The Night A Dollar Bill Hit A Dancer

A local pollen strain in the Smoky Mountains can derail your whole week, and somehow that is still not the strangest part of my day. I’m Brian Logan, and this chapter of Making the Towns moves fast: a quick life update, a big wrestling booking announcement, and then a deep dive into the kind of behind-the-curtain territory history fans rarely get explained clearly. 

I talk about going full time with Wildfire Championship Wrestling in Hi Hat, Kentucky, why certain towns become “home,” and what it feels like to rebuild momentum after stepping away. Then I share a major content move: World Fighting Showcase TV episodes are now up on YouTube in order, totally free. No paywalls, no streaming gimmicks, just an archive for wrestling fans who love match history, indie wrestling footage, and the stories that connect it all. I also shout out our sister podcast The Ride Home with Dallas Danger, plus a bonus WFS intro to give new listeners the background. 

The listener mail segment turns into a mini masterclass on old-school regional wrestling: how WAY Wrestling in Oak Hill could run a strong TV show and occasional house shows without operating like a full territory, what a “territory” really means, and why TV power can carry a whole region. After that, we hit my 1997 wrestling journal with money, miles, opponents, and road stories, including a parking lot show where broken glass changes the match, the reality of hometown support, and a “family” angle I still regret trying. 

If you like wrestling territories, independent wrestling stories, and honest lessons from the road, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more fans can find the show.

Transcript

Late Release And Smoky Mountain Pollen

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. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Making the Towns with Brian Logan. I am your host, Brian Logan. This is episode 10, and I just want to welcome everybody back. We got we're a little late this week as I'm recording this. This is Monday morning, and I had a great week. I hope you did as well, but uh my sinuses started bothering me really bad. And I don't know if you guys know this or not, but uh Dandridge, Tennessee has a in the Smoky Mountains, has a strain of pollen that is nowhere else in the world except for Dandridge and the Gatlinburg Smoky Mountain area. And it gets me every single year. And uh so I was up there with the puppies, and we have a canopy over the area in case it rains over the runs where the puppies play. And uh the wind would blow and you could just see this pollen coming down just raining on me, and it really got to me, and my sinuses were all messed up, and I was talking funny. I think I sounded a little bit better today. I think you might be able to tell just a teeny bit. But that that delayed me for a couple of days, and I just wanted to let everybody know what happened. We're still on Fridays, but I got thrown off a little bit this week.

Dovey Energy Drinks Sponsor Read

SPEAKER_00 2:00

But uh anyway, today's episode is brought to you by Dovey Energy Drinks. As always, Dovey Energy Drinks has all kinds of good flavors. Flavors like cherry lima, retro, rainbow sherbet, sour gummy bear, sweet and sour blue rash, Japanese juzu, Japanese soda, s'mores, push and punch, and beach and peach, many, many more. Zero sugar, no artificial colors or flavors, no secret formulas, no hidden ingredients, gluten-free. But it does promote good, clean, smooth energy, sharper mental focus, and like I said, unique flavors, no added sugar. And this is built for anyone. It has about 150 milligrams of caffeine per serving. It is shipped worldwide, made in the USA. All you do is take a little bit, put it in your shaker cup, put add a little water, shake it up, and uh you're good to go. I have been living on these things for the past few weeks, not just because they're sponsoring the show, but because they're actually a really great product, and it really helps me. You've heard me in past episodes talk about how the I get tired after lunch. We we have a two-hour lunch because the puppies have to get fed, and then they take a little nap after they get fed because they've been playing all morning before they come out and play in the afternoon. And so I come home and have lunch and relax a little bit, sometimes take a little 30-minute nap. And by the time I get back up and ready to go back for second shift, I'm just exhausted on the day because we have to get up so early. And uh W has just really, really helped out. So if you get a chance, go to W.gg. Use promo code your champion at checkout and get you 10% off and uh try one of these flavors. They got shaker cups, they've got merchandise there, all kinds of stuff there, but W.gg your champion at the to use promo code at the end at the checkout to get 10% off. So got that going on. This

Wildfire Wrestling Full-Time Return

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Saturday I will be in Hi-Hat, Kentucky for Wildfire Championship Wrestling. And let me look it up here and get you the exact place that we're gonna be. I should have had this preloaded, but my phone is not working out. We are in hi-hat, and while I'm looking this up, I have been in negotiations and talks with Wildfire Championship Wrestling for a couple weeks now since I made my comeback and got back in the wrestling business. Well, we have come to an agreement that I will be working there full time now. So I'm I am full rostered up with uh Wildfire Championship Wrestling again in High Hat, Kentucky, this Saturday, the 16th, at the South Floyd Elementary School. Doors open at 6 p.m. Bell time, 7 p.m. for some great Matt Action. So that's where I will be this weekend. So if you get a chance, come on out. Eastern Kentucky fans are always some of the best. I've been going there for 30 plus years. And, you know, it's it's a good little area, and I really enjoy being there and glad that I'm gonna be part of the roster and make that one of my new homes, along with a couple of other promotions that we'll be talking about in the in the weeks. But this Saturday night, Hi-Hat, Kentucky Wildfire Championship Wrestling. Alright,

