December 15, 2025 • 54 mins
#krull #uswo #nwasaw #gmbmpw
Welcome to Episode 29 of the Best Of jamesrockstreet Productions! Home to the Give Me Back My Pro Wrestling and Live and In Color with Wolfie D podcasts, Sheik's Shorts and more! So, sit back and enjoy as we bring you some of the very best stories, you'll never hear anywhere else! @GMBMPW @livewolfied @jamesrockstreet Everywhere!
Today we bring you the first half of episode 36 of Give Me Back My Pro Wrestling with Krull, aka Tim Thomasan! We talk his start in the business, his early days, Tony Falk, USWO, Reno Riggins, TJ Weatherby, SAW and so much more! Enjoy!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is Crawl the Death Stalker,and you're listening to Give Me
Back My Pro Wrestling. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to
Give Me Back My Pro Wrestling. You don't know.
(00:44):
Now you know. Baby, this is Hot Rod Bigs,
Jared, Jimmy St. We're going to take them to the
limit. One more time, baby, right here.
Oh, give me back my pro wrestling.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome one more time to the Give Me
Back my Pro Wrestling podcast. As always, I'm your host, Jimmy
Street. Now I'm here with my Co host and
my brother from the same father and mother, Jared the plastic
(01:06):
sheet St. What's up, brother?
Not much brother, just having a good day and looking forward to
this interview man. Yeah, yeah, it's going to be a
lot of fun. Cruel, man.
He's a good dude. He's always done right by me.
You know, he took over the company at the loss of TJ
Weatherby, which was heavy on everybody because, you know, TJ
ran such a great promotion that everybody had always count on
(01:27):
for a good booking and a good payday and.
And Cruel took that over and he already had the production
elements. I mean, we'll talk about all
this because I've got all these questions lined up, but I'm just
decided to get him on because Kroll.
Kroll's one of those guys that he knows where the bodies are
buried, if that, if you know what I'm saying.
If you know, you know, right? Yeah, if you know, you know, he
(01:48):
knows every, I mean, seriously, he he's been involved with some
of the all time greats and some of the greatest people that I
absolutely look up to as do I look up to him.
So, you know, Kroll is definitely somebody that we have
to have on our show that that was somebody that was on my very
long list. But he was near the because he's
(02:09):
just, he's just been so important to me.
So I'm excited for you to get tomeet him and and I'm excited for
the world to get to meet him, you know, and yeah, so.
I love what we're doing right now, man, these guys that have
been carpenters of the business and they're getting hopefully
their their time to shine through through some new eyes.
And you know, people can look them up on YouTube and stuff
(02:33):
like that and find matches and see see that these people are
just because maybe you ain't seen them on a EW or WWE this
year, don't mean that there there's not important people in
the wrestling business. You know, I mean, there's a lot,
there's a lot more that have that have done things for the
wrestling business that just don't get their kudos.
Absolutely. And you know, if we do that,
(02:54):
that that's amazing. I mean, honestly, if we are just
that honestly. So you brought that up at a good
time and this is kind of a good point I want to make.
So we had Shane on, right? You know, it kind of really
started with Jeff Daniels, but when we had Shane on, it really
opened the door for a lot of people.
And you know Shane, he's our liaison to all these guys now.
(03:16):
And so when when we had Shane ongreat response.
And then of course, you know, wehad hot rod on and you know,
having those two guys on in a row almost, you know, really, it
really kind of bang banged it. And then, of course, the right
way reunion, which Shane is kindof the head of he runs that.
And basically it was like Hot Rod was on the reunion happened
(03:40):
and then after the reunion happened, you know it, it was
like Shane sent me 100, you know, people to not really 100,
but Shane sent me a good 15 guysthat want to be on the show.
And then so it kind of left you and I with the decision to make.
We didn't really set out to be an interview show, right?
(04:01):
Not solely. I mean, we wanted to mix in
interviews with some topics and we've been blessed with these
interviews. So how can you turn them down, I
mean. Right, that's the way we looked
at it and I you know, I wanted to involve you in that because I
know you care about the topics as much as I do in our what if
episodes. It the what if we ever do a what
if episode again should be our next one.
(04:22):
But you know, other than that, there's so many opportunities
right now that we I kind of wantto strike while the iron is hot.
I'm glad you feel the same way. Got some great names coming up.
Of course, this one with Kroll and we're going to have Quentin
Charisma who is has another guy that knows where the bodies are
buried. And then Rick Reynolds, man, he
was forsaken. He was one of the guys who
trained Wolfie D. This guy is one of the guys.
(04:45):
He's one of those wrestlers, wrestlers kind of guy.
And Rick honestly is the nicest guy in the world too.
So excited to have him on. Then after that, the list is
long. Our buddy Doug Markham, great
referee, came in around the sametime that I did and has just
really done a whole lot in the business.
He worked for MLW and you know, really, you know, we're going to
do more stuff with other guys. There's a bunch of names out of
(05:08):
too many dimension right now. But you know, there's there's
just a lot of opportunities right now.
Yes, we will get back to topics.If you don't like interviews,
I'm sorry, but you know, we're kind of going to double down on
this right now since the response has been so great.
So, you know, Speaking of that, why don't we go ahead and get to
our interview with Tim Thomas and AKA Kroll?
(05:29):
Let's get to it, man. All right, we'll be right back
after these messages. Are you a pro wrestling fan?
We'll stop by Captain's Corner, where you can get autographed
photos, cards, magazines, and figures from all of your
favorite wrestling superstars ofthe past, present, and future.
You'll also be able to participate in live signings in
(05:50):
the weeks and months to come. Make sure to stop by Captain's
Corner on Facebook and give us aholler.
Remember, cheers to the working man.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome one more time to the Give Me
Back My Pro Wrestling podcast. And today we've got a very
special guest on the show with us.
Not only is he a professional wrestler, he is also a promoter.
(06:14):
He is also a Booker. He is also a technological
wizard. Today, we're going to welcome
Kroll to this show. How you doing Kroll?
Pretty good, man, Pretty good. Yeah, well, Kroll, we always
start off with the first question of the show.
Goes to my brother from the samefather and mother, Jared, the
(06:35):
plastic Sheik Sheik. Hit him up with this question.
All right, Kroll, man, this is ait's a question that I think
helps the audience get to know you a little bit and lets them
see maybe what your influences in wrestling were.
If you could name like four or five wrestlers that you consider
like your Mount Rushmore of wrestling, who would those be?
(06:57):
Well, locally I would say Tony Falk, Tracy Smothers, Jerry
Lawler, Bill Dundee, That's awesome.
But growing up, Hulk Hogan, of course, Ricky Steamboat, Rick
Fire, you know, Terry font. Yeah, yeah.
(07:19):
I don't think any of those nameson either list can be argued
with. So no, no.
I love those guys. Yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah. So that's a great, that's a
great too list. So man, I appreciate that.
Yeah, OK, well, we're going to start off from the start here.
Crawl. Talk about your younger days,
brother. Where were you born?
I was born and right usually grew up in the East Nashville,
(07:40):
right off of Eastern Indy Lane. You know where Porter used to
run? Yes, Sir, Yeah.
I live walking distance to that building.
That is wild. That was my first venue I ever
worked at in Nashville, so that's all.
Up until 2015 or 2017. Yeah, OK.
And then where'd you go to high school?
Maplewood. Maplewood, all right in the
(08:00):
hood. Maplewood.
I love it. So what I always liked about
East Nashville is when I first moved there with my band, we
lived in East Nashville. It was like 7 guys and two girls
in a house and it was literally like the real world.
And had we had any sense, we would have shot it like a
reality show because I think that would have made much more
money than the band ever did. But with that being said, there
(08:21):
was always a statement that was very true.
Hey, welcome to East Nashville. Will steal your heart and your
lawn mower. Yeah.
So you were you were OG East Nashville.
So you went to high school. What about sports in high
school, man? Did you do anything like that?
I wrestled my junior and senior year in high school and then I
(08:42):
would always practice the summerpractice football practices just
to get in shape for the wrestling, but that's pretty
much it. Yeah, you see, I mean, you're a
big guy, right? What what what were you at in
high school? What was your size?
I was probably about 6-4, probably Roger, probably about
(09:03):
29320, something like that. Yeah, that's, that's when they
get up to men. I remember Jared wrestled
heavyweight in high school and he was always talking about, he
was like, you know, when you wrestled those guys, it's it's
you're wrestling men, even though they're in high school,
you're wrestling men, you know, so.
Yeah, I mean, I had to. There was a guy in a few towns
(09:23):
over, I never had to wrestling, thank God, but he was ranked
number one in the nation, a heavyweight, so.
Pretty crazy stuff. So yeah, so, so obviously that
was it. But when did you start liking
wrestling? Probably about the time I was
old enough to understand what was on TV.
But in my household, nobody, nobody liked it.
Just me. Probably from about the time I
(09:44):
was 8-9 years old. But I didn't get to go to my
first wrestling match until my my oldest sister's teacher
husband when they were dating, he he took pity on me and took
me to the fairgrounds, would have been 86.
So I would have been maybe 15 atthe time, yes.
(10:07):
Yeah, that's definitely like ourraising to our immediate
household did not enjoy professional wrestling like we
did, but we relied on our unclesand cousins to help us go see
pro wrestling like Rock'n'roll Express and Boogie Boogie Man.
And you know, there's some kind of outlaw promotion running in
Virginia that booked as they were also working for Crockett.
They would also book in Virginia.
(10:29):
And I, I'm not, I've never foundout who ran that show.
But Long story short, we feel your pain on that one, brother.
So. So what about your start in
wrestling? What was your first foot in the
door as far as getting into professional wrestling?
Well, I mean the, the Jarrett's school that they ran out of the
off the Memphis TV, It was ran out of originally, it was ran
(10:52):
out of a of a local gym in a offa conference drive and a little
strip mall called fitness trainers.
They had the the lowest, shittiest ring set up in the
corner and basically they would make you get like a $25.00 a
month gym membership at the gym.And and they had about 40 people
(11:13):
at the start of it coming from all around the territory from
Louisville, Memphis are people driving up on a Sunday for two
hour class because but basicallythe the USWA school was just an
extra extra line of income for Jeff Jarrett because you know,
the the territory was on it fast, right?
(11:34):
So what, you know, Jeff was a good teacher, but you could just
tell that his heart wasn't in it.
It was just, you know, has just him going through the motions
most of the time. The real trainers there were Tom
Pritchard and Tony Faulk. That's how I got in with Tony
and nobody would know Tony. Tony's not going to take a lot
of blunts. So I kind of became the the
(11:54):
dummy, you know, doing all the grills and stuff.
So, you know, I definitely got my my little money's worth.
But that was in April of 92 whenI started out there.
OK, that's awesome. Yeah, and I had my first match
in Spring Hill, TN against Kevinthe Thug Jones in March of 93.
OK. March of 93 And what promotion
(12:15):
was that for? Terry Rice's Power Sign Pro
Wrestling. OK, OK, now so I've heard names
like Norae Havoc, Leon Downs, These guys also started around
that same time with you. Yeah, yeah, Eron.
