On a recent edition of the “Wrestling Shoot Interviews” podcast, former WWE Superstar Barry Darsow (Smash of Demolition) recalled the early years of his career, becoming the Russian sympathizer Krusher Kruschev in Mid-South Wrestling, Demolition’s maiden tag team run in 1988, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
Smash on the tag teams of his era: “In that era, it was the greatest tag teams of all time. Every single person could have or every tag team could have had the belts for a long period of time. It seemed like every match we had with everybody was really a good match. After about a year of doing that, we kinda knew that they had to give us the belts because you could just feel it.”
On their 478-day tag team title run: “We had nothing to do with telling them what to do or asking them. Pat Patterson was the booker at the time and he knew that we were business and we would do anything with anybody, we were for the good of the match and I think that’s why we were champions for so long.”
On working as Krusher Kruschev: “It was a little scary. I just was in the business…a year and a half, and I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. When I was a babyface in that territory, I couldn’t do a promo. It was hard to do a wrestling match. Everything was hard. And when he [Watts] says ‘Barry, I’m going to make you a Russian sympathizer. You’re going to be with Nikolai Volkoff, and you’re going to hold the shovel up and you’re going to tell everybody, you’re going to bury everybody in America.’ He says ‘You’re going to have so much heat, you’re going to learn how to work.’”
On learning how to work after turning heel: “When he said that, I was so fired up, and it was like a light went on. And I learned how to work real fast, ’cause you had to. As soon as Nikolai and I got a little more heat on somebody, the crowds were in on us. And I mean…it was so easy, the wrestling business all of a sudden came to me. And…that next year, when I was there, I really learned how to work.”
