During a recent interview with VOC Nation’s In the Room, Tracy Smothers commented on his fight against cancer, memories of Shad Gaspard, and more. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On his cancer battle: “I’m doing better; completed six rounds of chemo, so that was just a battle. I’ve been done with that for a little bit. I’m just trying to stay in (with) this (pandemic) going on. My immune (system) is still kinda low so I have to watch it. I have a check up on Thursday to see what’s going on…I’m just trying to stay on top of it and take my medicines right…just kinda laying low and hoping things get back to normal.”
On the Coronavirus pandemic: “It’s changed the world, it’s changed everybody’s lives, so we just gotta adjust. It’s hard. You get stir crazy, restless, things like that you know? You took for granted a lot of stuff, right? My gosh, just sitting down eating at a restaurant somewhere or going to a ball game…its crazy, the new normal.”
On his time in the business: “I got to travel a lot of the world, I wouldn’t have done that with any other job. I (could have) played the game a little better politically and stuff and done a little better. It’s like anything, a lot of politics; that’s all part of it. I always stayed busy…it’s always a lot of fun to go to another country, somewhere you’ve never been. The saddest thing is that a lot of my friends are dead. It’s so sad…it just breaks your heart when you see their kids, widows, and things like that, it’s just terrible.”
On Shad Gaspard: “A couple years ago in Owensboro, Kentucky for WWA…Guido and myself worked Shad and JTG…that’s the only time I ever worked with him and it went good. Those guys had a good mind for the business and I don’t know why (WWE) ever let him go. Good guys…he was doing the acting and stunt work…guys had good heads on their shoulders. September or October was the last time I saw him.”
On being injured when he started in WWE: “I had a ripped groin and I had done it in Japan. I had like four tours in a row before I got there and I ripped it on the second night of the tour, I slipped on some water outside of the ring and I did the splits…I couldn’t train like I wanted to, I couldn’t move like I wanted to.”
On his experience in WWE: “A lot of politics. Jim Cornette brought us in, and I guess he had some heat with the office with some of them in there, and might have had some heat with Shawn, and you’re kind of guilty by association. That’s part of it, it happens. Not the first time, and it’s not going to be the last. I was there a year, and I went to ECW after that.”
On Jim Cornette and Paul Heyman: “Two of the best minds in the business that I ever worked for. If you could get them working together you’d probably have something, but they’d probably try to kill each other. Jimmy would think way ahead, where Paul is a lot on the fly. Paul would write on the napkin…Jimmy would plan way ahead….Jimmy was the last of the old territory (guys), and Paul’s ECW concept changed the whole business… Both of them made a lot of guys stars…two of the smartest guys I’ve known.”
On who else he thinks are the best minds in the business: “I’d put Michael Hayes in there too. I always thought Terry Taylor had a good mind for the business. Dutch Mantell, Lawler, Arn Anderson, guys like that.”