Eron was, you talk about somebody that was locked in with
the Jarretts for whatever reason.
(12:37):
Christine Jarrett loved Eron andhe was like, he was like doing
security at the fairgrounds and stuff, you know, before he was
even really training regularly. But Eron's deal with the Jerry,
Jerry was that Jeff's younger brother Jason, he wanted
somebody to help coach him for when he was in high school, you
know, for amateur wrestling. And, you know, so Eron didn't
(13:01):
have to pay for the school. And they, you know, they really
loved Eron because hell, they, you know, he was probably the
first one out of that group of people that was working.
And Eron was actually the one that went to Jeff and Jerry and
said, look, Leon and and Timmy Big Crow, they're ready to start
using them. So, you know, because we were
(13:21):
like working little independencearound here.
Then they after a month or two of that, they started booking
us, you know, on. So Eron was the one that kind of
went to bat to guide us, you know, like, hey, these guys are
ready to go, you know, start using them so.
Eron's a great dude. He's one of the better guys I
got to know and that you know, it made a lot of great guys, but
(13:41):
Eron was always awesome to me and always appreciated him.
Now, OK, Kevin the Thug Jones man, I have seen some videos
about him and laying on some promos, especially for the MWF
promotion and stuff like that. Talk a little bit about Thug
Kevin. I mean, I don't have anything
bad to say about Kevin, but to me it's just he's your typical
(14:03):
Tennessee Indy wrestler, lazy, not ever.
You know, he's he's the same as he was the match he had with me
in 93 as he is today. He's the same lazy worker,
doesn't want to do much, just wants to go out there, do the
walk and the talk and you know, and and if that's what he likes
doing and can get booked to do it and more power to him.
(14:25):
But you know me, you know, if it's, you know, if you go to the
like playing in your band, you talk about if you're playing the
same song or set of songs every night, eventually you want to
get better and evolved and do you know, play something else,
you know? Yeah, at least.
That's how I am, you know, Creatively, you know.
(14:45):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, for sure.
Yeah, that that's a requirement because then you'll start to
lose your crowd if you're playing the same songs just like
the. Same, but Kevin always had heat
with me because when we were well men and Tony were running
for about 2 1/2 years we were running Madison every Friday on
Harris St. and he he would he would come over everyone to get
booked and we'd book him. Then he'd be outside in the
(15:08):
parking lot. And the business that was
adjaded to the property we were owned 1 was like a dentist's
office. Other ones like a little hall
that they had like meetings for union workers or pipe workers or
something. So we had to keep all these
properties clean other otherwisethey wouldn't let us have people
parking there because the parking was real limited.
(15:30):
And he would be out there, you know, playing with his gimmicks,
smoking dope or whatever, you know how the boys do, and
leaving, you know, condoms and beer bottles and shit, you know,
So he was always on my shit listfor that.
I love it. We're starting.
The dumb, the dumb tax shit, youknow, just to you know.
(15:51):
Absolutely. It's a high tax too man, you
know, so stupid. Too bad.
Paying Dealing with wrestling. So tell us a little bit about
the origin of the Crowl gimmick.Well.
I'm sure y'all have seen it in the 83.
There was a sci-fi movie called Crowl.
Oh yeah I just. I just always like that name
(16:11):
and, and the house I grew up with in, in East Nashville are
neighbors in the early 90s when I started doing my training was
a guy that was doing a country music gimmick.
He had a, he moved here from like Nebraska to release a
(16:33):
children's record. So he was his gimmick.
He was like a singing cowboy doing children's songs, you
know, But he was a mastered leather designer.
So I just drew up what I wanted far as my crawl, you know,
gimmick, you know, because originally I had like a
Wolverine mask with it, with my other mask that I had.
(16:54):
It just got lost over time. But he, he, he made me all that
stuff out of just sketches that I sketched up for him.
Yeah, it's a very original gimmick, you know.
But I mean, that's pretty much where it come from, you know?
I mean, but you know, I kind of feel like I was the, the Mankind
Mass before the Mankind, you know, because my fourth match
(17:16):
was in Memphis, TN against Jeff Gaylord.
And that was the night that had Lugar's and Yokozuna kind of
like in the warm up before summer Slam.
And the main event was Paul Neighbors against Jerry Lawler
with Vince McMahon and Pat Patterson and Paul Neighbors
Corner. And they, they not saying that
(17:37):
they stole my, my ideas or my gimmick, but you know, that was
probably, you know, a year, maybe probably 2 years before
the Mankind gimmick started. They took a hard stare at me.
Just put it that way. Let's just say that, right,
Because, yeah, I mean, because you were, you were Mankind
before Mankind. You were Abyss before Abyss.
(17:59):
I mean, you were that gimmick was and I'm not comparing the
two, you know what I'm saying? But in the same sense there,
there is some, you know, I'm notsaying anything, but what are
the ties with? Yeah, but other than Vader,
nobody wore masks like that back.
Right, exactly. And you weren't doing a Vader
gimmick. That's the other thing, you
know, So at fantasy and sword and sorcery, all that stuff is
(18:22):
super over with me. You know, we grew up being, you
know, Barbarians and Conan. Originally.
Originally I called myself Crawlthe Desk stalker, right?
Just thought that had a good ring to it.
It's a great name, man. Now, who would you say you took?
Not to say that you took anything from their gimmick.
What I'm saying is is like, who would you say you modeled your
(18:42):
your style after? Were you just trying to be
yourself and see how it goes? Just probably from everything,
you know, I mean, every wrestlerpretty much takes something from
somebody, you know. But I mean I mean I never
thought I was like you know, I guess explain how I felt about
wrestling To me it was doing something not I mean I don't
(19:07):
think I would have ever been oneof these guys happy being on the
road 300 days a year, you know night in night out and stuff.
You know I like being close to home and and all that.
So for me, I just like going in there like in the school many
Ron, we were always doing bumps and stuff, you know, trying to
you know, do moonsaults and stuff and you know Jeff will be
(19:28):
on this. Y'all don't need to be doing
that, you know that kind of stuff.
But you know me, I just always like the creative end of it
where learning how to do something, you know, evolving.
But I mean, as far as just like when I first started wrestling,
I was, you know, being getting heat by like taking big high
backdrops, throwing drop kicks, doing stuff that cruiserweights
(19:50):
do. You know me?
I just like working, you know, Ijust wanted to, you know, you
know, so I was always kind of myfirst year or two learning,
learning the ropes. I was told by Booker, don't even
be doing that. Don't even be doing, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, yeah. Talk about, you know, and I
don't want to jump ahead here too much, but it's around this
(20:11):
time. I mean, talk about the influence
that Tony Falk had on you, man, because I love Tony.
We all love Tony. If you don't love Tony, I don't
like. Probably from about 92 up to
about probably 2006 or 7. Hell, we were thick as thieves.
Yeah, I mean, before USWO we were running Paducah, KY with
(20:37):
his brother and Dennis Mason. And then then Tony would always
Monday nights be at a Kinko's copy making posters after the
they they ran like every other Sunday.
So Monday night would be at Kinko's copy cutting and pasting
the poster together, making the copies of it and then
overnighting them to his brother.
(21:01):
And it was kind of funny becauseTony would always have a
different pose he would got fromSteve Bryan on like one of the
Friday or Saturday shows in Nashville.
And then he would take it out there and have the guy make him
a 8 by 10. And on his wall he'd have like
like 20. You know, the whole one whole
wall in his bedroom was just pictures of him.
So it was kind of like the gimmick, like we'd go do the
(21:25):
posters. Then he would make sure he'd get
a 8 by 10 of the new picture of.God, I, I love Tony so much.
He's just so you know, we foughtlike the devil to get him on the
Wolfie D podcast. That's.
The shoot pally. Because I tell you.
The thing Tony is, I don't know,it's like he, you know, just
that old school mentality, like he doesn't want to tell or you
(21:48):
know, but I mean, hell, it's everything's, you know, Kay
favs, Hell, 30 years ago was going, you know, shit, sure.
But the cool thing about Tony back then too is like, you know,
I was, I think I was 17 and about six months into my
training, I turned 18. So my first match, I was almost
(22:09):
like, so I would have been 18 or19 when I started working and
when Tony would call my house because I live with my parents
still at the time. So when Tony would call my
house, you know, because nobody has cell phones back then.
So Tony would call my house and my mom or whoever answer the
phone. He'd leave a message message for
(22:31):
me and it'd be his number, but he would say he was Steve
Bryant, who was the photographeraround here at the time.
Bow tie. So there was there was still Kay
Faye baby. Yeah, yeah, just something about
Tony because Tony to me, it was like a magnet.
Yeah, I know. And we're going to get into this
later on working for you and Saul.
(22:52):
But I tell you, Tony was just like a magnet to me.
And and I could not ever not talk to him.
And it was like every time I talked to him, I took something
from him and you know, Tony's style.
And for the listeners, if you haven't heard Tony, I don't know
why you're listening to our podcast, because Tony is such a
a precursor to even me doing something or any of us doing
(23:14):
something. But Tony has that style about
him. And it's well known that he
talks in promo, you know what I mean?
And you know, Lt. yeah, Lt. has it as well.
He does. And I love them both.
Got nothing but respect for boththe men.
But it's just a, it's just a promo and, and it's great.
But it's also kind of like, yeah, you know, and, and I'm not
(23:36):
going to do my impersonation. But now I have heard that
someone says that you have a pretty good Tony Falk
impersonation. Shit, I ain't done that in so
long. Let's see this is only folk and
you are watching the Jimmy St. on Give Me Back My Pro Wrestling
because Crawl wants to pay theseribs and aggravate me.
(23:57):
He want to call and talk to my daughter and say daddy it's
Tommy Rich. And I yell at her and say it's
not Tommy Rich, it's that damn Crawl trying to be funny and
that's her shoot pallet. That's a.
Shoot now. But Tony, Tony's great.
I mean, you know. Yeah, yeah.
(24:19):
That's awesome. So so Tony to me is, is just one
of those OG original guys and heknows a little bit of everybody.
And then once I, you know. Tony calls me Crow, right?
Yeah, he'd be like Crow, my damnson, you know, so I I can tell
you I can Tony all night. That's.
(24:39):
Oh God. Yeah, I better take that.
Yeah. So anyway, Tony's just one of
those guys. And then once, of course, I
found out he knew Gary Hart. It was over from there, so I was
bugging him left and right. But anyway.
And now a word from our sponsor.Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to
(25:11):
Give Me Back My Pro Wrestling, the podcast that's based on the
old school but can still help you find the good stuff from
today. Jimmy St. and the Plastic Chic
Jared are the undisputed tag team champions of the wrestling
podcast world. From thought provoking topics to
superstar interviews to action figure expertise, this team does
(25:33):
it all. And all they ask is Give Me Back
My Pro Wrestling every other Thursday, wherever you listen to
podcasts. Tell us a little bit about
Extreme Clown Posse. Extreme Clown.
Posse started up when we were running Paducah back in the day,
(25:57):
pretty much before Burt and Porter came to town, and pretty
much made it like where you workhere, you can't work there.
