Making the Towns
Brian Logan has spent over thirty years in the business of professional wrestling. Though the history of his journals, he retells the stories about his experiences.
Making the Towns
From WCW Retakes To WWF Tryouts A Wrestler’s Road Journal
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Three tries. One TV match. Zero room for excuses. When we hit WCW TV in Gainesville, Georgia, the night turns into a crash course on what “getting it right for television” really means and why veterans get asked to call the match when the wheels come off. I’m flipping back through my wrestling match journal and laying out the receipts: the towns, the opponents, the paydays, and the miles that built my career long before anything looked glamorous.
From there, the stories get even more real. I talk about the indie grind where you might drive hours and still not get paid, then pivot to one of the nastiest moments I’ve ever lived through: passing out at a dollar movie theater, breaking a rib on a toilet, and still finding a way to get through the wrestling booking because the show has to go on. If you love behind the scenes pro wrestling stories, this is the stuff that explains the mindset of 1990s independent wrestling better than any highlight clip.
We also get into trying to establish a West Virginia territory, learning how TV tapings worked on a short-run promotion, and how a promo with no direction can accidentally level you up. Bo James becomes a big part of the road, from nonstop travel talk to first-time gimmick matches like a street fight, a Texas death match, and a pole match. Then comes the payoff: a WWF Shotgun Saturday Night tryout against Leaf Cassidy, better known as Al Snow, and what it feels like when the locker room gives you that nod of respect. Subscribe, share this with a wrestling fan, and leave a review, then send me your questions so we can read them on air.
Catchphrase And Weekly Check In
SPEAKER_00I 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. I hope everybody's week went very well. Mine did. I had a very busy week, but I'm glad to be back and I'm excited to be doing the podcast this week. I had a lot of stuff going on with the puppies that you guys have been hearing me talk about these dogs. I'm working as a dog handler during the week as I am now a part-time wrestler. And I was completing my certification for my dog handling certificates, and that is not as easy as it sounds. I had to go through new puppy management and K9 CPR and all kinds of stuff like that, and it was taking up uh a lot of my time and wanted to get that right because it's super important so that I can take care of my babies the way I'm supposed
Why This Journal Matters
SPEAKER_00to. But we are back in action, and the premise of this show is I have had a 30-plus years in professional wrestling, and I kept a journal and of all my matches, the money, the towns, and uh the miles and the bumps, and we're going back through. This is episode nine. We're going back through and going over those dates one by one and discussing them. And it's gone well so far. We've got a great reception, and I just want to thank all the fans out there that have been tuning in. We've been getting a wonderful response from all over the world, places that I never dreamed we would reach, as well as getting a lot of listens on YouTube. I'm so excited about uh the reception that we've been getting on YouTube, as well as the uh podcast, your favorite podcast app or wherever you listen to your podcasts. So it's just going really well, and then also we've been doing the ride home with uh me in Dallas, which is this is the this show is kind of like getting in the car and going to the town, making the town. And I'm talking about my career, but on the ride home, me and Dallas Danger get together, and he in a Q ⁇ A format he asks me questions, and we have viewer qu or listener questions that pertain to something I might have missed or need to go into more detail with, and that's been getting a great reception. So if you get an opportunity, please tune in to the Ride Home, our sister podcast.
Sponsor And Dog Handler Life
SPEAKER_00But before we get started, this show is brought to you by W Energy Drinks. Be sure to use promo code YOURCHAMPION at checkout for 10% off. I'm really getting used to these W energy drinks. I talk about how we have to take a two-hour lunch because the puppies have to take a nap and they get fed after they've been taken out and they play all morning. And I come home for lunch every day, and by the time I get home and get wound down a little bit and get a little something on my tummy, I get that two o'clock, three o'clock drop-off, and I'm just exhausted after being up so early. Because we have to get there at uh 7 30 in the morning. And believe it or not, those of you who have known me over the years, I have not been a morning person, but I am now. I'm up every morning, 4 30, 5 30 in the morning. I'm up with the dogs at 7 30. And so about 2 o'clock, I get I get exhausted, but these W energy drinks are perfect. I just shake one up, get ready to take it down, and then just I'm ready to roll for the second shift all the way to 5 30 until we put the dogs up again, and it's just been a godsend. I'm off the other energy drinks and been just using this W. Let me tell you a little bit about it. It W Energy Drinks has zero sugar, zero artificial colors and flavors, no secret formulas, no hidden ingredients. They are gluten-free, and it equals out to be about a dollar a drink compared to other energy drinks. It's all made in the USA. What it does have is smooth, clean energy for sharper mental focus. Like I said, no added sugars, unique flavors, and is built for anyone. And these flavors are great. Let me tell you about some of them: cherry limer, retro rainbow sherbet, sour gummy bear, sweet and sour blue raz, Japanese yuzu, Japanese soda, samores, lunar strawberry margarita, which is really yummy. I just recently tried that, Push and Peach, Beach and Peach, and more. It equals out to about 150 milligrams of caffeine per serving. It's ready to mix anywhere. It is built for anyone. And like I said, go to W.g. I know that's a weird address, but it's W.g. And use promo code YOURCHAMPIN for 10% off in the checkout.
