sure of. I loved being on there before with all the shows we were doing, and I had contacted Mike and said, Would you would you by some chance be interested in in airing this again? And I thought, well, I burnt that bridge. I I did four episodes and quit, and he's not gonna want to deal with that because that that's shady. But he was so nice and immediately said, Absolutely. So he was right there, and we don't know the time slot yet. We're talking about maybe Fridays or Sunday. We were we were just talking about that before I started to record. But we are going to be on there, there will be a set time, and that time will be on you just go to the podcast on IamYourChampion.com. The the time slot will be right there next to the Pirate Flag Radio logo, and it'll tell you where you can listen to it there. Also, when the social medias are not social media, when the podcasts are up on the platforms, the there will be making the towns and the ride home with both links right there that will take you directly to the podcasts themselves. So you can get that on wherever your favorite podcast platform is. That they'll be available there. But also, if you want it in one single place, then you know it's IamYourChion.com. Be sure to go there. And we're also gonna get our store open pretty soon, and there's gonna be t-shirt deals as low and DVD deals as low as five bucks on these things. My slam buddies will be on there, so we're gonna have some really cool stuff on there at a really ridiculously low price. Also, I am going to be selling some in-ring gear. I'm gonna be putting some stuff on there, some items that just not to let it all out of the bag, but some championship belts that were ring used. Also, some gear that was used in the WWE and WWF at the time. But there was, you know, so a lot of stuff that was just that I don't wear anymore, can't wear, and I just want the fans to have it if they're interested in that. But I we will be putting those up there on the shop within the next couple weeks or so and really get that going and everything. But if you'll check that out, that is at IamYourChampion.com. This has been Making the Towns with Brian Logan. I thank you for staying here with me. I thank you for making the town. Again, I hope that you make the town on the ride home. But for now, I am your champion. I am your champion. Oh man, that's classic. I love it.