Pretty much you could work Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Saturday, Sunday. Right.
Within like an hour or two of Nashville and pretty much
everybody pretty much got along and you know it wasn't none of
that. So every other Sunday we ran
(26:22):
Paducah started in 93 and I think Tony ran that until like
about 2002. But anyway, up there it was, I
don't know if y'all know Gator, I know Jimmy does, but Gator
McAllister had a trainee that was doing a Roy Presley unit
like the Honky Tonk King Roy Presley.
(26:44):
And so we were, Billy had originally came in as a hill,
then he turned to babyface and came back in as my mystery
partner against Gator and and that's when all the boys were
listening to ICP all the time. Oh yeah.
And so we just kind of, you know, extreme clown policy.
(27:05):
So that's where it started. And so we, we just, you know,
became 2 Juggalos and just, you know, kind of fell in love with
what they were doing and just kind of emulated, you know.
Yeah, two big fat guys doing a clown unit.
Yeah. See, Joe would go hard to ride.
They're 2 fat clowns. They're supposed to make you
(27:26):
laugh and happy. They, they big and they beat
people up. I don't get it.
But yeah. But yeah, we, we did that from
probably about 90, like 9697 to probably about in 2003.
Billy, he never really worked a lot.
He just got in it when he broke in with Rod did.
(27:49):
And they all just kind of becamefriends because Billy lived in
East Nashville at the time too. And, you know, he, he pretty
much worked when he wanted to. But, you know, he was just kind
of, you know, limited when he wanted to work because he was
always running a club, platinum strip club.
And like after the show, all theboys would be down there
partying and hanging out. But yeah, Billy, he's a he's a
(28:12):
good dude though. It's just a lot of fun.
And for me, I started in 92. So that was, you know, it was
just kind of kind of, you know, by that time, a lot of the shows
that you wasn't really established in you go to and
people call you mankind want to be and shit like that.
So it was just kind of time for the first, you know, to kind of
evolve a little bit for my for myself.
(28:33):
You probably wanted to be like, no, they stole my gimmick.
How do you, how do you clear that up though?
You can't. That's the problem, you know,
that's the problem. It's not like you can wear a
shirt that says I did it first. I guess you can.
I guess that would kind of fall under the the John Cena PG13.
I mean, yeah, yeah. Crazy.
(28:54):
What is Brian Christopher doing it though, You know what I'm
saying? Because he wrote and knew PG so
well and then he's doing that with the hip hop drop.
I've heard that conversation so many times.
Kroll. If we can just skip that one.
I'm just I'm. Sure you have, Yeah.
No, but of course, so obviously it's based on ICP, but you were
you were a fan of ICP as well. Oh absolutely, I love ICP.
(29:17):
Yeah, yeah. Now, do you have a Hatchet Man
tattoo? No, I don't have any tattoo.
I didn't think so, but I I've seen a lot of the boys have the
hatchet man. So, yeah.
So now there's there was something I heard about that You
did something with Verne Troyer is that?
Yeah. And I think this was in 99,
(29:38):
There was a club in Nashville, in Antioch over here called on
Bell Road, called the Palladium at the time.
Yeah, and and the MTV reality show MTV Real, Real, Real World
Rd. Rules Challenge 2000 they it was
wrestling theme on this episode and and they booked a bunch of
(30:01):
wrestlers just to kind of hell really.
We didn't do anything on the show.
They showed us on camera maybe two or three times, but we
didn't do anything. But the gimmick referee was
Vernon Troyer, and he, we asked him to get up, You know, I mean,
you're stupid if you don't, you're in your gimmick and you
won't, you know, gimmick pictures.
(30:21):
And he was, he was like real Tim, you know, the beat for
being around people. So he's in the bathroom and
we're like, hey, can we get a picture?
And he's like, so we kind of like just clouded, you know, got
around him and took the pictures, you know.
But yeah. But but yeah, when when that
actually aired a lot of Juggalos, that kind of got us
(30:44):
over with a lot of the Juggalos because they seen us on that.
And they're like, is this, you know, is this MTV making fun of
ICP? And we're like, no, we're we're
legit deal. You know, and then and then
alternative press, they did likea big story on ICP where they
both had like 3 different covers, one with the each one.
(31:06):
And that issue where they got like a like on big like 10 page
article on them, but like on oneof the pages it's got like
things related to ICP and it says ECP.
And then it's got like a little paragraph that says 2 local
wrestlers who go around emulating Insane Clown Posse as
you know. So that's pretty cool.
(31:28):
Yeah, that is very cool. Now, you know, obviously they do
the gathering and things like that and did you ever hear
anything about what those guys thought about or they even know
about you? Did you ever hear anything about
that? Billy, Billy got to meet him at
a in store in like 2001. He showed them pictures and they
were like, yeah, it's cool, it'scool.
(31:48):
And then up in Min Cat Taylor and Wayne Hackney Junior went to
a like a little convention wherethey're selling records like a
little trade show. But ICP used to, they used to go
and set up gimmicks at some of these places and ICP violent
Jay's brothers jump steady and he does a lot of stuff behind
(32:10):
the scenes with him. So he was up there running,
running this booth and we went up there and I showed him
pictures and got to talk to him.And you know, from I mean, from
what I understand, they were cool with it and never, never
said anything negative about us doing it.
Sure, you know. Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, I mean, you know, those guys are kind of, it's
almost like kiss, you know, you never can't tell if you're going
(32:31):
to be like, is this cool or is this suitable?
You know what I mean? So.
I think they're pretty laid. Laid by, sure.
I mean, wasn't like we were trying to go around rap, you
know? Right.
Exactly. Yeah.
I mean, did you ever think aboutdoing that at all?
No. No, OK, I.
Ain't got no rhythm like that. I.
Understand. OK, so like at this point in
(32:54):
your career, you're looking at the late 90s, early 2000s.
What would you say had been yourfavorite match or most memorable
match that you'd had at this point?
Up to the Jesus be honest, I don't.
Hey, that's so damn far. Probably, probably a power slam
(33:15):
in 94. I did like a three a week, maybe
a three about a three-week program with the moon Dog Spike,
Bill Smithson, the first match we had, he really liked it and
thought of, you know, took care of him pretty good because, you
know, he's old school. He don't want to be tailored.
(33:35):
Then the second, the second one we had, I've tailored the shit
out of them. So it was a good learning curve,
but the matches were good. I mean, you got the shit beat
out of you, but you know, he he's the he was the the of all
the moon dogs. He was the one that was work to
gimmick, not like try to kill you, and probably one of the
better ones to deal with, you know, as far as doing business.
(33:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hot Rod told some great stories
about Larry Latham too, how he worked the gimmick and
everything. And you know, those guys are
great. And they're they're honestly, I
know they're so legendarily thought of in that area, but at
the same time, the Moon Dogs area all Time Team for sure.
You know whether you. Go.
National or local, you know, go ahead.
(34:18):
I'm sorry. But now, now that I'm sorry, it
took me a second to thank, but as far as like the crawl as a
single wrestler, probably probably my favorite opponent
and probably the guy I had the best matches with was a guy that
that Tony trained in 94 named Big John White.
(34:39):
He was a big guy like me. And he he was probably a little
younger than me, but we we had some pretty good matches.
Yeah, but for two big guys that,you know, in their early 20s,
but but Big John, he was, he wasprobably a lot better than me,
but together we had some real good matches.
He was, he was. I would say he was more of a
(35:02):
natural, like a stone cold for abig guy his size.
OK, that's cool. Yeah, very much.
But Tony, Tony actually trained him and another guy named Keith
something a kid out of Dixon, heactually trained them on in the
(35:22):
the mall of of the of where Bassschool is.
That's where Terry Rice ran on Friday nights in the early 90s.
But Tony trained him. Whatever happened with their
their having the school, whatever.
I think Terry had lost that building, but Tony would meet
them over there and teach them how to wrestle in the grass to
start out their and Tony. No, but Tony, I mean, you know,
(35:46):
Tony stuck with them and then they finally, you know,
eventually got somewhere to go and but Tony stuck with them and
and they got them trained and actually started using them.
You know, so that's true that Tonys, you know, credit, you
know, I'm trying to trying to sound positive when it's what
I'm saying, but you know. Right.
Well, I mean, hey, it's the sameelement of wanting to start out
(36:08):
however you can, you know, and the fact that you can tie up
with Tony Falk, it's always great, you know?
So that's a good start for sure.We'll be right back with more.
Give me back my pro wrestling. Gideon's Warriors, A night of
(36:34):
pro wrestling stories and testimony of God's grace and
mercy. Come here Pastor Rick Reynolds
who you may know as Damian or Forsaken, Shane Morton, Ben
Jordan and Tommy Phillips AKA Shawn Schultz as they share
their experiences in pro wrestling and their personal
walks with God. It's all going to be on Sunday,
January 18th, 2026 at 7:00 PM athis House Ministries, 49 O 9,
(36:58):
Highway 43, Summertown, TN Everyone is welcome, do not miss
this one time event. Hey, this is Pastor Rick
Reynolds of his House Ministriesin Summertown, Tennessee.
I'd like to do a personal invitation to everyone to come
see us on January 18th, 2026 at 7:00.
(37:22):
So talk a little bit about the the around the time of that time
of the USWO like talk a little bit about maybe some of how
things were done or, or or at least how the the crowds were
doing it and things like that well.
The USWBO originally started andwhen the the Hackney's and
Ferren and Tony were running NewSouth Championship Wrestling in
(37:45):
97 and early 98 and then they the, you know, the opposition,
you know who I'm talking about. Oh yeah, building got codes
involved and got the building shut down.
South Wayne pulled out. So then in 90, late 98 and 99,
TJ was running every Friday in Excalibur Gym, the original saw.
And then when that shut down, helost that building.
(38:06):
Nobody was really running other than, you know, the occasional
Burt at the fairgrounds and Porter stuff.
So that's when Tony started running Springfield once a month
and at the center and we we would run once a month.
Then we moved from there to the to the fairgrounds old army
(38:30):
building and we ran every other Friday.
But when we started running thatwe were renting quarters rings
and he would have like, you know, try to bring in a name.
So we did the one with the Lawler, you know, and just, we
ran once a month and far as the houses, Tony could probably tell
(38:51):
you a dollar amount, but I mean,the center, you know, it holds a
lot of people. We'd probably draw 2250 maybe.
And then that's why we moved to the fair building, because the
rent's a lot cheaper and we could run it more often.
But Tony was also running like Tuesdays and Thursdays, you
know, just any day that he couldget.
So then that's when we moved to Fridays.
(39:12):
So when we moved there, Faron was actually like a a full
partner with Tony on the financial end of it.
So you know, Faron would cover his ass and make sure we got
sponsors and everything. So then we we were actually
drawing probably over 300, I would say at some, you know, so
(39:33):
around 300. But I mean, the crew was pretty
much the same as what what you probably know, Jimmy, we had Tim
Modesto, Jeff Daniels, Ben Jordan, Steam Navy, Patrick
Miller, Kid Thriller, Hot Rod, Hammerjack, me, Billy Dante, you
know, just a who's who. Larry Valentine.