YouTube Uploads And No Paywalls
SPEAKER_00Also, we want we talked a little bit about the uh YouTube. And we've been putting up as much stuff on the YouTube as we possibly can. Recently, I have been putting the uh live events of World Fighting Showcase up, and we have about eight of those up so far, including Lethal Limits and Gold Rush and the big Knoxville event that we had, the nightmare in Knoxville. And we're getting a lot of views on that. But these are the full events that we were charging on the streaming channel. We're done with streaming. We are not gonna charge, we're done with paywalls. This is just for the fans. We're not trying to monetize the YouTube, we're not monetizing these videos, we're just putting them up there so the fans can see them and we can kind of celebrate the shows that I produced and wrote, directed, promoted, as well as my matches. Some of the OBW stuff, a lot of the OBW stuff, some of my WCW stuff's on there. But on the YouTube channel, I am your champion exclamation mark. And you guys just really stepped up and uh get a lot of subscriptions. I had a lot of subscribers join up. We were getting hundreds a day, and that was just incredible. If you have not subscribed yet, please go over to youtube.com. I am your champion exclamation point and subscribe and hit the notification bell. But if you don't want to know everything that we're doing, if you got too many notifications, I get that, I understand it. You don't have to click the notification bell, but if you would go over there and give me a subscribe, I would greatly appreciate it. It means the world to me. It's something that probably takes two seconds of your time that doesn't mean that much, but it means the world to me. We were trying to get as many subscribers as possible because we want to be able to go live. Like tonight, I'm gonna be in Mount Carmel, Tennessee, for Southern States Wrestling, and we would have loved to go live with some of the wrestlers before and during and after the matches tonight. So we need to get as many subscribers as possible so that YouTube will let us go live. But yes, Southern States Wrestling tonight, 8 o'clock bell time, at the Armed Forces Center in Mount Carmel, Tennessee. It's a TV taping for both Tennessee and Alabama, and we're gonna have a lot of a lot of big matches there tonight. The girls will be back as well as Murphy Cossigan, the faction will be there. Just the really good wrestling content there, just a really good live event for professional wrestling, Mount Carmel at the Armed Forces Center tonight. Tonight, tonight. So if you get a chance and you're looking for something to do, and you're in the East Tennessee Kingsport area, come on over and watch some good wrestling. But let's get down
WCW TV Match Done Three Times
SPEAKER_00to business. We last left off in December of 96, and we're gonna start on 12496, Gainesville, Georgia, WCW TV. I teamed as Brian Logan with the Bounty Hunter, and we wrestled high voltage, if you remember those two guys. I made 150 bucks that night. And the funny thing was is Robbie Rage and Kenny Chaos were two guys from the power plant. I've talked about them before, and I really liked those guys. They were good guys, they were not great, accomplished wrestlers, they were very green, but they were incredible athletes, real nice guys. But this night in Gainesville, we come out and we do the match, and it didn't go as well as it should have. They made some mistakes. Robbie comes over, knocks me off the apron, and I go sore into the floor. He hit me pretty hard. By the time I cleared my head and made it back up to the ringside into the corner, the match was over. So we get done and we go back through, and Arn Anderson is waiting for us all there at the curtain, and he is livid at high voltage, and he wants them to go out and do it again. And that this time they said to make sure that they listen to what I wanted to do. And Arn told me for me to call the match and for me to go out there and make them look good. So we go back out there and we try it all again, and high voltage is not cooperating still. This time when he goes to knock me off the apron, I make sure to get out of the way. But they finish up the match, we go back, there's Arn again, waiting at the curtain, double mad, just double, double ticked off, and turns us right back around and sends us back out to do the match for a third time. So I've had this match two times already, and I'm going back out for a third. So we go back out there this time. High voltage is listening to me, and we go out there and we get it done, we get high voltage over. Robbie comes over to do the forearm. Of course, I duck again because I don't want to get my teeth knocked out of my head. And uh we end up uh putting those guys over. We lost, and it was it was a very good match the third time in. So we got it, we got it through, and Arn was happy. But that was the way it was back then with TV, is you might be in a town and you won't go back to that town for six months to a year. So you could repeat matches, and that happens a lot on these bigger events. Whether it was WCW or if it's WWF, WWE now. I know that they WWE or WWF at the time I was up there, I saw a couple of guys that they had to send back out, and uh Ron Waterman's matches was like that a couple times, and they would they would send you out there. Was I think there's a famous story about the Steiners being sent out there to redo some matches, and of course there's also that tag match where the Rockers famously beat the Heart Foundation and the ring rope broke and they decided to scrap the match and it never happened, so the title change was a phantom title change. So a lot of times this happens that you you know