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A promoter doesn’t pay the locker room, a legend tries to make it right, and suddenly you learn the hard way what “the business” actually means. That’s the energy we’re bringing today as I go from a bizarre sun poisoning tanning bed story to real road details for Rumble in the Dome 2 in Kenova, West Virginia. I’m stepping back in the ring with Onyx, and for the first time my buddy Ben Lester is coming out as Mr. Downtown to manage me, which is going to be a blast.

Then we get into something wrestling fans argue about nonstop: what makes a world title legitimate. I answer a listener question about why I once called the AWA title the only real world title at the time, and I lay it out plainly. For me, legitimacy isn’t a logo or a TV slot, it’s defending the belt anywhere, against anyone, with no geographic or company limits.

From there, I flip open my 30-plus-year match journal and keep making towns through late 1994 and early 1995. We hit the Doug Gibson pay fiasco, Road Warrior Hawk’s role in it, the infamous Waynesboro shoot angle I didn’t know was a shoot, early Southern States Wrestling paydays, and the grind of working tags, TV tapings, and long loops that jump from Knoxville to Mississippi to St. Louis. Along the way: WCW enhancement work, meeting Jerry Lawler, wrestling Abdullah the Butcher, and the unexpected business lesson of becoming Doink the Clown and actually making money on merchandise.

If you’re into independent wrestling stories, Smoky Mountain Wrestling-era road life, and how a career gets built one booking at a time, hit play. Subscribe, share it with a wrestling buddy, and leave a review. What’s your definition of a “real” world champion?