(39:53):
I mean, probably and a lot of the guys that Tony would use in
Paducah would come down car loads.
And so how was the atmosphere ofit?
We had we had started our TV in March of 2002.
So Tony would have booked all these, you know, kids like the
the Chuck Taylors and the ricochets and all that.
(40:15):
You know, a lot of those guys wewould have Tony would want to
book like 15 matches, but none of it meant anything because the
people would go out there and just, you know, fart on it.
So, you know, but he was trying to get more of, you know, in one
night, you know, which I understand why, but a lot of it
just, you know, come off hit or miss and a lot of it just, you
(40:36):
know, I think that probably hurtthe draw in the long run.
But but our actual first episode, it used to be a late
night was on the channel and on Comcast, they had a infomercial
channel pretty much. And locally, you know, if you
submitted a tape, they would, you know, play it.
But our, our time slot was Saturday nights at midnight and,
(41:00):
and that, that spot cost us $18.73.
A lot of people didn't, don't know that, you know, and that
was the cheapest. But like if we were on Saturday
mornings at like say noon, it would be like 7 or 800 bucks.
So that's why. But from like midnight, 6:00 in
the morning, the time spots wereunder $20.
(41:23):
Wow. That's amazing.
That makes a lot of sense though, you know?
So but our very first episode, they did something wrong with
our tape and it aired that weekend like 100 and something
times. Oh my God, it was Aaron.
It was Aaron, for some reason. They would air for like two or
three hours straight and then like a knife show would like
(41:46):
where they're selling knives, itwould come on and then then like
our show would come back on for three hours.
So people was calling us all weekend.
I told Tony, I said, damn, I wish it wasn't just a generic
show. I wish we had like a big show to
plug. At least we would get all that
commercial. But yeah, I think the, I think
my Comcast Rep said that show aired like 137 times between
(42:09):
Saturday night and like Tuesday morning.
Yeah, that's amazing, man. But our original run of USWO
late night, we aired in that slot from from March of 2002 to
like around probably O 9, maybe O 8, something like that.
(42:29):
So almost six year run. Yeah, yeah.
Well, let me ask you this because that brings up a great
point that I wanted to ask you, but I I think it's a perfect
time to ask it. So with the Wolfie D podcast I
started, I didn't know anything other than I just had, OK, I
have a wrestler. I can talk to him about his
career, but where does it go from there and how do I do it?
(42:49):
And I learned it. And if you hear the first shows
of the Wolfie D podcast, it sounds like it's just a fan
asking a wrestler questions. And then it turned into we got
some, you know, a report about us and the production levels
came up. I bought a good microphone.
Sounds much better now. I'm much more proud of the
product today that I can put outwith both podcasts now than I
(43:10):
did early. But I learned as I went.
And, you know, I've even had guys ask me like, hey, man, I
want to start a podcast. How do you do it?
And I'm like, man, this is my way.
I don't want to tell anybody thewrong way, but this is how I did
it. It's bass ackwards, but I
figured it out. Talk about that.
You're productive production quality because you are a great
producer as far as you know, TV shows go and things like that
(43:32):
and commercials and and all thattalk about how learning how to
do that and where did you learn that from?
I just always comes back to pretty much started out like
what you just said with the podcast, just, you know, this
trial and error and yes, you know that learning curve, but I
always I always had that creative itch.
Like when I was a kid, I was making wrestling belts on a
(43:52):
cardboard, you know, before I got into the before I got into
doing TV with wrestlers from probably the time I started
wrestling to the, to the, they started making replica belts in
the late, early the late 90s, early 2000s out.
I probably made over 200 wrestling belts for all the
groups around here in Alabama and Tennessee, you know, so it
(44:14):
was always just that creative itch, you know, of doing
something. And I mean, it's, you don't
just, you know, like seeing, seeing stuff on TV, like, man, I
can do that. And I'll just, you know, I was,
at the time I started, I was pretty decent with Photoshop.
So I could build my graphics in Photoshop and just send, you
know, I got a computer. And that's when you, you know,
(44:35):
buy a video card and import your, you know, your analog
footage. But the bad thing about that you
had problems with your audio being out of sync.
So you have to re it's just trial and error.
I mean, I'd love to have a a dollar for everything, every
hour. I'll probably put in the stuff,
you know, So you figured, you figured I probably did six years
(44:56):
straight of USW and then we did over 400 episodes of Saul and
its original run. So you, I probably got over 1000
episodes of just TV wrestling, you know, But I mean, that's
just, it's just trial and error,you know, it's like, you know,
just kind of, I knew in my head about what I wanted to do and I
(45:17):
just kind of had to teach myselfand figure out how to do it, you
know? Just kind of like how I did it.
Basically, you, you don't like the last joke you said this
could be better. I'm going to fix this and then
fix this and. You know somebody, you know,
Buddy's got a camera here, but you know, you get the money, you
figure out what to buy, you go buy something better.
You know, it's like get a piece of the puzzle here.
(45:37):
You know, that's how man Reno hooked up to do Saul, you know,
in O7TJ. You know, that's the thing I
love about TJ Weatherby. You know, whether we were
running wrestling or not, we were we were always going to eat
hanging out and doing shit, going to auctions.
You know, the same with Searcy. We were friends regardless of
(45:58):
what we were doing. But TJ got a got the building in
Millersville and you know, men Reno had had to eat should want
to do something better because of the the the area was kind of
dormant. You know, it's like, you know, I
know how to do the TV. Reno's got to know how to get
(46:18):
the sponsors and he'll put it together.
Boom, boom, boom, you know, TJ had the building.
So you never saw you never saw Millersville before Reno and me
went up there. TJ started in February of O 7
and then it's kind of like, you know, he was running Saturdays.
Didn't want to step on Tony's toes, but you know, getting
(46:40):
getting talent to commit and stuff, you know, so it was me
that kind of talked to him and like TJ, you need to go to
Fridays that what you got bettertalent, more access to talent
and you know, but he didn't wantto.
But like I tried to tell Tony I was like, it just is what it is.
Because when Tony was at the stadium in it was like he was
held hostage by building Shields.
(47:01):
I don't know if he ever met build a shield, but he was the
creepy manager that ran the stadium in that he told
everybody he owned the place andhe owned car dealerships and but
he was just a creepy gay old, 60-70 something year old man.
And so, you know, when before Tony was down there, Burt was
(47:22):
running it and then he put Bert out and Tony agreed to come in
there because we had at that time had lost our building in
Madison. So six months later, we wind up
and stayed him in and he brings Bert back.
So he got wrestling on Wednesdays, us on Fridays and
Bert on Saturdays. And if anybody ever wanted to
know why Tony ran multiple nights there, it was to keep
everybody else running. Yeah, yeah.
(47:45):
But Bill then you know, Bill hadto run his own, so then it
instead of just USWOSUSWOATL. So it's just confusing to the
consumer, you know, and Tony putup with a lot of bullshit down
there. You know, for years, TJ and me
told Tony, get out of here, you can come up here and run.
And, you know, so it took Tony acouple months to build up his,
(48:07):
his motivation to come up there.But he come up there and I love,
I love seeing this because, you know, to me, it's being around
people and being around people that you love and that you want
to be around with and doing something, especially when
you're doing something creative and you know all that.
But Tony walked up there and outside the sawmill, Tony asked
(48:29):
TJ 2 questions and he says he told the first question Tony
asked. He says, he says, brother, am I
welcomed up here? And TJ said the hell yeah.
And he told him, he says, and second one said, can I pay you
$150.00 and run your building once?
And he said, yeah, so you got tolove him.
He was, you know, and, and Tony's always had like a I mean,
(48:53):
I don't know if Tony's ever toldyou his past, but he had a lot
of shit growing up and seen a lot of trauma.
So I think that's why he's like that real timid and don't want
to be confrontational and stuff like that.
But I'm sure if you've been around Tony enough, if he's
pushed into a corner, he'll snap, you know, and take it for
self. But but Tony took a lot of shit
(49:13):
from Bill to Shields like he would because Bill always had a
relationship with Porter and he would like call Porter and
Porter's like did you know Porter's got a business license?
You going to have to have a business license, Tony, you
know, So so Tony would go get a,you know.
So then it was like where you going to have to have a
(49:35):
liability insurance. So Tony goes and gets liability
insurance. Well, it ain't good enough, you
know, There's just always, you know, I would, you know, I wish
Tony would have, you know, But it's just, you know, it is what
it is. Well, you know, and the hipsters
kind of started flocking to the stadium in East Nashville, you
(49:55):
know? Well, Josephus kind of filled
the void when I kind of left andwas doing Saul with Reno.
Josephus kind of, you know, stepped in there and they
trained him because he was like the Shelby St. brawl.
Josephus was the one that hookedLt. and him up with that world
and got all those people coming.So, you know, like I tried to
tell Tony TJS, you know, TJS might be running the same night,
(50:18):
but it's further enough apart that you know, you want to draw
your people. So it's like, you know, when 1
door closes, another one's open.It's kind of saying, you know,
so because when I kind of stepped away from the stadium in
and was doing Saul, you know, Josephus coming in and and you
know, there was other people that came around and and Tony
actually probably did a lot better, you know, because when
(50:40):
Josephus first started bringing them people, I'm talking about
before Joe was even wrestling, they would bring tons of people
down there. Yeah.
Oh yeah. You know, so it's kind of like
the Monday night War is not thatthey were at war, but you know,
TJ grew good consistently and Tony drew good consistently.
And then just like anything else, you know, it's hard to to
do that stuff every week and stay consistent.
(51:01):
You know, like when we would draw a big house in Millersville
the next week or two, it might be the shits and then it's kind
of like you build them back up and you have a big your big show
and kind of start over. But yeah.
You're listening to Give Me BackMy Pro Wrestling, and we'll be
right back after these messages.Relive the glory days of Memphis
(51:25):
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Each week we go back in time to review USWA Championship
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Join us for watch alongs, behindthe scenes stories, and
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(51:48):
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We talk wrestling, we talk pop culture, we talk local events,
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Until next time, make good choices and always remember, no
Dollar, no dice. Ladies and gentlemen, this is
(52:55):
Jimmy St. and that was episode 29 of the Best of James Rock St.
Productions. With the first half of episode
36 of Kroll on Give Me Back My Pro Wrestling.
Kroll has had his hand in almostall parts of the business,
wrestling, booking, promoting, TV production and more.
My time at N.W.A Saw was my favorite and I have to thank
Kroll for that. You can hear the full episode
(53:16):
and more over on at G MB MPW or Give Me Back My Pro Wrestling
wherever you listen to podcasts or simply click the link in the
notes below. We hope you've enjoyed a look
back in the archives of James Rock St.
Productions. Check us out next week to see
what else we have in store. Until then, follow at G, MB, MPW
and at James Rock St. Everywhere Peace with a tear in
(53:39):
my eye. This is the greatest moment in
my life. This has been a James Rock St.
(54:15):
production.
This is Crawl the Death Stalker,and you're listening to Give Me
Back My Pro Wrestling. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to
Give Me Back My Pro Wrestling. You don't know.