you're recording TV, it's more important to get it right for the mass public than it is to have it for that crowd that night. So they'll send you right back out to redo the match. And that's what we did that night in Gainesville, Georgia. On January 25th of 1997, we're moving right along into 97. I was in center, Alabama. I wrestled as myself against Tex Ranger, and I lost that match, and but I didn't get paid. I didn't get paid for that match. So there's another night of going to a show and not getting paid on some small independent show because something had happened. The house was down, or they didn't have the money to begin with, and you know, I made that that trip from Atlanta to center Alabama, which is not that long of a trip, but I wrestled Tex Ranger. I remember I think Tex Ranger was one of the power plant guys. I think that was one of the alter egos of the power plant guys. I can't remember his real name and who he wrestled for as in WCW, but that was I can I can picture his his Texas tights and the hat and all that.
Broken Ribs And Working Hurt
SPEAKER_00But on February 9th, 97, I'm in Beckley, West Virginia, and I ended up doing a run-in in a Bobby Blaze versus Bo James and War Machine match. Now it was supposed to be a tag, but I ended up breaking my ribs, and it's a funny story. I had had dinner with my cousin the night before, and this was the match was to take place at the Bargain Park antique mall, the little flea market there. Bargain Park, very famous for us having a lot of matches there. This was an event ran by Bo James, but I had gone to Honey in the Rock Hotel, had a a restaurant there, a really nice steakhouse, and we liked to go out, have dinner, and go to a movie, and then go to the club. And I had the night off, so we ended up going to the the steakhouse, and I had just a couple of beers. Nothing, you know, I wasn't drunk. I and I had ate dinner with it, but we ended up going to the Dollar Movies right after that to see the movie Thinner. And I'm sitting there and I ended up going to the bathroom right before the movie started, and I'm in the bathroom, and I start getting really, really dizzy. And I don't know if I got an alcohol rush or if it was the heat of the place from the winter or what happened, but I ended up passing out in the bathroom, and I fell and hit my ribs on the toilet. And it was so disgusting because this bathroom was just filthy and it had been notoriously filthy, and this was the later incarnation of this movie theater where it was just down to charging a dollar for old movies. And I remember coming to, and you could my cousin said later on that he could he heard the thump, that everybody in the theater heard the thump because the bathroom was right next door to it. But I came to and I was laying in the floor in the bathroom. I sat up and I could barely move. And it took me a minute, but I finally climbed up and got to my feet, and I went in, and it's the dollar movies, everybody went back then. Heck, you could smoke in the movie theater. That tells you what kind of situation it was because if you got thrown out, hell you were only out of dollar. But anyway, I told my cousin, I said, uh you gotta take me to the hospital. And he was like, What are you talking about? I said, I've broken my ribs, I have failed, you've got to take me to the hospital. So we ended up leaving, going to the hospital, never made it to the club, and I had broke one of my ribs from falling on the toilet. So there was nothing they could do for it basically, but just wrap it up. There's not, you know, you can't really do much for broke ribs, let them heal. So we weren't able to have the tag team match, me and Bobby Blaze versus Bo and the war machine. So they did the deal where I wasn't there, and they double-teamed Bobby, and then finally I came out and made the hot tag and threw a couple of punches, which liked to kill me. I didn't want to do it, but we had to do something, the show has to go on, and we we got through it, and I was able to to make, you know, throw a couple of punches, and you know, the crowd popped decent back then, you know, the crowd was up. Of course, it was a different time period back in the 90s. Wrestling drew a lot different in these smaller venues, and it always did well at Bargan Park. But the on February 14th, Valentine's Day, 1997, I was in Fall Branch, my ribs were still hurt, and it was the Hornet with Death and Destruction, that's Roger and Frank, versus Ricky Morton, Bo James, and War Machine. I lost and made 30 bucks. I still worked, but uh in the six man, I was able to hide a little bit, I guess, and not have to be in there as much. And we we got through the match, and but it's still noted here that my ribs were still hurt, and we had to take it pretty easy. On February 28th, 1997, I'm back in Falls Branch. That's two weeks later, and I wrestled as myself versus Stan Lee. We talked about Stan and Eddie in the last episode, and we talked about them on the ride home, and I won that match and made 30 bucks, and it was just a typical good little match, and we got through it. On 3-1-97, I was in Ashland, Kentucky, and I wrestled as myself, Brian Logan, versus Bo James, and we did a 20-minute draw. I made 30 bucks, and that match is on YouTube, so you can see you go through there. I think the last five or ten minutes of this match is on there. It's really good. I ended up hitting him with a crossbody block right at the time running out, and it turned out that it was it was a good match, one of our best matches we had, and that's the surviving footage, but it is on YouTube, and I am your champion. Exclamation point. Just scroll down and look for Brian Logan versus Bo James. I think it's the first one that comes up.
