I still smile when I think about this . . . it's a funny story. See, a lot of the guys in the USWA knew that sometimes I would travel home for the weekends. Home has always been the Tampa Bay area of Florida. That is where my mom, dad and brother live and that is where I currently live. However when I was on the road with the USWA, I lived in Nashville, TN as that was the central point to the territory.

In a past article, I talked about how hectic the road schedule was and our weekends were not much; they basically consisted of Sundays off. So what I would do is squeeze in a trip home to Florida, either to see mom and dad or the "love of my life" at the time. Looking back, I can see how stupid it was to do that. Not stupid for visiting the parents, that is cool. It was stupid to drive all the way from Nashville to Tampa, just to spend 12 hours with my girlfriend and then head back. Well, I guess it wouldn't be stupid if we were together now but my USWA travel got to be too much for her. Actually, if I had to count the number of fiancés and girlfriends I've lost over wrestling and travel for my day job, we'd be here all day.

Now most of the guys knew I would make these "madness" runs home to Tampa and many times they'd tag along for the ride so they could go home too. We called them "mad runs" because you'd be very pressed for time. We'd usually be at the Nashville Sports Arena on Saturday nights until 10 or 11pm. We would have Sunday off and have to be back in Memphis by 6:00pm for an 8:00pm bell time for the show at the Mid South Coliseum. Tommy "Wildfire" Rich was famous for tagging along with me on these mad runs because he lives just slightly south of Atlanta. I'm not sure if he still does. So it was no problem to drop him off while I went on to Tampa, spent 12-15 hours home and then would hit the road early Monday morning (and I do mean early, as in 3 or 4am), pick him up as I'd jet through Atlanta and then we'd head to Memphis for the Monday night shows.

Well here is the funny story. Actually there are two of them here. The first one was Tommy wanted to make the trip home on this one weekend trip. I knew I was on earlier in the card because I was managing Gorgeous George III (he is now known as the Stro, formerly the Maestro from WCW) and Tommy was on later in a battle royal. More...