(00:44):
Now you know. Baby, this is Hot Rod Bigs,
Jared, Jimmy St. We're going to take them to the
limit. One more time, baby, right here.
Oh, give me back my pro wrestling.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome one more time to the Give Me
Back my Pro Wrestling podcast. As always, I'm your host, Jimmy
Street. Now I'm here with my Co host and
my brother from the same father and mother, Jared the plastic
(01:06):
sheet St. What's up, brother?
Not much brother, just having a good day and looking forward to
this interview man. Yeah, yeah, it's going to be a
lot of fun. Cruel, man.
He's a good dude. He's always done right by me.
You know, he took over the company at the loss of TJ
Weatherby, which was heavy on everybody because, you know, TJ
ran such a great promotion that everybody had always count on
(01:27):
for a good booking and a good payday and.
And Cruel took that over and he already had the production
elements. I mean, we'll talk about all
this because I've got all these questions lined up, but I'm just
decided to get him on because Kroll.
Kroll's one of those guys that he knows where the bodies are
buried, if that, if you know what I'm saying.
If you know, you know, right? Yeah, if you know, you know, he
(01:48):
knows every, I mean, seriously, he he's been involved with some
of the all time greats and some of the greatest people that I
absolutely look up to as do I look up to him.
So, you know, Kroll is definitely somebody that we have
to have on our show that that was somebody that was on my very
long list. But he was near the because he's
(02:09):
just, he's just been so important to me.
So I'm excited for you to get tomeet him and and I'm excited for
the world to get to meet him, you know, and yeah, so.
I love what we're doing right now, man, these guys that have
been carpenters of the business and they're getting hopefully
their their time to shine through through some new eyes.
And you know, people can look them up on YouTube and stuff
(02:33):
like that and find matches and see see that these people are
just because maybe you ain't seen them on a EW or WWE this
year, don't mean that there there's not important people in
the wrestling business. You know, I mean, there's a lot,
there's a lot more that have that have done things for the
wrestling business that just don't get their kudos.
Absolutely. And you know, if we do that,
(02:54):
that that's amazing. I mean, honestly, if we are just
that honestly. So you brought that up at a good
time and this is kind of a good point I want to make.
So we had Shane on, right? You know, it kind of really
started with Jeff Daniels, but when we had Shane on, it really
opened the door for a lot of people.
And you know Shane, he's our liaison to all these guys now.
(03:16):
And so when when we had Shane ongreat response.
And then of course, you know, wehad hot rod on and you know,
having those two guys on in a row almost, you know, really, it
really kind of bang banged it. And then, of course, the right
way reunion, which Shane is kindof the head of he runs that.
And basically it was like Hot Rod was on the reunion happened
(03:40):
and then after the reunion happened, you know it, it was
like Shane sent me 100, you know, people to not really 100,
but Shane sent me a good 15 guysthat want to be on the show.
And then so it kind of left you and I with the decision to make.
We didn't really set out to be an interview show, right?
(04:01):
Not solely. I mean, we wanted to mix in
interviews with some topics and we've been blessed with these
interviews. So how can you turn them down, I
mean. Right, that's the way we looked
at it and I you know, I wanted to involve you in that because I
know you care about the topics as much as I do in our what if
episodes. It the what if we ever do a what
if episode again should be our next one.
(04:22):
But you know, other than that, there's so many opportunities
right now that we I kind of wantto strike while the iron is hot.
I'm glad you feel the same way. Got some great names coming up.
Of course, this one with Kroll and we're going to have Quentin
Charisma who is has another guy that knows where the bodies are
buried. And then Rick Reynolds, man, he
was forsaken. He was one of the guys who
trained Wolfie D. This guy is one of the guys.
(04:45):
He's one of those wrestlers, wrestlers kind of guy.
And Rick honestly is the nicest guy in the world too.
So excited to have him on. Then after that, the list is
long. Our buddy Doug Markham, great
referee, came in around the sametime that I did and has just
really done a whole lot in the business.
He worked for MLW and you know, really, you know, we're going to
do more stuff with other guys. There's a bunch of names out of
(05:08):
too many dimension right now. But you know, there's there's
just a lot of opportunities right now.
Yes, we will get back to topics.If you don't like interviews,
I'm sorry, but you know, we're kind of going to double down on
this right now since the response has been so great.
So, you know, Speaking of that, why don't we go ahead and get to
our interview with Tim Thomas and AKA Kroll?
(05:29):
Let's get to it, man. All right, we'll be right back
after these messages. Are you a pro wrestling fan?
We'll stop by Captain's Corner, where you can get autographed
photos, cards, magazines, and figures from all of your
favorite wrestling superstars ofthe past, present, and future.
You'll also be able to participate in live signings in
(05:50):
the weeks and months to come. Make sure to stop by Captain's
Corner on Facebook and give us aholler.
Remember, cheers to the working man.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome one more time to the Give Me
Back My Pro Wrestling podcast. And today we've got a very
special guest on the show with us.
Not only is he a professional wrestler, he is also a promoter.
(06:14):
He is also a Booker. He is also a technological
wizard. Today, we're going to welcome
Kroll to this show. How you doing Kroll?
Pretty good, man, Pretty good. Yeah, well, Kroll, we always
start off with the first question of the show.
Goes to my brother from the samefather and mother, Jared, the
(06:35):
plastic Sheik Sheik. Hit him up with this question.
All right, Kroll, man, this is ait's a question that I think
helps the audience get to know you a little bit and lets them
see maybe what your influences in wrestling were.
If you could name like four or five wrestlers that you consider
like your Mount Rushmore of wrestling, who would those be?
(06:57):
Well, locally I would say Tony Falk, Tracy Smothers, Jerry
Lawler, Bill Dundee, That's awesome.
But growing up, Hulk Hogan, of course, Ricky Steamboat, Rick
Fire, you know, Terry font. Yeah, yeah.
(07:19):
I don't think any of those nameson either list can be argued
with. So no, no.
I love those guys. Yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah. So that's a great, that's a
great too list. So man, I appreciate that.
Yeah, OK, well, we're going to start off from the start here.
Crawl. Talk about your younger days,
brother. Where were you born?
I was born and right usually grew up in the East Nashville,
(07:40):
right off of Eastern Indy Lane. You know where Porter used to
run? Yes, Sir, Yeah.
I live walking distance to that building.
That is wild. That was my first venue I ever
worked at in Nashville, so that's all.
Up until 2015 or 2017. Yeah, OK.
And then where'd you go to high school?
Maplewood. Maplewood, all right in the
(08:00):
hood. Maplewood.
I love it. So what I always liked about
East Nashville is when I first moved there with my band, we
lived in East Nashville. It was like 7 guys and two girls
in a house and it was literally like the real world.
And had we had any sense, we would have shot it like a
reality show because I think that would have made much more
money than the band ever did. But with that being said, there
(08:21):
was always a statement that was very true.
Hey, welcome to East Nashville. Will steal your heart and your
lawn mower. Yeah.
So you were you were OG East Nashville.
So you went to high school. What about sports in high
school, man? Did you do anything like that?
I wrestled my junior and senior year in high school and then I
(08:42):
would always practice the summerpractice football practices just
to get in shape for the wrestling, but that's pretty
much it. Yeah, you see, I mean, you're a
big guy, right? What what what were you at in
high school? What was your size?
I was probably about 6-4, probably Roger, probably about
(09:03):
29320, something like that. Yeah, that's, that's when they
get up to men. I remember Jared wrestled
heavyweight in high school and he was always talking about, he
was like, you know, when you wrestled those guys, it's it's
you're wrestling men, even though they're in high school,
you're wrestling men, you know, so.
Yeah, I mean, I had to. There was a guy in a few towns
(09:23):
over, I never had to wrestling, thank God, but he was ranked
number one in the nation, a heavyweight, so.
Pretty crazy stuff. So yeah, so, so obviously that
was it. But when did you start liking
wrestling? Probably about the time I was
old enough to understand what was on TV.
But in my household, nobody, nobody liked it.
Just me. Probably from about the time I
(09:44):
was 8-9 years old. But I didn't get to go to my
first wrestling match until my my oldest sister's teacher
husband when they were dating, he he took pity on me and took
me to the fairgrounds, would have been 86.
So I would have been maybe 15 atthe time, yes.
(10:07):
Yeah, that's definitely like ourraising to our immediate
household did not enjoy professional wrestling like we
did, but we relied on our unclesand cousins to help us go see
pro wrestling like Rock'n'roll Express and Boogie Boogie Man.
And you know, there's some kind of outlaw promotion running in
Virginia that booked as they were also working for Crockett.
They would also book in Virginia.
(10:29):
And I, I'm not, I've never foundout who ran that show.
But Long story short, we feel your pain on that one, brother.
So. So what about your start in
wrestling? What was your first foot in the
door as far as getting into professional wrestling?
Well, I mean the, the Jarrett's school that they ran out of the
off the Memphis TV, It was ran out of originally, it was ran
(10:52):
out of a of a local gym in a offa conference drive and a little
strip mall called fitness trainers.
They had the the lowest, shittiest ring set up in the
corner and basically they would make you get like a $25.00 a
month gym membership at the gym.And and they had about 40 people
(11:13):
at the start of it coming from all around the territory from
Louisville, Memphis are people driving up on a Sunday for two
hour class because but basicallythe the USWA school was just an
extra extra line of income for Jeff Jarrett because you know,
the the territory was on it fast, right?
(11:34):
So what, you know, Jeff was a good teacher, but you could just
tell that his heart wasn't in it.
It was just, you know, has just him going through the motions
most of the time. The real trainers there were Tom
Pritchard and Tony Faulk. That's how I got in with Tony
and nobody would know Tony. Tony's not going to take a lot
of blunts. So I kind of became the the
(11:54):
dummy, you know, doing all the grills and stuff.
So, you know, I definitely got my my little money's worth.
But that was in April of 92 whenI started out there.
OK, that's awesome. Yeah, and I had my first match
in Spring Hill, TN against Kevinthe Thug Jones in March of 93.
OK. March of 93 And what promotion
(12:15):
was that for? Terry Rice's Power Sign Pro
Wrestling. OK, OK, now so I've heard names
like Norae Havoc, Leon Downs, These guys also started around
that same time with you. Yeah, yeah, Eron.
Eron was, you talk about somebody that was locked in with
the Jarretts for whatever reason.
(12:37):
Christine Jarrett loved Eron andhe was like, he was like doing
security at the fairgrounds and stuff, you know, before he was
even really training regularly. But Eron's deal with the Jerry,
Jerry was that Jeff's younger brother Jason, he wanted
somebody to help coach him for when he was in high school, you
know, for amateur wrestling. And, you know, so Eron didn't
(13:01):
have to pay for the school. And they, you know, they really
loved Eron because hell, they, you know, he was probably the
first one out of that group of people that was working.
And Eron was actually the one that went to Jeff and Jerry and
said, look, Leon and and Timmy Big Crow, they're ready to start
using them. So, you know, because we were
(13:21):
like working little independencearound here.