WFS Episodes Go Free On YouTube

SPEAKER_00 5:55

if you guys have been following the podcast, then you know about the YouTube channel. Well, we we hustled this week and we told you we were gonna bring out the world fighting showcase television episodes, and we did. We've got them all up there on the YouTube channel in order. There's a playlist there, and you can check them out and watch them in order and see all your favorite WFS stars totally free. We are not we're done with paywalls, we are not doing streaming channels anymore. We're we're just celebrating stuff that I've done in my career. We're not trying to monetize the YouTube, we're just putting them up there for everybody to take a look at. If you haven't subscribed, go over to the YouTube and subscribe. It is I Am Your Champion Exclamation Point. And sign up there, subscribe, hit that notification if you want to know when we release and so much. But I understand that you might not want the notification bells because we put up a lot of videos, and you know, nobody likes a bunch of bells going off on their phone all the time. But if you will give us a subscribe, it probably means nothing to you, but it means the world to me and us over here at Three Crows. We are trying to get as many subscribers as possible so that on some of these shows I can go live to YouTube and uh and do some interviews and show some match clips and stuff, and we gotta have a certain amount of subscribers to do that. So if you have not subscribed, go on over to YouTube.com. I am your champion, exclamation point, and subscribe today. I don't know if you guys realize or not, I most of you do, that we have a sister podcast. It's called The Ride Home, Me and Dallas Danger. The premise of this show is that making the towns, it's like we're in the car and we're we're going to a wrestling event, and I talk about my career, and we on the way there, and then on the ride home, just like a wrestling show that you go to, you and your buddy, you sit there and you talk about the night, you talk about what happened, you talk about other things, and you kind of rebook the territory. So in a QA format, the ride home, Dallas Danger asks me questions based on that week's podcast. We also read viewer emails and stuff like that and everything. So it's really, really cool if you get a chance to check it out. But the reason I'm bringing that up this time is that this week with WFS going up on the YouTube, we're gonna do a special bonus intro, WFS intro episode, just to get your feet wet. Some of you guys might not know what the world fighting showcase was or was about, how it came to exist and everything like that. And we're gonna do just a brief bonus episode. We're not gonna go too far in depth because we're gonna do that when we get to it in the journals. But we're gonna give you like an intro and give you a bonus episode to familiarize yourself with WFS and check that out. That will be we're actually gonna record that tonight, so that will be available tonight. So you're kind of getting you're getting a lot of content today on this Monday. You're gonna get episode 10 of Making the Towns, you're gonna get episode 10 of The Ride Home, and a bonus episode, WFS intro, and uh a little therapy session, as Dallas likes to call it, about the uh world fighting showcase. As you

WAY Wrestling And Life Without Territory

SPEAKER_00 9:44

know, from time to time we we read comments or emails or things like that. A good friend of the show, Noah, wrote this. So I've heard you talk a lot about the station in O'Kill that ran wrestling up until 1978. On one of the podcasts, you said there weren't they weren't a territory, but they sometimes did house shows. How did that work without a full territory? Did they just book guys from Mid-Atlantic and run house shows and tapings on the off days, or was it completely separate crew? Well, that is a great question, Noah. Thank you again for being a friend of the show. Thank you for being an avid listener. Thank you for your service, and this is a great question. So I talk a lot about WAY Wrestling. It was American International Wrestling, AIW, and they had a TV show. And coming out of the 60s in West Virginia, you had one channel, and on that channel on Saturday nights during prime time, 7, 8, 9 o'clock, around in that area. I'm not real sure. I th I think they started at 7 and they went two hours, but I might be wrong. I'm sure there's other people gonna go, oh, that's completely wrong. You got your times wrong. But heck, we're talking this is 40-some years ago, so or more, actually, it's 50-some years ago. So you if you watch TV at that time, you had to watch Saturday Night Wrestling. And a lot of the people in West Virginia, I'd say 99% of it, don't even know the name of the promotion. It was just WAY Saturday Night Wrestling. And it took place at the TV station in WAY in Oak Hill, West Virginia. And like I said, if you had a TV and you wanted to watch it, that's what you that's what you watched. And the way they did it was and this is the late 60s and they went up to the late 70s when cable was starting to come out and everything, they kind of stopped doing this. There were more channels to watch, and then what actually happened was the the station burnt down, the TV station, and when they rebuilt it, they didn't build the room that the ring was housed in. So they didn't have room, so the show didn't get cancelled, it was very popular. They just stopped running because they didn't have a place to put the ring. Now what they did was is they did these TV shows and they did house shows. But they weren't like say a Memphis where Memphis ran Monday through Friday. They would run them sporadically. I don't have the exact days that they ran. I'm sure they ran weekends, maybe some during the week. But it wasn't an everyday, every week affair for for 10 years. They would run it here and there and sporadically. So a territory is mostly based on your spot towns that you run on a regular basis, whether that be monthly or weekly. Most places it was weekly in the early days, going from the 50s all the way up to the 80s. Somewhere in the 80s, they started to do there were so many towns in the 80s, they started doing monthlies where they would do it and come back. Now, like I said, Memphis ran, you know, Mid-South Coliseum Monday, Louisville Tuesday, and Evansville Wednesday, and then somewhere in Mississippi on Thursday and Friday. And they they did that right up until the end. So they did that for decades like that, running weekly, running the same towns. And so they did not run WAY, being they did not run house shows as often as some of the other territories, but they ran that TV show, and that TV show was so strong and so powerful that everybody up there remembers it. If you were over the age of, say, 60, uh, I know that's you know, oh, that's all the old people. Well, we're talking about some older stuff here. You remember WAY Wrestling being a part of your life. That was one of the reasons when we started the territories in West Virginia, which we talked about in episode nine, was that it was based on these great TV shows. This the this strong powerhouse of a show that was there. And I want to say that after that went off, they started running WOI still had wrestling, but it wasn't in that time slot. They ran the Popo's ICW reruns, and that's getting into the early 80s and mid-80s and Hulkamania and all that. They would run the reruns of ICW after ICW shut down. They they got a hold of those tapes and and ran them. And so, Noah, I hope that answers your question. I hope I wasn't too vague. I also hope I wasn't all over the place. But yeah, WAY was some great stuff. A lot of just legendary matches happened up there. We'll talk about that in the future. But a lot of good stuff. So