Trying To Build West Virginia Towns
SPEAKER_00On 3797, I made my debut in Spencer, West Virginia. This was for a new guy that I had met at Bo J or Bobby Blaze's show, Troy Stremmel. He wrestled as Eddie Edmonds, and then Eddie hit it off pretty well back then. And we did we ended up getting together, and he wanted to promote some shows in West Virginia, and wanted me to help with it, and this was the first promotion that was not part of something else. That you know Bobby Blaze ran Ashland and kind of come over into Huntington area. Bo ran East Tennessee and came up through Virginia into the Beckley area, Smoky Mountain into the Beckley area, WWF down into the Buchanan area. There was never a territory in West Virginia since the 70s, since WAY wrestling. And we'll talk more about WAY wrestling and the legacy of that when we get to Apex way, way, way down the line. But this night in Spencer, I wrestled Mike Montana, and I won, and I made 15 bucks, but I also wrestled in a six-man and wrestled as myself with Brian Jones and Bobby Blaze versus the Cuban assassin, Eddie Edmonds, and Mike Montana. And the bad boy Eddie Edmonds actually wore a hood in that match because he was from Spencer, West Virginia, and his wife was a piece of work. She was a real bitch, and she was embarrassed of wrestling, and she Tried to sabotage us at every turn. Well, she was embarrassed and didn't want to have anything to do with professional wrestling because she thought it was beneath her. So since he was from Spencer and they ran the Spencer Armory there, I think it was the Army. It might have been the one of the schools, might have been one of the elementary schools or middle schools. But anyway, she didn't want him to be seen as a wrestler because it would hurt his contracting business. He was a carpenter, and so he had to put on a hood. Like nobody realized who it was. But yeah, Chrissy was a piece of work, and I never liked her. Still don't like her. She's a troublemaker. They just turned out to be a bad influence on her son and her husband's career, all because she was embarrassed of pro wrestling. And I haven't talked to them in years, decades, and I don't plan on ever talking to them again. But we had a good thing going. So I'm going to talk favorably about and called it Mid-South Wrestling Association, which made no sense because it wasn't the middle or the South. But we ran trying to start a territory in West Virginia, and the idea was to run as many shows as possible. Now, I didn't know the overall plan was to run two shows in every county and then repeat them. I thought we were going to do repeat business. It would have helped if, you know, the office knew the overall game plan, which was a lot of the problem was communication with this bunch. And Eddie became came in the fold and started working a lot. On 3997, we were back in Beckley, West Virginia, and I wrestled with Bob as a tag as myself and a tag team Bobby with Bobby Blaze versus Eddie Edmonds and the war machine. Eddie Edmonds this time didn't have the uh mask on. And I won and made $25. On 314.97 was in Augusta, Georgia. And me, I wrestled as myself and a kid named Dynamite versus Johnny Dollar, and he had a tag partner, and we won that match. And then later that night, Kendo the Samurai wrestled Jackie Fulton under the hood as the Patriot, and I lost that one. So I won one and I lost one, and I made $95 for the whole night. So you can see a stark difference in wrestling in West Virginia and the paydays that we were getting there, and wrestling in other parts of the country and South Georgia. Of course, I was living in Atlanta at the time. So Augusta was actually an easier shot for me. It wasn't but about three hours, whereas West Virginia was about eight hours for me to make from Atlanta. And I was living in Atlanta because I was down there in the uh power plant. On 3157, I was in Pikeville, Kentucky, and I wrestled as myself versus the Cuban Assassin. And I lost. And then later that night, wrestled as myself with primetime Brian Jones versus the Cuban and Eddie Edmonds. We won that one. And for both matches total, I made 50 bucks. And uh let's talk about the Cuban Assassin. He is the son of the original Cuban Assassin. Was one of my all-time favorite indie characters, just a real interesting cat. One of my favorite people at one time. I can't say that about it about him now because of some business, the way he handled things when we were in APW. But they at the time he was he was green, he was just starting out. Now I his name is Richie A. Savedo, and I had actually gone to high school with him. Him and myself and Mike Lanham, who was the heart kid that I told you about in the last episode. We all went to high school. Now he was two years older than me, but he had left when I went to Smoky Mountain. He went up to Canada to train with his dad. Now he claims he's been in the business two years longer than me, but I want to dispute that. I don't I don't believe he