Then they after a month or two of that, they started booking
us, you know, on. So Eron was the one that kind of
went to bat to guide us, you know, like, hey, these guys are
ready to go, you know, start using them so.
Eron's a great dude. He's one of the better guys I
got to know and that you know, it made a lot of great guys, but
(13:41):
Eron was always awesome to me and always appreciated him.
Now, OK, Kevin the Thug Jones man, I have seen some videos
about him and laying on some promos, especially for the MWF
promotion and stuff like that. Talk a little bit about Thug
Kevin. I mean, I don't have anything
bad to say about Kevin, but to me it's just he's your typical
(14:03):
Tennessee Indy wrestler, lazy, not ever.
You know, he's he's the same as he was the match he had with me
in 93 as he is today. He's the same lazy worker,
doesn't want to do much, just wants to go out there, do the
walk and the talk and you know, and and if that's what he likes
doing and can get booked to do it and more power to him.
(14:25):
But you know me, you know, if it's, you know, if you go to the
like playing in your band, you talk about if you're playing the
same song or set of songs every night, eventually you want to
get better and evolved and do you know, play something else,
you know? Yeah, at least.
That's how I am, you know, Creatively, you know.
(14:45):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, for sure.
Yeah, that that's a requirement because then you'll start to
lose your crowd if you're playing the same songs just like
the. Same, but Kevin always had heat
with me because when we were well men and Tony were running
for about 2 1/2 years we were running Madison every Friday on
Harris St. and he he would he would come over everyone to get
booked and we'd book him. Then he'd be outside in the
(15:08):
parking lot. And the business that was
adjaded to the property we were owned 1 was like a dentist's
office. Other ones like a little hall
that they had like meetings for union workers or pipe workers or
something. So we had to keep all these
properties clean other otherwisethey wouldn't let us have people
parking there because the parking was real limited.
(15:30):
And he would be out there, you know, playing with his gimmicks,
smoking dope or whatever, you know how the boys do, and
leaving, you know, condoms and beer bottles and shit, you know,
So he was always on my shit listfor that.
I love it. We're starting.
The dumb, the dumb tax shit, youknow, just to you know.
(15:51):
Absolutely. It's a high tax too man, you
know, so stupid. Too bad.
Paying Dealing with wrestling. So tell us a little bit about
the origin of the Crowl gimmick.Well.
I'm sure y'all have seen it in the 83.
There was a sci-fi movie called Crowl.
Oh yeah I just. I just always like that name
(16:11):
and, and the house I grew up with in, in East Nashville are
neighbors in the early 90s when I started doing my training was
a guy that was doing a country music gimmick.
He had a, he moved here from like Nebraska to release a
(16:33):
children's record. So he was his gimmick.
He was like a singing cowboy doing children's songs, you
know, But he was a mastered leather designer.
So I just drew up what I wanted far as my crawl, you know,
gimmick, you know, because originally I had like a
Wolverine mask with it, with my other mask that I had.
(16:54):
It just got lost over time. But he, he, he made me all that
stuff out of just sketches that I sketched up for him.
Yeah, it's a very original gimmick, you know.
But I mean, that's pretty much where it come from, you know?
I mean, but you know, I kind of feel like I was the, the Mankind
Mass before the Mankind, you know, because my fourth match
(17:16):
was in Memphis, TN against Jeff Gaylord.
And that was the night that had Lugar's and Yokozuna kind of
like in the warm up before summer Slam.
And the main event was Paul Neighbors against Jerry Lawler
with Vince McMahon and Pat Patterson and Paul Neighbors
Corner. And they, they not saying that
(17:37):
they stole my, my ideas or my gimmick, but you know, that was
probably, you know, a year, maybe probably 2 years before
the Mankind gimmick started. They took a hard stare at me.
Just put it that way. Let's just say that, right,
Because, yeah, I mean, because you were, you were Mankind
before Mankind. You were Abyss before Abyss.
(17:59):
I mean, you were that gimmick was and I'm not comparing the
two, you know what I'm saying? But in the same sense there,
there is some, you know, I'm notsaying anything, but what are
the ties with? Yeah, but other than Vader,
nobody wore masks like that back.
Right, exactly. And you weren't doing a Vader
gimmick. That's the other thing, you
know, So at fantasy and sword and sorcery, all that stuff is
(18:22):
super over with me. You know, we grew up being, you
know, Barbarians and Conan. Originally.
Originally I called myself Crawlthe Desk stalker, right?
Just thought that had a good ring to it.
It's a great name, man. Now, who would you say you took?
Not to say that you took anything from their gimmick.
What I'm saying is is like, who would you say you modeled your
(18:42):
your style after? Were you just trying to be
yourself and see how it goes? Just probably from everything,
you know, I mean, every wrestlerpretty much takes something from
somebody, you know. But I mean I mean I never
thought I was like you know, I guess explain how I felt about
wrestling To me it was doing something not I mean I don't
(19:07):
think I would have ever been oneof these guys happy being on the
road 300 days a year, you know night in night out and stuff.
You know I like being close to home and and all that.
So for me, I just like going in there like in the school many
Ron, we were always doing bumps and stuff, you know, trying to
you know, do moonsaults and stuff and you know Jeff will be
(19:28):
on this. Y'all don't need to be doing
that, you know that kind of stuff.
But you know me, I just always like the creative end of it
where learning how to do something, you know, evolving.
But I mean, as far as just like when I first started wrestling,
I was, you know, being getting heat by like taking big high
backdrops, throwing drop kicks, doing stuff that cruiserweights
(19:50):
do. You know me?
I just like working, you know, Ijust wanted to, you know, you
know, so I was always kind of myfirst year or two learning,
learning the ropes. I was told by Booker, don't even
be doing that. Don't even be doing, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, yeah. Talk about, you know, and I
don't want to jump ahead here too much, but it's around this
(20:11):
time. I mean, talk about the influence
that Tony Falk had on you, man, because I love Tony.
We all love Tony. If you don't love Tony, I don't
like. Probably from about 92 up to
about probably 2006 or 7. Hell, we were thick as thieves.
Yeah, I mean, before USWO we were running Paducah, KY with
(20:37):
his brother and Dennis Mason. And then then Tony would always
Monday nights be at a Kinko's copy making posters after the
they they ran like every other Sunday.
So Monday night would be at Kinko's copy cutting and pasting
the poster together, making the copies of it and then
overnighting them to his brother.
(21:01):
And it was kind of funny becauseTony would always have a
different pose he would got fromSteve Bryan on like one of the
Friday or Saturday shows in Nashville.
And then he would take it out there and have the guy make him
a 8 by 10. And on his wall he'd have like
like 20. You know, the whole one whole
wall in his bedroom was just pictures of him.
So it was kind of like the gimmick, like we'd go do the
(21:25):
posters. Then he would make sure he'd get
a 8 by 10 of the new picture of.God, I, I love Tony so much.
He's just so you know, we foughtlike the devil to get him on the
Wolfie D podcast. That's.
The shoot pally. Because I tell you.
The thing Tony is, I don't know,it's like he, you know, just
that old school mentality, like he doesn't want to tell or you
(21:48):
know, but I mean, hell, it's everything's, you know, Kay
favs, Hell, 30 years ago was going, you know, shit, sure.
But the cool thing about Tony back then too is like, you know,
I was, I think I was 17 and about six months into my
training, I turned 18. So my first match, I was almost
(22:09):
like, so I would have been 18 or19 when I started working and
when Tony would call my house because I live with my parents
still at the time. So when Tony would call my
house, you know, because nobody has cell phones back then.
So Tony would call my house and my mom or whoever answer the
phone. He'd leave a message message for
(22:31):
me and it'd be his number, but he would say he was Steve
Bryant, who was the photographeraround here at the time.
Bow tie. So there was there was still Kay
Faye baby. Yeah, yeah, just something about
Tony because Tony to me, it was like a magnet.
Yeah, I know. And we're going to get into this
later on working for you and Saul.
(22:52):
But I tell you, Tony was just like a magnet to me.
And and I could not ever not talk to him.
And it was like every time I talked to him, I took something
from him and you know, Tony's style.
And for the listeners, if you haven't heard Tony, I don't know
why you're listening to our podcast, because Tony is such a
a precursor to even me doing something or any of us doing
(23:14):
something. But Tony has that style about
him. And it's well known that he
talks in promo, you know what I mean?
And you know, Lt. yeah, Lt. has it as well.
He does. And I love them both.
Got nothing but respect for boththe men.
But it's just a, it's just a promo and, and it's great.
But it's also kind of like, yeah, you know, and, and I'm not
(23:36):
going to do my impersonation. But now I have heard that
someone says that you have a pretty good Tony Falk
impersonation. Shit, I ain't done that in so
long. Let's see this is only folk and
you are watching the Jimmy St. on Give Me Back My Pro Wrestling
because Crawl wants to pay theseribs and aggravate me.
(23:57):
He want to call and talk to my daughter and say daddy it's
Tommy Rich. And I yell at her and say it's
not Tommy Rich, it's that damn Crawl trying to be funny and
that's her shoot pallet. That's a.
Shoot now. But Tony, Tony's great.
I mean, you know. Yeah, yeah.
(24:19):
That's awesome. So so Tony to me is, is just one
of those OG original guys and heknows a little bit of everybody.
And then once I, you know. Tony calls me Crow, right?
Yeah, he'd be like Crow, my damnson, you know, so I I can tell
you I can Tony all night. That's.
(24:39):
Oh God. Yeah, I better take that.
Yeah. So anyway, Tony's just one of
those guys. And then once, of course, I
found out he knew Gary Hart. It was over from there, so I was
bugging him left and right. But anyway.
And now a word from our sponsor.Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to
(25:11):
Give Me Back My Pro Wrestling, the podcast that's based on the
old school but can still help you find the good stuff from
today. Jimmy St. and the Plastic Chic
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podcast world. From thought provoking topics to
superstar interviews to action figure expertise, this team does
(25:33):
it all. And all they ask is Give Me Back
My Pro Wrestling every other Thursday, wherever you listen to
podcasts. Tell us a little bit about
Extreme Clown Posse. Extreme Clown.
Posse started up when we were running Paducah back in the day,
(25:57):
pretty much before Burt and Porter came to town, and pretty
much made it like where you workhere, you can't work there.
Pretty much you could work Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Saturday, Sunday. Right.
Within like an hour or two of Nashville and pretty much
everybody pretty much got along and you know it wasn't none of
that. So every other Sunday we ran
(26:22):
Paducah started in 93 and I think Tony ran that until like
about 2002. But anyway, up there it was, I
don't know if y'all know Gator, I know Jimmy does, but Gator
McAllister had a trainee that was doing a Roy Presley unit
like the Honky Tonk King Roy Presley.
(26:44):
And so we were, Billy had originally came in as a hill,
then he turned to babyface and came back in as my mystery
partner against Gator and and that's when all the boys were
listening to ICP all the time. Oh yeah.
And so we just kind of, you know, extreme clown policy.
(27:05):
So that's where it started. And so we, we just, you know,
became 2 Juggalos and just, you know, kind of fell in love with
what they were doing and just kind of emulated, you know.