1997 Journal Run Starts Rolling

SPEAKER_00 15:06

all right, without further ado, I have spent 30 plus years in professional wrestling and entertainment, and during those 30 years, I kept a journal of matches with money, miles, finishes, opponents. And we take a look at it every week here on the podcast. We go through the journals match by match, bump by bump, payday by payday, and we discuss it. So without further ado, we ended up, we we finished up on 6697. So we're gonna start on 6'7 in Way Cross, Georgia. I wrestled David Young to a DQ. Also that night, me and David Young as a tag team wrestled Ted Allen and Festus, who was a local hillbilly gimmick. They put on hoods so they could do the job on TV. And we lost, so that's funny that they could do the job on TV, but they were under hoods, and we had to put them over. And I made $45. And it was a good, like I said in the previous episodes, anytime I can work with David Young, he just makes me laugh. Also, my buddy Ted Allen. And Thestus was a good character and a good dude, and was over in that area down there in Georgia, very popular. So we had a good little little taping there. A week later, on 6147, in Butcher, North Carolina, I wrestled Blanchard again in the street fight and made $25. We came back and did the street fight in a different town. I said Butcher, North Carolina, I meant Butner, North Carolina. My R's and my N's are hard to read. Sometimes it's hard to read my own writing after all these years. But uh the we talked about the street fight in a couple episodes ago, and I ended up we ended up taking it to another town. He liked doing it, and and it was good. And you know, I always liked working those uh gimmick matches. On 620 97, we are in Falls Branch, Tennessee. I wrestled as myself against bad boy Eddie Edmonds, and I won. Also that night I wrestled versus Bo and lost and made $25. We were talking about Troy Strimmel and me doing a territory, trying to get a territory started in West Virginia. And he was just starting out wrestling, so immediately I wanted to bring him into Southern States. And uh he worked up there a couple of times. Scheduling didn't really work out at the beginning, mostly because his wife was causing problems, didn't want him to be on the road. But he in this night came down there and got to experience Falls Branch, and we had a good little match, and then me wrestling bow later that night, continuing the feud and uh going on. So we had a good little good little deal there in Falls Branch that was starting to pick up and draw a little bit more, and business was doing well in '97 there in Paul's branch, Tennessee. On 628-97, I'm in Oxford, Alabama, wrestled as myself versus the Wildcat, and made 50 bucks. Also had a Pole Battle Royal where you climb the pole and you get the check. And I have no idea who the Wildcat was. That's another one of those uh local gimmicks that was ambiguous of who they were and what they were, and I don't even know if he wore a mask or if it was some guy called the Wildcat, but another one of those in and out. So 7-4-97. I was back in Falls Branch, Tennessee, and I wrestled Mark Curtis, and I won. And that was really cool to work. My tag team partner and good friend Brian Hildebrand, Mark Curtis, WCW referee, Smokey Mountain referee. And if you remember, we had formed a tag team and was fighting Bo James and War Machine, also Death and Destruction. Well, the TV show, or not the TV show, the house shows, we had had a fallen apart, and now we were wrestling each other, and I won that match. Also that night, I wrestled, it says King here versus Ricky Morton and Christian. I'm assuming it's Danny Christian, and then I had a run-in in the cage match, which was Death and Destruction and Bo James and War Machine, and I made $25 for both of those matches total. And so again, wrestling Ricky Morton with a random opponent, Danny Christian. What we had talked about him once before Danny was just a mainstay there at Paul's branch, one of the tag team guys. His brother probably wasn't there that week, obviously. So they stuck in Ricky Morton. On 712, 97, I was in Columbus, Ohio, and I wrestled as myself versus Johnny Thunder and lost. Also, that night I wrestled with tagging with Bobby Blaze versus Bobby Fulton and Johnny Thunder and made $75.