has. I think he started two years after. Just because you went up there doesn't mean that you actually worked those two years as I was constantly working. But he was a good guy and he tried real hard and he used his dad's gimmick, which is legendary in West Virginia wrestling. Going back to the WAY days, his dad and Gypsy Joe were Gene and Jan Madrid, and they were the legendary heel combination in southern West Virginia from 1954 all the way up to the late 70s. And their their names are infamous to this day with professional wrestling in the West Virginia area. On 321. Some say he was my best opponent, and that we had our best matches together, and it just clicked. It was magic. It was like flaring steamboat. We didn't have to talk about it. We didn't really have to call very much in the ring. We kind of went by feel and we we had some battles over the years. And this, I believe, is my first uh time getting in the ring with him, is here on the 21st in 97. Scotty had been trained by George South, and he had his first matches, Mike, much less, much like Mike Lanham in WCW. So that they both started out for the bigger company and uh cut their teeth on national TV. So there's a lot of footage out there with Scotty, and uh and there are a couple matches on the YouTube with me and Scotty McKeever. Of course, one of the matches we don't have up yet, we're still trying to find the footage, is the infamous Princeton match, the one hour war. And we'll talk about that when we get to it here in the book a few years down the line.
New TV Tapings And Promo Lessons
SPEAKER_00On 32297, I was in Columbus, Georgia for the NWF. This was a promotion started up by the Oates brothers, and they were running a set of TVs, and have brought some talent in from the power plant and some other places, and I wrestled as myself with Joey Mags, and we wrestled uh two enhancement talent guys, two jobbers on TV, and we went over. And then also on that taping, I wrestled with David Young versus two jobbers, and we won that match, and I made 60 bucks for both of the matches total combined, and it was a good little TV taping. It didn't last very long. I think we only did a couple of uh tapings with those guys. I think it was one of those deals where they were filming a pilot, trying to get it to be picked up, and back then with analog television and editing the way it was, you couldn't just you had to have bigger cameras, you had to have a TV station, you had to have an editing bay, you had film, you had to make tapes off of master tapes off of your raw tapes, and it wasn't like it was or it is today, where everybody has a production studio in their phone or in their iPad. But the tapings were good, and they had like Greg Valentine, Manny Fernandez, that's where I met Manny Fernandez for the first time, and I actually we were all doing promos for TV, and I was supposed to just be a jobber, and they had me do the promo, and I in my promo they didn't give me any direction. So in the promo I called out Greg Valentine and Mammy Fernandez and said, I want to throw my name in the hat in the hat and face these guys and see if I can become somebody here in the NWF. And the the Oates brothers loved it, and they actually gave me good slots and ended up putting me over because of the way I talked. So it was a good little good little learning experience, some more TV under my belt, and it was just a shame that the promotion didn't last longer. On 328.97, I was in Whithville, Virginia. Me and as myself and Ricky Morton wrestled Bo James and the War Machine, and we lost. But this time he was my partner, and I believe the the little person, bad boy Buck, was the promoter on this. I think him and his dad promoted this show and brought us in and had us in the main event. On 4497, I was in Falls Branch, Tennessee, and I wrestled Bo James and lost and made $25, and that continued the feud between me and Bo. We were taking this match as many places as we possibly could, and we we were getting used to working each other. Me and Bo had some epic battles all over this country, and we have sparked a friendship that lasts to this day. And like I said, tonight in Mount Carmel, Tennessee, right outside of Kingsport, I'll be working for Bo doing production for Southern States Wrestling's TV taping. Again, if you get a shot to come on out, come on out. On 4597, we were in Lewisburg, North Carolina, and I wrestled as myself versus Bo, and I won and made $40. I'm not real sure who promoted that. Might have been Mark Ash, might have promoted that show. I'm not sure. I'm guessing it doesn't say who the promoter is here. But that's wrestling Bo two nights in a row in Tennessee and North Carolina. So a double shot, which was nice that we were touring it around. On 411.97, I go into Whitville, Virginia, and I wrestle as myself with a guy named Dudley and Ricky Morton versus Death and Destruction and Buck. So it was a mixed tag of a tag team and a little person, little Dudley, and versus