Yeah, two big fat guys doing a clown unit.
Yeah. See, Joe would go hard to ride.
They're 2 fat clowns. They're supposed to make you
(27:26):
laugh and happy. They, they big and they beat
people up. I don't get it.
But yeah. But yeah, we, we did that from
probably about 90, like 9697 to probably about in 2003.
Billy, he never really worked a lot.
He just got in it when he broke in with Rod did.
(27:49):
And they all just kind of becamefriends because Billy lived in
East Nashville at the time too. And, you know, he, he pretty
much worked when he wanted to. But, you know, he was just kind
of, you know, limited when he wanted to work because he was
always running a club, platinum strip club.
And like after the show, all theboys would be down there
partying and hanging out. But yeah, Billy, he's a he's a
(28:12):
good dude though. It's just a lot of fun.
And for me, I started in 92. So that was, you know, it was
just kind of kind of, you know, by that time, a lot of the shows
that you wasn't really established in you go to and
people call you mankind want to be and shit like that.
So it was just kind of time for the first, you know, to kind of
evolve a little bit for my for myself.
(28:33):
You probably wanted to be like, no, they stole my gimmick.
How do you, how do you clear that up though?
You can't. That's the problem, you know,
that's the problem. It's not like you can wear a
shirt that says I did it first. I guess you can.
I guess that would kind of fall under the the John Cena PG13.
I mean, yeah, yeah. Crazy.
(28:54):
What is Brian Christopher doing it though, You know what I'm
saying? Because he wrote and knew PG so
well and then he's doing that with the hip hop drop.
I've heard that conversation so many times.
Kroll. If we can just skip that one.
I'm just I'm. Sure you have, Yeah.
No, but of course, so obviously it's based on ICP, but you were
you were a fan of ICP as well. Oh absolutely, I love ICP.
(29:17):
Yeah, yeah. Now, do you have a Hatchet Man
tattoo? No, I don't have any tattoo.
I didn't think so, but I I've seen a lot of the boys have the
hatchet man. So, yeah.
So now there's there was something I heard about that You
did something with Verne Troyer is that?
Yeah. And I think this was in 99,
(29:38):
There was a club in Nashville, in Antioch over here called on
Bell Road, called the Palladium at the time.
Yeah, and and the MTV reality show MTV Real, Real, Real World
Rd. Rules Challenge 2000 they it was
wrestling theme on this episode and and they booked a bunch of
(30:01):
wrestlers just to kind of hell really.
We didn't do anything on the show.
They showed us on camera maybe two or three times, but we
didn't do anything. But the gimmick referee was
Vernon Troyer, and he, we asked him to get up, You know, I mean,
you're stupid if you don't, you're in your gimmick and you
won't, you know, gimmick pictures.
(30:21):
And he was, he was like real Tim, you know, the beat for
being around people. So he's in the bathroom and
we're like, hey, can we get a picture?
And he's like, so we kind of like just clouded, you know, got
around him and took the pictures, you know.
But yeah. But but yeah, when when that
actually aired a lot of Juggalos, that kind of got us
(30:44):
over with a lot of the Juggalos because they seen us on that.
And they're like, is this, you know, is this MTV making fun of
ICP? And we're like, no, we're we're
legit deal. You know, and then and then
alternative press, they did likea big story on ICP where they
both had like 3 different covers, one with the each one.
(31:06):
And that issue where they got like a like on big like 10 page
article on them, but like on oneof the pages it's got like
things related to ICP and it says ECP.
And then it's got like a little paragraph that says 2 local
wrestlers who go around emulating Insane Clown Posse as
you know. So that's pretty cool.
(31:28):
Yeah, that is very cool. Now, you know, obviously they do
the gathering and things like that and did you ever hear
anything about what those guys thought about or they even know
about you? Did you ever hear anything about
that? Billy, Billy got to meet him at
a in store in like 2001. He showed them pictures and they
were like, yeah, it's cool, it'scool.
(31:48):
And then up in Min Cat Taylor and Wayne Hackney Junior went to
a like a little convention wherethey're selling records like a
little trade show. But ICP used to, they used to go
and set up gimmicks at some of these places and ICP violent
Jay's brothers jump steady and he does a lot of stuff behind
(32:10):
the scenes with him. So he was up there running,
running this booth and we went up there and I showed him
pictures and got to talk to him.And you know, from I mean, from
what I understand, they were cool with it and never, never
said anything negative about us doing it.
Sure, you know. Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, I mean, you know, those guys are kind of, it's
almost like kiss, you know, you never can't tell if you're going
(32:31):
to be like, is this cool or is this suitable?
You know what I mean? So.
I think they're pretty laid. Laid by, sure.
I mean, wasn't like we were trying to go around rap, you
know? Right.
Exactly. Yeah.
I mean, did you ever think aboutdoing that at all?
No. No, OK, I.
Ain't got no rhythm like that. I.
Understand. OK, so like at this point in
(32:54):
your career, you're looking at the late 90s, early 2000s.
What would you say had been yourfavorite match or most memorable
match that you'd had at this point?
Up to the Jesus be honest, I don't.
Hey, that's so damn far. Probably, probably a power slam
(33:15):
in 94. I did like a three a week, maybe
a three about a three-week program with the moon Dog Spike,
Bill Smithson, the first match we had, he really liked it and
thought of, you know, took care of him pretty good because, you
know, he's old school. He don't want to be tailored.
(33:35):
Then the second, the second one we had, I've tailored the shit
out of them. So it was a good learning curve,
but the matches were good. I mean, you got the shit beat
out of you, but you know, he he's the he was the the of all
the moon dogs. He was the one that was work to
gimmick, not like try to kill you, and probably one of the
better ones to deal with, you know, as far as doing business.
(33:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hot Rod told some great stories
about Larry Latham too, how he worked the gimmick and
everything. And you know, those guys are
great. And they're they're honestly, I
know they're so legendarily thought of in that area, but at
the same time, the Moon Dogs area all Time Team for sure.
You know whether you. Go.
National or local, you know, go ahead.
(34:18):
I'm sorry. But now, now that I'm sorry, it
took me a second to thank, but as far as like the crawl as a
single wrestler, probably probably my favorite opponent
and probably the guy I had the best matches with was a guy that
that Tony trained in 94 named Big John White.
(34:39):
He was a big guy like me. And he he was probably a little
younger than me, but we we had some pretty good matches.
Yeah, but for two big guys that,you know, in their early 20s,
but but Big John, he was, he wasprobably a lot better than me,
but together we had some real good matches.
He was, he was. I would say he was more of a
(35:02):
natural, like a stone cold for abig guy his size.
OK, that's cool. Yeah, very much.
But Tony, Tony actually trained him and another guy named Keith
something a kid out of Dixon, heactually trained them on in the
(35:22):
the mall of of the of where Bassschool is.
That's where Terry Rice ran on Friday nights in the early 90s.
But Tony trained him. Whatever happened with their
their having the school, whatever.
I think Terry had lost that building, but Tony would meet
them over there and teach them how to wrestle in the grass to
start out their and Tony. No, but Tony, I mean, you know,
(35:46):
Tony stuck with them and then they finally, you know,
eventually got somewhere to go and but Tony stuck with them and
and they got them trained and actually started using them.
You know, so that's true that Tonys, you know, credit, you
know, I'm trying to trying to sound positive when it's what
I'm saying, but you know. Right.
Well, I mean, hey, it's the sameelement of wanting to start out
(36:08):
however you can, you know, and the fact that you can tie up
with Tony Falk, it's always great, you know?
So that's a good start for sure.We'll be right back with more.
Give me back my pro wrestling. Gideon's Warriors, A night of
(36:34):
pro wrestling stories and testimony of God's grace and
mercy. Come here Pastor Rick Reynolds
who you may know as Damian or Forsaken, Shane Morton, Ben
Jordan and Tommy Phillips AKA Shawn Schultz as they share
their experiences in pro wrestling and their personal
walks with God. It's all going to be on Sunday,
January 18th, 2026 at 7:00 PM athis House Ministries, 49 O 9,
(36:58):
Highway 43, Summertown, TN Everyone is welcome, do not miss
this one time event. Hey, this is Pastor Rick
Reynolds of his House Ministriesin Summertown, Tennessee.
I'd like to do a personal invitation to everyone to come
see us on January 18th, 2026 at 7:00.
(37:22):
So talk a little bit about the the around the time of that time
of the USWO like talk a little bit about maybe some of how
things were done or, or or at least how the the crowds were
doing it and things like that well.
The USWBO originally started andwhen the the Hackney's and
Ferren and Tony were running NewSouth Championship Wrestling in
(37:45):
97 and early 98 and then they the, you know, the opposition,
you know who I'm talking about. Oh yeah, building got codes
involved and got the building shut down.
South Wayne pulled out. So then in 90, late 98 and 99,
TJ was running every Friday in Excalibur Gym, the original saw.
And then when that shut down, helost that building.
(38:06):
Nobody was really running other than, you know, the occasional
Burt at the fairgrounds and Porter stuff.
So that's when Tony started running Springfield once a month
and at the center and we we would run once a month.
Then we moved from there to the to the fairgrounds old army
(38:30):
building and we ran every other Friday.
But when we started running thatwe were renting quarters rings
and he would have like, you know, try to bring in a name.
So we did the one with the Lawler, you know, and just, we
ran once a month and far as the houses, Tony could probably tell
(38:51):
you a dollar amount, but I mean,the center, you know, it holds a
lot of people. We'd probably draw 2250 maybe.
And then that's why we moved to the fair building, because the
rent's a lot cheaper and we could run it more often.
But Tony was also running like Tuesdays and Thursdays, you
know, just any day that he couldget.
So then that's when we moved to Fridays.
(39:12):
So when we moved there, Faron was actually like a a full
partner with Tony on the financial end of it.
So you know, Faron would cover his ass and make sure we got
sponsors and everything. So then we we were actually
drawing probably over 300, I would say at some, you know, so
(39:33):
around 300. But I mean, the crew was pretty
much the same as what what you probably know, Jimmy, we had Tim
Modesto, Jeff Daniels, Ben Jordan, Steam Navy, Patrick
Miller, Kid Thriller, Hot Rod, Hammerjack, me, Billy Dante, you
know, just a who's who. Larry Valentine.
(39:53):
I mean, probably and a lot of the guys that Tony would use in
Paducah would come down car loads.
And so how was the atmosphere ofit?
We had we had started our TV in March of 2002.
So Tony would have booked all these, you know, kids like the
the Chuck Taylors and the ricochets and all that.
(40:15):
You know, a lot of those guys wewould have Tony would want to
book like 15 matches, but none of it meant anything because the
people would go out there and just, you know, fart on it.
So, you know, but he was trying to get more of, you know, in one
night, you know, which I understand why, but a lot of it
just, you know, come off hit or miss and a lot of it just, you
(40:36):
know, I think that probably hurtthe draw in the long run.
But but our actual first episode, it used to be a late
night was on the channel and on Comcast, they had a infomercial
channel pretty much. And locally, you know, if you
submitted a tape, they would, you know, play it.
