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We all knew he wasn’t doing good. At the Bobby Eaton Show we all saw it but didn’t want to believe it. It’s going to happen to us all one day.
Tracy Smothers was the real deal. I saw those Wild Eyes many times throughout our time together in the business. He could be funny, charming, and completely insane and maniacal with the flip of a switch!
He was kind, caring and compassionate. I pushed his buttons more than once because I thought it was “fun.” And then I felt his rath one night…
I used to playfully rib Tracy on our trips from Nashville to Knoxville when we started working for Smoky Mountain Wrestling. Ricky Morton, Robert Gibson, Tony Anthony, Tracy and I traveled together and made things as fun as we could along the way. Occasionally I would “poke the bear” and bring Tracy to the boiling point.
I’ll never forget Ricky telling me that I was “going to go too far and push that boy over the edge one day.”
Never… Not me!!
But one day I did. Ricky, Robert along with Jimmy Del Ray and I flew into Knoxville from Boston where we just worked Survivor Series 1993. We were all riding together to the town (can’t remember the name right now) and on the way somehow, we started talking about Tracy. Tracy had been having a bad spell of throwing some unintentional live rounds in the ring and the latest one was thrown at Brian Lee. He split Brian’s eye open and he had to get 9 stitches. That happens. This aint' ballet…
But I was on a roll and proceeded to say “Tracy’s careless and an idiot! And you can QUOTE ME!”
That’s all it took. The heels and babyfaces had separate dressing rooms that night and Ricky couldn’t wait to go in and rile Tracy up. Tracy was working with Brian and there was a battle royal at the end of the night. Tracy was hot and came to the ring boiling!!
Jim Cornette was booking and had a finish laid out but there was no chance of that happening. Brian and Tracy’s match was a disaster and Brian came back and told Jim “I don’t know what was wrong with him. He wouldn’t do anything!” I told them “I know what’s wrong” and proceeded to tell them what I said.
We had our tag match and now it’s time for the battle royal. The heels come out first and then here come the babyfaces with Tracy running as fast as he can. He goes right after me and the other guys stop him. I was telling them to “Let him go and get it over with!” Once he got it out of his system, I knew he’d be OK. At least that’s what I thought at the time.
Well, the good guys and the bad guys were both trying to stop Tracy from massacring me and the match was a complete cluster. Tracy was hot, Cornette was mad and all the boys were waiting to see what was going to happen next.
We rode to the town with Ricky and Robert who were planning on riding back to Knoxville with Tracy and JDR was catching a ride back to Morristown with Brian Hildebrand. Brian Lee was riding back with me.
We get on the road, get our beer and take off. Brian and I are talking when we see R&R and Tracy pass us. I told Brian to pull over and he said “no, just let it be.”
The Heavenly Bodies were about to venture off into an angle against the THUGS (Tracy and The Dirty White Boy) and now we have a real life conflict. I had nothing against Tracy personally, but he now had something against me, and I’ve seen Tracy in KILL mode before. It’s a dangerous place to see from the outside and I didn’t want to be directly in the line of fire!!
About 5 minutes later we see their car pulled off on the shoulder. I told Brian to STOP! We pulled over and waited in front of them. They recognized the care and Robert pulled onto the road and then in front of us. I saw Tracy sitting in the backseat with his leg propped up.
When he saw me he went nuts! Ricky and Robert got out of the car and Tracy started wrestling with the seat to get out. Brian and I got out and Tracy looked right at me and said “I’ll KILL you motherf*****!” And I’m trying to calm him down by saying “Tracy! What’s wrong with you!?” (Yeah, I know that was brilliant!)
I then said something to Ricky who replied with an F-U of his own and a shove to which I threw my beer at him and missed by a mile…
Tracy and I proceeded to cussin’ and spewin’ at each other in front of the car. Then out of nowhere, Tracy and I locked up.
Yep. We “locked up.” Rassslin’ style.
It was at that moment I knew he really didn’t want to fight. He was mad enough to rip my head off. But he didn’t.
We were locked up, kinda struggling when we see blue lights pull up. We stop, Tracy looks at me and says “I got kids, you got kids and we don’t need to go to jail.” Whaaa?
The cop walked up and said “What the hell’s going on here?” To which I replied “Nothing really officer. We just got done wrestling up the road and thought we’d stop on the side of the road here and go over some spots for our next match.”
He gave us a look of BULLSH** but I don’t think he was in the mood to deal with 5 idiot wrestlers at that time of night so he said “You don’t do that in MY county. You have 15 seconds to get out of here or you all are going to jail!” Tracy turned around, pointed at me with blood in his eyes and said “I’ll see you tomorrow!”
When we got to Knoxville, I called JC and told him what happened and that we had to get this straight before we go in the ring. Interviews were scheduled for Morristown the next day with babyfaces going first around noon and heels at 3. I showed up at 2 and waited to talk to Tracy.
My thinking was we were either going to talk or fight it out. I made comments and said things admittedly and had to apologize. I was the a**hole here and had to rectify this situation. When Tracy came back from promos, he immediately came over to me and said HE was sorry!
No, no, no. I told Tracy I said all those things and I was in the wrong and I just want to make sure we’re on the same page and we could do business in the ring. I apologized and we went on to do have some great matches. Looking back, I think during that time everybody was working their asses off and looking at the changes happening so fast around us that tensions were running high.
Years later we laughed at that story. Ricky admits to “stirring the pot” that night. It’s those things and things like that that made the boys the boys and wrestling wrestling back then. Neither one of us wanted to fight. It was a moment that made a great story later. Tracy was tough as nails and if he loved you, he loved you. If he didn’t and you wouldn’t get out of his way, he would remove you by any force he deemed necessary.
Tracy was a good man with a good heart. He was a true blue Wild Eyed Southern Boy to the end. I’m glad we had fun times and crazy times together. Life is made up of moments and I’ll never forget the many I had with Tracy.
RIP Tracy, I love you…
Tom Prichard heads the Jacobs-Prichard Wrestling Academy. For more, visit https://jpwa.weebly.com/
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