Death and Destruction, Roger and Frank, and little Little Buck. So we won that match, and I made $25, and that was again promoted by bad boy Buck and his dad. On 41297 in Lewisburg, West Virginia, I wrestled my buddy Mike Lanham. And we I won that match. I wrestled as myself. And then later on with Bo James, I wrestled we wrestled the Baton Twins. And we lost that match, and I made 20 bucks for the whole night. And that was a Scotty Muskieber special. That was his show in Lewisburg, and he did not pay very much. But we back then we cared about the ringtime and the camaraderie. And if it was one of us, one of our inner circle running a show, we were there to help and was there to do the best that we that we absolutely could. The funny thing about wrestling the Batten twins is they were a little salty sometimes. Two great guys, yeah, identical twins, formerly known as the U.S. Express in Kansas City and in Dallas, Texas. Of course, Smokey Mountain. And me and Bo were the heels wrestling the Battens. And they uh they like to wrestle around a little bit. Not shooting, just rolling a little bit. So that night they grabbed Bo James and they took him down and did some sit-out and turn it ins and Bo wrestled back a little bit. And they all got fired up, and uh one of the batons, I think it was Bart, grabbed Bo and suplexed him really quick. And Bo Bo was a big guy then, you know, in his prime. I'm gonna say he was about 270, 280, something like that. Maybe maybe 300, I don't know. That might be pushing it. If he hears this, he'll probably kill me if I by saying that he weighed so much. But they suplexed him, and Bo got pissed. Bo got really pissed. So now they're really trying to wrestle around, and it got out of hand, and it just Bo got so blown up wrestling those guys because they would tag in, and so he would wrestle one of the guys, and then they'd tag out, and then he'd be wrestling the other one, and he'd go to tag me, and I wouldn't tag. I was like, I'm not getting involved, I'm not getting involved with that at all.
First Street Fight And Gimmicks
SPEAKER_00But at that point, I had had 239 matches. All right, on 5-397, I wrestled in Creedmoor, North Carolina on an independent show. I wrestled as myself and wrestled David Blanchard. David ran the show, or at least booked it. And we wrestled in my first street fight match. It was one of those indie shows where it was a cold angle. They threw it on the card, and David wanted to have a street fight, so he had a street fight match with me. I won that match and made 20 bucks. I remember selling gimmicks that night, so I made some good money selling merchandise. But it was exciting being in a street fight for the first time, and I had grown up seeing those. And the thing with a lot of gimmick matches sometimes is you don't really train for gimmick matches, at least you didn't back in the day. You you trained and you had your basics, and you learned your basics, and then you had your match, and you would go out there and you would learn things and incorporate new things. So when a promoter would come up and say, Hey, I want you to do a street fight or an ODQ or a ladder match, you may not have ever trained for any of this, and you have to just kind of go with what you know and and learn on the fly. And that's where I learned the first time about a street fight and you know how the match was supposed to go. He led the match, I followed, and it was very good and very fun. On 516-97, we were back in Falls Branch, Tennessee. Wrestled as myself and with Mark Curtis versus Bo and the War Machine versus Death and Destruction, and it was a three-way dance, and we did the one-hour draw. A one-hour, three-way tag draw. And I made $25 for wrestling that night, and it was an incredible match, and I was exhausted, but we really tore it down, and there wasn't a lot of people in the Samson Center for that that show. I want to say 50 at most. But that night they got to see some incredible wrestling, and that was what was so great about the Samson Center. If you remember in previous episodes, I talked about the what I didn't make in money, I made up for an experience. And that we were trying new things and trying to figure out who we were and the our characters and all this different stuff. And this is one of those nights that we just decided to go the full Broadway and just really pull out all the stops, and what what fun it was. On the next night, 51797, we were in Clinton, South Carolina, and the Living Legends, that's me and Bo James teaming for the first time with each other as the Living Legends. The youngest old timers in the business is our gimmick, versus Colt Steele and Johnny Dollar. And we won that match and made 30 bucks. The next night we were in Carnesville, Georgia. I wrestled as myself against Bo and won and made 10 bucks. So I had wrestled three nights in a row and made $60. Went from Falls Branch to Clinton, South Carolina to Carnsville, Georgia, and made 60 bucks.