But our, our time slot was Saturday nights at midnight and,
(41:00):
and that, that spot cost us $18.73.
A lot of people didn't, don't know that, you know, and that
was the cheapest. But like if we were on Saturday
mornings at like say noon, it would be like 7 or 800 bucks.
So that's why. But from like midnight, 6:00 in
the morning, the time spots wereunder $20.
(41:23):
Wow. That's amazing.
That makes a lot of sense though, you know?
So but our very first episode, they did something wrong with
our tape and it aired that weekend like 100 and something
times. Oh my God, it was Aaron.
It was Aaron, for some reason. They would air for like two or
three hours straight and then like a knife show would like
(41:46):
where they're selling knives, itwould come on and then then like
our show would come back on for three hours.
So people was calling us all weekend.
I told Tony, I said, damn, I wish it wasn't just a generic
show. I wish we had like a big show to
plug. At least we would get all that
commercial. But yeah, I think the, I think
my Comcast Rep said that show aired like 137 times between
(42:09):
Saturday night and like Tuesday morning.
Yeah, that's amazing, man. But our original run of USWO
late night, we aired in that slot from from March of 2002 to
like around probably O 9, maybe O 8, something like that.
(42:29):
So almost six year run. Yeah, yeah.
Well, let me ask you this because that brings up a great
point that I wanted to ask you, but I I think it's a perfect
time to ask it. So with the Wolfie D podcast I
started, I didn't know anything other than I just had, OK, I
have a wrestler. I can talk to him about his
career, but where does it go from there and how do I do it?
(42:49):
And I learned it. And if you hear the first shows
of the Wolfie D podcast, it sounds like it's just a fan
asking a wrestler questions. And then it turned into we got
some, you know, a report about us and the production levels
came up. I bought a good microphone.
Sounds much better now. I'm much more proud of the
product today that I can put outwith both podcasts now than I
(43:10):
did early. But I learned as I went.
And, you know, I've even had guys ask me like, hey, man, I
want to start a podcast. How do you do it?
And I'm like, man, this is my way.
I don't want to tell anybody thewrong way, but this is how I did
it. It's bass ackwards, but I
figured it out. Talk about that.
You're productive production quality because you are a great
producer as far as you know, TV shows go and things like that
(43:32):
and commercials and and all thattalk about how learning how to
do that and where did you learn that from?
I just always comes back to pretty much started out like
what you just said with the podcast, just, you know, this
trial and error and yes, you know that learning curve, but I
always I always had that creative itch.
Like when I was a kid, I was making wrestling belts on a
(43:52):
cardboard, you know, before I got into the before I got into
doing TV with wrestlers from probably the time I started
wrestling to the, to the, they started making replica belts in
the late, early the late 90s, early 2000s out.
I probably made over 200 wrestling belts for all the
groups around here in Alabama and Tennessee, you know, so it
(44:14):
was always just that creative itch, you know, of doing
something. And I mean, it's, you don't
just, you know, like seeing, seeing stuff on TV, like, man, I
can do that. And I'll just, you know, I was,
at the time I started, I was pretty decent with Photoshop.
So I could build my graphics in Photoshop and just send, you
know, I got a computer. And that's when you, you know,
(44:35):
buy a video card and import your, you know, your analog
footage. But the bad thing about that you
had problems with your audio being out of sync.
So you have to re it's just trial and error.
I mean, I'd love to have a a dollar for everything, every
hour. I'll probably put in the stuff,
you know, So you figured, you figured I probably did six years
(44:56):
straight of USW and then we did over 400 episodes of Saul and
its original run. So you, I probably got over 1000
episodes of just TV wrestling, you know, But I mean, that's
just, it's just trial and error,you know, it's like, you know,
just kind of, I knew in my head about what I wanted to do and I
(45:17):
just kind of had to teach myselfand figure out how to do it, you
know? Just kind of like how I did it.
Basically, you, you don't like the last joke you said this
could be better. I'm going to fix this and then
fix this and. You know somebody, you know,
Buddy's got a camera here, but you know, you get the money, you
figure out what to buy, you go buy something better.
You know, it's like get a piece of the puzzle here.
(45:37):
You know, that's how man Reno hooked up to do Saul, you know,
in O7TJ. You know, that's the thing I
love about TJ Weatherby. You know, whether we were
running wrestling or not, we were we were always going to eat
hanging out and doing shit, going to auctions.
You know, the same with Searcy. We were friends regardless of
(45:58):
what we were doing. But TJ got a got the building in
Millersville and you know, men Reno had had to eat should want
to do something better because of the the the area was kind of
dormant. You know, it's like, you know, I
know how to do the TV. Reno's got to know how to get
(46:18):
the sponsors and he'll put it together.
Boom, boom, boom, you know, TJ had the building.
So you never saw you never saw Millersville before Reno and me
went up there. TJ started in February of O 7
and then it's kind of like, you know, he was running Saturdays.
Didn't want to step on Tony's toes, but you know, getting
(46:40):
getting talent to commit and stuff, you know, so it was me
that kind of talked to him and like TJ, you need to go to
Fridays that what you got bettertalent, more access to talent
and you know, but he didn't wantto.
But like I tried to tell Tony I was like, it just is what it is.
Because when Tony was at the stadium in it was like he was
held hostage by building Shields.
(47:01):
I don't know if he ever met build a shield, but he was the
creepy manager that ran the stadium in that he told
everybody he owned the place andhe owned car dealerships and but
he was just a creepy gay old, 60-70 something year old man.
And so, you know, when before Tony was down there, Burt was
(47:22):
running it and then he put Bert out and Tony agreed to come in
there because we had at that time had lost our building in
Madison. So six months later, we wind up
and stayed him in and he brings Bert back.
So he got wrestling on Wednesdays, us on Fridays and
Bert on Saturdays. And if anybody ever wanted to
know why Tony ran multiple nights there, it was to keep
everybody else running. Yeah, yeah.
(47:45):
But Bill then you know, Bill hadto run his own, so then it
instead of just USWOSUSWOATL. So it's just confusing to the
consumer, you know, and Tony putup with a lot of bullshit down
there. You know, for years, TJ and me
told Tony, get out of here, you can come up here and run.
And, you know, so it took Tony acouple months to build up his,
(48:07):
his motivation to come up there.But he come up there and I love,
I love seeing this because, you know, to me, it's being around
people and being around people that you love and that you want
to be around with and doing something, especially when
you're doing something creative and you know all that.
But Tony walked up there and outside the sawmill, Tony asked
(48:29):
TJ 2 questions and he says he told the first question Tony
asked. He says, he says, brother, am I
welcomed up here? And TJ said the hell yeah.
And he told him, he says, and second one said, can I pay you
$150.00 and run your building once?
And he said, yeah, so you got tolove him.
He was, you know, and, and Tony's always had like a I mean,
(48:53):
I don't know if Tony's ever toldyou his past, but he had a lot
of shit growing up and seen a lot of trauma.
So I think that's why he's like that real timid and don't want
to be confrontational and stuff like that.
But I'm sure if you've been around Tony enough, if he's
pushed into a corner, he'll snap, you know, and take it for
self. But but Tony took a lot of shit
(49:13):
from Bill to Shields like he would because Bill always had a
relationship with Porter and he would like call Porter and
Porter's like did you know Porter's got a business license?
You going to have to have a business license, Tony, you
know, So so Tony would go get a,you know.
So then it was like where you going to have to have a
(49:35):
liability insurance. So Tony goes and gets liability
insurance. Well, it ain't good enough, you
know, There's just always, you know, I would, you know, I wish
Tony would have, you know, But it's just, you know, it is what
it is. Well, you know, and the hipsters
kind of started flocking to the stadium in East Nashville, you
(49:55):
know? Well, Josephus kind of filled
the void when I kind of left andwas doing Saul with Reno.
Josephus kind of, you know, stepped in there and they
trained him because he was like the Shelby St. brawl.
Josephus was the one that hookedLt. and him up with that world
and got all those people coming.So, you know, like I tried to
tell Tony TJS, you know, TJS might be running the same night,
(50:18):
but it's further enough apart that you know, you want to draw
your people. So it's like, you know, when 1
door closes, another one's open.It's kind of saying, you know,
so because when I kind of stepped away from the stadium in
and was doing Saul, you know, Josephus coming in and and you
know, there was other people that came around and and Tony
actually probably did a lot better, you know, because when
(50:40):
Josephus first started bringing them people, I'm talking about
before Joe was even wrestling, they would bring tons of people
down there. Yeah.
Oh yeah. You know, so it's kind of like
the Monday night War is not thatthey were at war, but you know,
TJ grew good consistently and Tony drew good consistently.
And then just like anything else, you know, it's hard to to
do that stuff every week and stay consistent.
(51:01):
You know, like when we would draw a big house in Millersville
the next week or two, it might be the shits and then it's kind
of like you build them back up and you have a big your big show
and kind of start over. But yeah.
You're listening to Give Me BackMy Pro Wrestling, and we'll be
right back after these messages.Relive the glory days of Memphis
(51:25):
wrestling with the Retro Wrestling Review USWA podcast.
Each week we go back in time to review USWA Championship
Wrestling from the 1990s, episode by episode.
Join us for watch alongs, behindthe scenes stories, and
exclusive interviews with peoplewho were there and lived it.
Whether you grew up watching it or you're discovering it for the
first time, this podcast is yourringside seat to Memphis
(51:48):
wrestling history. It's all a part of the Wrestle
Copia Podcast Network. Listen now at US wapodcast.com.
Hi, this is Mike Needham, host of the Reckless Abandoned
podcast with Mike Needham. We invite you to jump on your
favorite podcast platform and search for the Reckless
Abandoned Podcast and give us a listen.
(52:09):
I'm sometimes joined by a part time podcaster, part time Co
host and full time wife Kitney Nicole.
We talk wrestling, we talk pop culture, we talk local events,
local happenings in West Tennessee, and a ton of other
stuff. But be sure to check out the
Reckless Abandoned Podcast, findus on Facebook.
Also look up the micro group Podcasting Family on Facebook
(52:33):
and see some of our other podcasts we have out there.
Until next time, make good choices and always remember, no
Dollar, no dice. Ladies and gentlemen, this is
(52:55):
Jimmy St. and that was episode 29 of the Best of James Rock St.
Productions. With the first half of episode
36 of Kroll on Give Me Back My Pro Wrestling.
Kroll has had his hand in almostall parts of the business,
wrestling, booking, promoting, TV production and more.
My time at N.W.A Saw was my favorite and I have to thank
Kroll for that. You can hear the full episode
(53:16):
and more over on at G MB MPW or Give Me Back My Pro Wrestling
wherever you listen to podcasts or simply click the link in the
notes below. We hope you've enjoyed a look
back in the archives of James Rock St.
Productions. Check us out next week to see
what else we have in store. Until then, follow at G, MB, MPW
and at James Rock St. Everywhere Peace with a tear in
(53:39):
my eye. This is the greatest moment in
my life. This has been a James Rock St.
(54:15):
production.
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