Parking Lot Show And Strip Club Story

SPEAKER_00 20:48

Now let me tell you a little bit about Johnny Thunder. Johnny Thunder was a good kid from West Virginia, and he had came up with somebody to Columbus, Ohio. This was a street festival type deal, and we were in the parking lot of a liquor store, and the people came out for the festival, and then they ended up standing around the ring. No chairs, just stood around the ring, and we had the matches. At one point, because of the liquor store, they were drinking beer and they started throwing their bottles, and glass was getting busted everywhere. Well, Johnny ends up getting a piece of glass hung in his boot, just a small piece, didn't even know it, and he dropkicks me, and it ends up cutting my lip wide open. So I got color the hard way from that, and I thought I was gonna have to get a tetanus shot, but I had luckily when I went to get the tetanus shot, I had already had one within the time period. So I I didn't have to get another tetanus shot, didn't have to have any stitches or anything. But we took this young kid, and he had to be like 18. Or 19 years old. And we went to a strip club. And he had never seen anything like that at all. So we're sitting there at the stage of Perverts Row. I have no other way to describe it. And he's watching the dancer, and he wants to tip her. And we're we're making fun of him and his reactions to seeing these type of things, possibly maybe live for the first time in his life. And he gets so excited and he takes a $1 bill and wads it up. And instead of sliding it into her garter or her G string, he throws it at her and hits her right in the face with a dollar bill. And she got hot. And I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. He doesn't know. He's never been to a club before. You know, got him some slack. And she was cool about it. And she found out that he had never been to a club before, and that he was just this young, naive kid, and she ended up hanging out with him the rest of the evening and dancing for him. And we got the biggest kick to his reactions with the the dancers on stage and at the table. So a good time was had by all, and he every time we'd see him after that, we'd bring it up and laugh. Just one of those road stories that just a good time on the road to break up the monopony. The monotony. Monopony. Well, I tell you, I can't even speak right this morning. Anyway, on 7187, we were back in Falls Branch, Tennessee. I wrestled Danny Christian and Loss, made $25. And that was just, you know, in and out. Had a good little match. Nothing spectacular happened there. Entertained the crowd. Put him over, and we moved on. On 7, 1997, for the Atlantic Coast Championship Wrestling in Nutter Fork, West Virginia. I wrestled Danny Cooley and lost and made 50 ma 50 bucks for the match. And that was a good little good little deal there. I think ACCW, even though that name was used later in another promotion, I'm pretty sure this is Danny and Denny's promotion in Virginia that ran West Virginia. On 72697, I'm in Salisbury, North Carolina for a fair. Kendo the Samurai versus the Patriot, which was Jackie Fulton, and I lost. And then Kendo and Bo James versus the Patriot, which was Jackie, and Ricky Morton, and we lost that match putting the baby faces over and made 50 bucks. So I made 50 bucks for the whole fair shot. And this was a Bobby Fulton show. So you know Bobby gave us a lot of work. He he was cheap. He didn't pay us a lot. I know one time he gave us a $10 bonus to feed four people and said, here, go to uh Burger King and get you guys something to eat. And but we were happy to get it then. That was the thing. We were just so happy to have the ringtime, and you know, we got ten extra bucks. We were just, you know, some people would say, Well, you're green, you didn't know anybody. We were, but we were happily green. We were happily working hard, and ten bucks was was an acknowledgement of, you know, you did a good job that night. Here, let me try to feed you. So I remember his wife at the time, Donna, got on to him and was like, they you can't feed four people for with ten bucks. He's like, Oh, they can, the super value menu. So anyway, that that that's the way Bobby Fulton was and still is, you know, that family. But I do love Bobby, and you know, it is what you get. It is what it is, you get what you get with with Bobby. On 8297, I was in Wythville, Virginia, and I wrestled as myself versus Danny Christian again, and I won and made 40 bucks. You can tell that I'm starting to take these matches around. This was probably a Bo James show. Doesn't denote who it is, but Danny usually only worked for Bo or some of the other little Kingsport area guys, so I'm assuming this was a Bo James show. On 6897 in Urbana, Ohio, Kendo the Samurai wrestled Ricky Morton and I lost and I made $75. So starting to make a little better payday. On $87.97, we come into Oak Hill, West Virginia, Mid-South Wrestling Association. I