WWF Shotgun Tryout With Al Snow
SPEAKER_00It was Mobile, Alabama, WWF TV, shotgun Saturday night, and I wrestled Leaf Cassidy, which was Al Snow, and made 250 bucks. And that was just incredible to get to go down there and get a tryout and uh have a have a match there with uh with Al Snow. The match was really good. It was on Shotgun Saturday night. They gave us the freedom to do stuff, and I was so kind he let me wrestle an even match with him, and I was able to take big bumps morning. One of the big bumps was a reverse powerbomb where he got me up in like a last ride position and then flipped me over into a power bomb over his back. So it was like a backdrop powerbomb. And when we got done with that match, we got back to the curtain and we got a standing ovation from all the boys. So it was it was just incredible to have that feeling and and for everything to work out and have a good match, and I'd finally wrestled in a WWF mat ring, and that was that was really cool, very, very cool. On 52397, I was in Oxford, Alabama, and I wrestled Dutch Mantel, and I actually beat Dutch and won and made $45, and it was a good little match, and it it was such a learning experience, and I just love Dutch. Of course, more on Dutch when we get to Puerto Rico, which is right right up the road from where we're at. We're heading that direction. On 5247, I was in Asheville, North Carolina, and I wrestled as myself versus Bo James, and I won and made $25. And then on 5 30, which was a week later, we're back in Falls Branch, Tennessee. And me and Mark Curtis, Brian Hildebrandt, the referee from Smoky Mountain, who was booking at the time for Southern States Wrestling, wrestled Bo and War Machine. And uh we lost that match and made 25 bucks. So me and Bo were running the roads together, and it seemed like almost every night we were either wrestling each other or wrestling as a team. And And we were on the 31st, we were in Falls Branch, Tennessee, the next night, and it was a Texas deat match. Me versus Bo lost that match and made $25. And that was my first Texas deat match. And I had no clue what I was doing in a Texas deat match. But Bo walked me through it. I remember I bled that night. One of the first times that I had bled. At one point I I looked up and said, How how's the blood? And uh Bo put my face in a puddle of it on the mat and said, It's all right here. It wasn't on me at all. It was all on the canvas because I had put my head down and it had dripped off onto the canvas and set it onto me. But on 6697, we were in Paul's branch, Tennessee again. This time it was a poll match, and I wrestled Bo James. I lost and I made 30 bucks.
Texas Death Match Learning Curve
SPEAKER_00So wrestling Bo quite a lot, and just just absolutely just eating, sleeping, doing everything for wrestling, traveling with Bo James, which is something I tell you, traveling with Bo is such a learning experience, and it's so fun. This is almost the Bo James Hour. He's so fun in a car talking about the business, and it's nonstop talking about the business. And it's just I love Bo to death, and I'm just cherish our friendship so much. But we were learning so much, like you know, the pole match. I had never been in a pole match before. Of course, you know, a poll match is fairly simple. You climb the pole, you get the check, or whatever you're trying to get off. I don't even know what we were trying to get off, it just says poll match. But it was probably a glove of some sort, some type of loaded glove. And then the Texas death match, and you know, I never had that match, you know, I never had the street fight. But I was getting to where, after a couple of hundred matches, I was starting to work gimmick matches. So my career was coming right along, and I was starting to get involved in more and more angles to where it called for some of these matches to go an extra mile and have to have a stipulation. So it was it was a good time, a good learning experience. Very much. I love this time period, and if I could go back, I would do it again, time and time again. And I just some of my favorite favorite nights in the wrestling business. So uh, all
Social Links Sponsor And Merch
SPEAKER_00right. Be sure to follow us on Facebook, making the towns. Also, my private page is Brian Logan. On Instagram, you can find me at Brian Logan underscore making underscore the underscore the towns. I know that's very complicated, but we're gonna show you a shortcut here in a minute. On YouTube, it is at I AmYourCampion. Exclamation point. Subscribe and hit the bell. I am your champion on TikTok and on X or Twitter. It is three Crows Entertainment at Logan Your Champ. But if you if that's too much to remember, which I understand, all you have to do is go to IamYourChampion.com. And that is a one-stop shop for everything for my career. Right on the home page down at the bottom, there are links to each ever each and every one of these socials. All you have to do is click on the Facebook button, it takes you right to the page. Click on the Instagram button, same thing, and so on and so forth. And it you can sign up for all the social medias. Of course, I do puppy of the day. You can see some of the dogs that I work with at work and some of my babies. I do that every day that I work. Again, I want to thank our sponsor, Dubby, for sponsoring us. Use promo code Your Champion at checkout for 10% off. Again, W energy drinks, zero sugar, no artificial colors or flavors, no secret formulas, no hidden ingredients, gluten-free. All made in the USA. It's for clean, smooth energy, sharper mental focus, no added sugars, as I said, unique flavors, and this is built for anybody, any age, and it's caffeine driven. So you're not getting any of that other stuff that you don't want. It's got about 150 milligrams of caffeine per serving. All you do is just put it in a little shaker glass. And they have shaker glasses, they have all kinds of stuff there. They have lots of bundles and things that you can get together and get some of their items. They have merchandise. It's just a really cool site that's dubby.g. Again, it's promo code Your Champion at checkout for 10% off the entire store. And speaking of stores, also on I amyourchampion.com, go to our shop page and click in to enter the shop. And we've got t-shirts and wrestling buddies, which are really popular. Of course, my book, The Congregation, is in there. But we also have one of a kind ring used items. The boots and the singlet butcher that Damien used to wear every night for years that he wore against John Cena, that I wore against Brock Lesnar, Sheldon Benjamin, Randy Orton. That's up for sale. Also, we have title belts that have been ring-used. My world heavyweight championship is is for sale, as well as the WFS Championship, the WFS Evolution Championship belt, the Southern Championship belt. We have some really cool belts there. Also, we have the last, very rare, I can't stress this rare, rare, rare, rare, rare Smoky Mountain baseball jacket. It is from Smoky Mountain Wrestling from back in the 90s. It's black with white lettering. It is the last one that's in captivity that is known. You're not going to find it anywhere else. And the office is the one that was that got that. That's like Cornet, myself, Sandy Scott, Brian Hildebrandt, and Tim Horner. We were the only ones that got the black ones. And like I said, this is the last one, and it is available there, as well as a Jimmy Valiant Tribute jacket that I wore to the ring for many years. Jimmy in the 70s had a black jacket trimmed in silver that said born on the back. Mine is silver, trimmed in black, with a star is born. It is up for sale. These are all one of a kind used ring used items. You're not going to find these anywhere else. But the the wrestling buddies, the slam buddies, there's a few of those that left. When those are gone, those are gone because we're working on some new merchandise coming up. We won't be selling the slam buddies anymore. So if you want to get your slam buddy, now is the time to do it. Of course, there's plenty. And those are up for sale. And of course, I mentioned the congregation is a fictional novel that I wrote about the end times. It's been called the end times Star Wars type deal. It has vampires, it has robots, it has very sci-fi themes, monsters, and it tells a very good story. It has done very well over the years. We have a few of those left in stock. If you're interested and you like to read, it is I've been told that it's a very good read. But thank you guys for tuning in.
Listener Questions And Sign Off
SPEAKER_00Also, be sure to check out The Ride Home with Dallas Danger. You can get it anywhere you listen to your podcasts. And also it is right there on the YouTube channel. And QA format. And if you have a question, either put it in the comments, or if you listen on a podcast platform such as Apple or iHeartRadio or Amazon or any place like that, there is a direct message button that says send me a message right in the description. If you have a question, comment, or whatever, just send us a message or go to IamYourChampion.com and you can contact us there. We will read your comment on air, guaranteed. Whether you you if it's a question or you don't like something, good, bad, indifferent, we will read it, definitely. Very stoked with the the reception we've got. People commented a lot on the YouTube channel about the documentaries and about Dirty White Boy. And don't forget those are on there. And all kinds of videos. There's a couple hundred videos on there. But I'm gonna leave you this week. This has been Making the Towns with Brian Logan, episode nine. We as always we are on Pirate Flag Radio on the Radio King app. This has been produced by Three Crows Entertainment in Morristown, Tennessee. And remember, I am your champion. I am your champion. Oh man, that's classic. I love it.