Wrestling Oak Hill And Hometown Reality

SPEAKER_00 27:13

wrestled as myself versus Eddie Edmonds, and I won and made $75. This was the first time that I had wrestled in Oak Hill, and this match is on the YouTube. So if you go down and you look for me versus Eddie Edmonds, there is a match there where I'm in green trunks, and it was a good little contest. Very, very, you know, we it was good, it was solid, and it was a good showing for Oakill. We had a good crowd that night, but I was so excited to wrestle in the armory in Oakill. Of course, what I have found out, you know, it says and has been said that a prophet will not be acknowledged in his own hometown. That's from the Bible. And it was hard to get over in Oak Hill because people saw me as just the guy. You know, strangers recognized that I was a wrestler and they marked out for me and they appreciated and they supported me. But the people that I knew as my friends, they were they weren't hip on really going to the show. And they weren't, you know, I would say most of the people I know in Oak Hill watched me at least once. But as far as coming every event and me gathering a following in Oakill, it was mostly the people that I didn't know. And I got a lot of fans in Oak Hill, and I love and appreciate all of them that supported me over the years. And I love and appreciate all my friends that didn't come. You know, that's fine too. They were still friends, and we got to see them and hung out, but it was hard getting people that I would say hang I'd hang out with on, you know, on a night off to come to the wrestling event for whatever reason. I don't know what why that was, but it was hard, you know, sure I'll come, I'll come and watch you, no problem. And then they just wouldn't show up. No, that wasn't everybody, you know, Sean Huddleston was there, my buddy Sean. A lot of a lot of other people came to watch that we know, and they did support. So I'm not saying that it was everybody, but there were people there that came, and it was it was what it was, I guess. It's just hard, and I had to get over that. That was something that I had to get over was, you know, we drew well, but we would have drawn twice as well had everybody came out, and they just they didn't come out and support me over the years. They would rather hang out and drink beer in the bar with me than actually watch me wrestle. So on two, on eight nine ninety-seven, it looked like a two, but it's an eight. 8997 in Pauls Branch, Tennessee, the Living Legends make their debut in Balls Branch, Tennessee. Bo and myself versus the Christian Brothers in a first blood elimination match. And I got color and made $25 and we won. Now first blood elimination match is you are the team is eliminated when the when you the you make them bleed. So the first ones to bleed was out. So we won that match, so we we made the Christian brothers bleed, but we all ended up bleeding the entire match. So that was good. That uh it was one of those deals where you had the match, you tried to to work getting busting the other guy open. Then it turns into just this melee, and you know, melees at Falls Branch could go on for 20 minutes. So that's why I say we wrestled the whole match, all of us bleeding. On 81697, I was in Newport, Tennessee at a fair. Myself and Mark Kyle, killer Kyle versus Tim Horner, and a local cop, somebody who wasn't trained, was in there. Tim had done a deal and got him to be a tag team, and we lost, and I made a hundred bucks, and I'm pretty sure the local cop probably pinned me looking at everybody in this match. I'm sure that I was asked to do the job for the local yokel. I remember this guy did pretty well considering it was one of those deals that I would get used to over the years. We've talked about this on the ride home, that just stand them in the middle and work a match around them and just do what I can do and try to get them to do as little as possible and make it look good and try to teach them something in the process. On 82897, in Elizabeth, Tennessee, Elizabethan, Tennessee, my buddy Bubba had a tag team tournament. And me and Bubba were in the tag team tournament, and we wrestled Mike Sampson and Mark Youngblood, and we won that round. And then we wrestled Eddie and Jimmy Golden, and we won, and I made 40 bucks, and we ended up winning the tag team tournament, and I love Bubba. I think he listens every week. One of my favorite people, he was in Worker, the movie. I don't get to see him very often, but a shout out to Bubba. Hang in there, man. I hope everything's going great. I love your brother. But me and Bubba were really close over the years, and I used him a lot in West Virginia, and we were just on a lot of shows together here in East Tennessee. And anytime he ran a show, he he put me on it, and I was very appreciative. On 9197 in Falls Branch, Tennessee, the Living Legends, Bo James and Brian Logan, versus King and Rico. And we won and made $25. Now, this is not Rico Constantino. This is the King from before. Two guys, I'm not real sure who they these were. It's not really denoted here. But we we had a match with them. And it was one of those, you know, trying to get the Living Legends over, and Bo brought in a team or made a random team out of the guys. And it was what it was. And it was there for get us get the Living Legends established more. On 9497, I was in Charleston, West Virginia at MSWA myself versus Bo. There was a disqualific double disqualification, and I made 50 bucks. This was an Eddie Edmonds show. And there was the first time we were in Charleston. A little bit bigger market in Charleston. I don't think we were ready for that market yet. But we we went in there and the show did very well. And we would come back to Charleston. Actually, I it was probably South Charleston at the community center. We ran that a lot. And I would always just denote that as Charleston. We would run that. That would be one of our mainstay towns over the years. But wrestled bow again, you know, tagging with him one night, and then you go, you know, four and a half hours north, and we're going against each other four nights later. On 10-497, I was in Oxford, Alabama. Brian Logan versus Psycho, and I won and made $50. Now, again, it's during that time period where I would wrestle, guys. I don't know anything about Psycho. And there's a lot of names in this journal. And I'm sorry that I don't have more info, but it's just being so long ago. We just denoted the matches and it was in one and done. On 101197, I was in Augusta, Georgia, and I wrestled with a guy here in Curtis Thompson and a local coach versus the Justice World Order. And I won and made $75. And I don't know who the Justice World Order is. And the coach was one of the deals from the school. But this time he was on my team. He was a babyface, and I was a babyface. And that went very well. On 10 1797, I'm in Atlanta, Georgia, and I wrestled Billy Black and I lost and made $75. And Billy Black was one of those journeyman guys from Georgia. Came into Smokey Mountain and I wrestled him. A little foreshadowing, I wrestled him in a WWF ring. That match is on the YouTube down near the beginning. It was one of the first matches we put up, put up the highlights of it. Billy Black did not wrestle very much. There's that famous story that he's from South Georgia or from Georgia, came up to Kentucky in the winter for Smoky Mountain, and it was freezing cold and it was a blizzard. And he was like, it's too cold. I'm not making these towns. I quit. And he only wrestled a few more matches after that in the States. He was mostly a Japanese wrestler. He mostly went over to Japan and wrestled over there. Of course, by the time I started wrestling, which will be a little later on in the journal, he had finished up in Japan and was trying to get on with the WWF, and we had to try out, and it did not go so well.

The Awkward Family Promo I Regret

SPEAKER_00 37:18

On 102597, we was in Fall Branch, Tennessee, and I did a run-in. And my mom and dad were at Ringside, and we did a promo, Family Obligations promo, $25 is what I made for the night. And it was one of the pieces of business that I regretted doing. First of all, it was a long run-in. I did it from Bo's mom's house. They didn't want me at the building, so they called me to come in to come up there. My parents had to sit in the crowd and watch the wrestling event without me being there. They didn't know when I was coming in, they didn't know what was going on. But I finally make this run-in, and there's a bunch of guys at Rigside. There's like ten guys. And my dad got caught up in the the the whole show and tosses me a roll of pennies. Cause he thought I was gonna have to fight ten guys and they were gonna do something to me for some reason. And when I caught it, I caught it weird because I wasn't expecting him to throw it to me, and it crushed the roll of pennies, and pennies went everywhere in the ring. And I'm surprised it didn't start a battle royal because an extra payday for these guys. I'm surprised they didn't start fighting over the the pennies. But after the match, had mom and dad brought over, and we started talking about my my relationship with the family, my dad's illness at the time. And it was very uncomfortable, it was very poor written, it was very poor executed on my part. It was a weird piece of business, it just didn't fit, and I completely regret doing it, and we never did anything like that ever again. I never got my parents involved. We were trying to do something like the Hart family, and it just didn't translate, and it was very awkward, and like I said, I just totally regretted doing it. So

The 1-800 Collect Army Base Tour

SPEAKER_00 39:23

on 111597, I'm in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and this started a tour that would become infamous. It was 1-800 Collect sponsored a guy's promoter named Thomas Reeder, and he was going to go to all the army bases, and we were booked on the army bases that were on the East Coast. Now he had in the central United States and the West Coast, he had two different crews underneath to work the show, but he had the stars, he had the Nasty Boys, Jake Roberts, Greg Valentine, Brutus Beefcake, the Bushwhackers, just a lot of these ex WWF names were on the show, and it was called the 1-800 Collect Tour. And if you remember the commercial, the 1-800 Collect wrestling commercials, the older ones, they came about out of this tour. But I wrestled Bo James and Fort Bragg that night, and I won and made a hundred bucks, put the baby face over, and we stayed at Fort Bragg, and I loved this tour. It was so much fun. The pay was good. We stayed on base, and we were able to hit the town in these military towns, and every military town has a strip where they have bars and strip clubs and you know restaurants, and it was just really fun to get to go out. And this is where James McCone, the referee, my buddy James McCone, you know macho man. We ended up going into what was a massage parlor. We didn't know it was a massage parlor at the time. We just went in to have a drink. We thought it was a bar bar. But these Asian women come up and they come up to Casey Thunder, who is a guy that wrestled for Bo. Looked a lot like Austin Idle. I just saw him in Kingsport, Tennessee. Still looks the same, doing great, great guy. But they end up talking to him, and then they ended up talking to a couple of the other boys, and the the Asian lady comes up to me, and I'm dressed wearing Zubas and a workout shirt, big blonde hair, and you know, the way you did back in the 90s. And she looks at me and she goes, You know macho man? And James McCone started dying laughing, and ever since then, that's our saying to each other, me and James, you know macho man. So it did anyway. I had my two beers and I left and we went on. We were in Jacksonville, North Carolina, and it looks like there's no date on this, so it it was probably the same day. It was probably 1115 ninety-seven. We probably did two bases that day. It was probably the next day. It was probably the 16th. So we probably did Fort Bragg and then we did Jacksonville, North Carolina. 1-800 collect. I wrestled Bo James one made $100. Then on $1128.97, we are back in Falls Branch, Tennessee.

Late 1997 Tags, Gimmicks, And Cheap Promoters

SPEAKER_00 42:51

A three-way dance again. The Living Legends versus Death and Destruction versus Vic the Bruiser and his tag team partner. And we won, me and me and Bo. And we made $25. And Bo loved those three-way dances, or at least Mark Curtis did. And we wrestled several of the three-way dances as a tag. And I always loved work in Death and Destruction. And Vic the Bruiser is a good guy and a great wrestler. And whoever his partner was, somebody that Vic probably brought with him. And your typical night in Kingsport, Tennessee. On 1129.97, we're in Forsythe, Georgia. And I start teaming with Ken Timms versus Billy Black and Dion Johnson. And we lost and I made $35. Now Ken Tims was around forever doing jobs on TV. He was a huge star, El Blondie, in Mexico. He was the world heavyweight champion in the 80s in Mexico. The fabulous blondie. And his wife, Juanita, made my tights. She made the Brian Logan tights with the triangles and the upside down stars. I got a great price on those. And she made a ton of tights. And we ended up teaming together again with Billy Black and Dion Johnson. Dion was just in the match with Jimmy Valiant. Jimmy Valiant just had his last match, supposedly his last match. But at 83, it probably will be. And Dion was his tag partner. So Dion's been around forever. Dion was a great guy. And I loved him. I love him very much. And I still talk to him on Facebook. But that night we had a good little match. And we we ended up putting him over. And like I said, I made $35. On $1257, I'm in Ramage, West Virginia. And I wrestled Scotty Blaze. And he was billed as the MSWA champ. And he used that gimmick. Now he did not win that belt. He was appointed that belt. Now this is a Scotty Blaze that was from West Virginia, northern half. A blonde kid muscled up. I won that match by DQ and made 60 bucks. Scotty Blaze was the one of the cheap. There were three guys that are super, super cheap. And he was one of the cheapest guys. He would go into convenience stores when we were on the road, and he would ask for the stale donuts so that he could pay under a dollar for the donuts so he could eat. Just super, super cheap. And he had money, he had a good little job. I can't remember what it is, but he had a good day job. And he got paid okay on top in wrestling. I mean he just started out, but he he was doing okay because we were we were all doing okay. And he he was just super cheap, super green. I don't think me and him got along very well. I think we had a clash of ideology, and I didn't have as much patience as I should normally do or should have had with him. He was kind of a goof. Kind of a goofball. He would he would wrestle for a little bit and then he would quit, and then he'd come back, and they'd give him a top spot again based on his body, and I was the one that had to deal with him. So but that night in MSWA, he was the champ, and I was trying to win the title. We are back in Oak Hill, West Virginia on 121197 at the Neon Moon Bar, which was a new bar that used to be the Super X building. And I wrestled Scottie Blaze again for the MSWA title and won by DQ, made 50 bucks. So it was just taking that and to a different town. Of course, this time in O'Keill, we weren't at the armory, we were at the Neon Moon Bar, and that was a good little show, a fun little show, and just just very laid back, had a good time. The wrestling was very good, and it's a shame that that bar didn't last very long. I think we ended up wrestling there a couple times. But they went out of business before we could get anything really seriously going. But on that day it was it was very good. On 12, 1997, back in Falls Branch, Tennessee, the Living Legends, Brian Logan and Bo James versus Death and Destruction in a tag team Texas deat match. I ended up bleeding that match and we won and made $25. So that was that was a special stipulation gimmick match. You don't see a lot of tag team Texas deat matches. Even though back in the 60s you would see that. And it was a lot of fun to do something different with it being in the tag and having all those falls and everything. So

Wrap Up, Where To Follow, And Merch

SPEAKER_00 48:32

we're going to stop right there, and we will end for 1998 for next year. And we'll or the next episode we will go over the next year in 1998. Let's again talk about W for a little bit. Dubby sponsoring the show this week, as usual. And W energy drinks, zero sugar, are no artificial colors and flavors, no secret formulas, no hidden ingredients, gluten-free, equals out to about a dollar a drink compared to other drinks made in the USA. It promotes clear, smooth energy, sharper mental focus, no sugar added, as I said before, unique flavors like cherry lime or retro, rainbow sherbet, sour gummy bear, sweet and sour, blue ras, Japanese yuzu, Japanese soda, s'mores, lunar strawberry margarita, push and punch, beach and peach, and many more. Comes ready to mix anywhere, anytime for anybody. You just take a scoop, put it in your shaker glass, and add water, shake it up. They will ship worldwide and is made in the USA. Also, if you get a chance, please follow us on social media. Making the towns on Facebook. Follow us there. Also, myself, Brian Logan, you can follow me on Facebook. Brian Logan Making the Towns on Instagram, you can find me there. I am your champion exclamation point on YouTube. Just subscribe and hit the bell. And again, if you don't want to hit the notifications, I understand. But if you would please go in there and subscribe. It means to the world to me. And we're trying to get enough subscribers of where we can go live. Again, we are done with paywalls. We are not doing streaming channels anymore. We are trying to just put this stuff out there and celebrate the matches I've had and the companies that I have owned and the from the matches that I have promoted. So please subscribe. I would greatly appreciate it. I am your champion on TikTok. Three Crows Entertainment at LoganYourChamp on X, but all social links are on IamYourChampion.com. And just go there, it's on the home page. All you have to do is scroll down, and there is a button for everything for Facebook, X, YouTube, whatever one you want, or all of them, just click on that button. It takes you right to the subscribe page. And you just click the buttons appropriately. That way you don't have to remember all the handles. We've made it easy. And uh IamYourChampion.com is the one-stop shop for all things, Brian Logan. If you get a chance, go over and go to the shop. It doesn't cost anything to look. If you don't want to buy anything, I understand, but go over there and check it out. We got $10 t-shirts. Everybody loves a $10 t-shirt. We got some nice long sleeve shirts. I know summer's coming up, but you can get ready for next winter early with a $10 shirt while supplies last with the I Am Your Champion smoking skull logo. And also the congregation is available on there. A fiction novel that I wrote about the end days that has monsters and vampires and drugs and robots and all kinds of different things in it. I've been told that it's a good read. I feel it's the best thing that I've ever written over all genres of everything that I've written. And if you get a chance, uh pick one of those up and uh take a good read. I'd really appreciate it. Also, the slam buddies are still there, still available. While supplies last, we won't be ordering any more supply slam buddies after this because we've got some new merchandise coming in that we're all I know I've been saying that for weeks, but we're almost there, and we're almost ready for the new merchandise, and I'm so excited. We're a few weeks away from this new merchandise, and I cannot wait. But uh the slam buddies are the little plushies of myself, and they're great for kids, they are great to snuggle up with to sleep with. Ashley sleeps with one, they're great for back pillows. I keep one right here in the office for my back, and they're excellent for that. And doggies love them. Rex has one that he plays with all the time, and they just love them, but they're there and available while supplies last. There are plenty left, but they are you if you want to get one, you need to go ahead and get one because we will not be ordering any more. Also, we have a lot of ring used memorabilia. The tights, the butcher top tights and the boots that I wore as Damien on SmackDown and OVW and all these matches against John Cena and Randy Orton with Batista and Ron Waterman and Red Dog Ronnie Mack. They are available there. We are selling those, and you get a bunch of bonus stuff with that when you order that. But also we have championship belts, we've got the WFS belt, is available, the Evolution belt is available, the Southern Heavyweight Title Belt, and the World Heavyweight Championship that I wore when I was AWA World Heavyweight Champion is available there. Also, the smoking, the last, very rare, very rare, rare, rare, rare, rare. The last Smoky Mountain wrestling baseball jacket in captivity. And it is available there to purchase. This is the last one, folks. When it's gone, it is gone. The office got the colors of black and white. That's what this is. And the office, I say Sandy Scott, Jim Cornette, myself, and Tim Horner. Mostly everybody got red ones. There were a couple white ones, but the office got these jackets, black and white, and it's available there. It's black baseball jacket with the white Smoky Mountain logo, the last one. And if you want if you're interested in that, now's the time to get it because that will go. Also, I have a ring jacket that I wore. It says A Star Is Born. It is the tribute Jimmy Valiant. Jimmy Valiant in the 70s had a black jacket that was trimmed in silver that says a star is born on the back. And this jacket is silver with trimmed in black, the opposite colors that I wore on many, many shows, a lot of these fall branch shows all over the United States. And it is available for sale. So if you get an opportunity, go over there and take a look at them. If you don't want to purchase anything, I understand, but stop in there and grab you something if you want. But take a look at some of these ring-used items. They're really, really cool. And I think you'll enjoy. If you if you appreciate ring-used memorabilia, then that these are great examples of that. As always, we are on Pirate Flag Radio on the Radio King app. We want to thank all those guys over there for airing our show. We love being a part of the network over there. This has been produced by Three Crows Entertainment at the Three Crows Entertainment Studio in Morristown, Tennessee. I am your host, Brian Logan. Be sure to tune in to episode 10 of the ride home coming up later this evening, Monday as we tape, as well as the bonus for the world fighting showcase. That will be up, and we're me and Dallas are gonna do a little bonus episode for you guys. But for now, remember, I am your champion. I am your champion. Oh man, that's classic. I love it.