Barry Darsow: We Had So Much Fun In The King Of The Road Match, We Got Fired, It Was Incredible

Barry Darsow had already amassed over 1,500 matches in his career by March 19th, 1995, but that day was significant because the Wrestling Veteran lost his job for doing what he was told to do.

Barry Darsow was primarily known as Smash in the legendary tag team and stable named Demolition. This week Darsow joined Lars Frederiksen and Dennis Farrell for the Wrestling Perspective Podcast episode. Barry remembered back on during his time in WCW. He also praised a man still in the business today, “The Natural” Dustin Rhodes.

“The Blacktop Bully was one of my favorite gimmicks. You had Dustin Rhodes on the other day. What a great guy; Dustin is one of the best workers in this business, too, by the way. When I had that truck match [King of the Road] with him in WCW, we had so much fun in that match, and we both got fired. It was incredible.” Darsow said.

Barry would recall some of the details of the match. “We drove 60 miles around Atlanta, [we] had helicopters with cameras and trucks with cameras. We were wrestling, we were having a great time, and we ended up bleeding like crazy everywhere. The office told us to get blood, so we ended up hitting the barbed wire. We did everything there, and we were bleeding from head to toe, and they ended up cutting out a bunch of that match too.”

Even though he was victorious against Rhodes, the 12-year veteran was not expecting to get this particular phone call the next day.

Barry said, “We were in a field when the match was done, and I looked at Dustin. I gave him a big hug. I said, Dustin, that was the freaking best match. That was the funnest. What a match. We hugged each other. I ended up driving back to Charlotte. He went to wherever his home was. The next day I got a call from Eric Bischoff, and Eric said, Barry, what a match, and he said I got good news and bad news for you. I said, well, what is the good news? He said it’s one of the better matches I’ve ever seen. I said, well, what’s the bad news? He goes, you’re fired. I said, fired; it was one of the best matches ever. He says you weren’t supposed to have any blood on TV. It was an uncensored match.”

Eric Bischoff fired Darsow the next day but told him he would bring him back, and he did just that around a year later.

Barry would talk about the phone call he received from then WCW President Eric Bischoff. “Mike Graham, our agent, said we had to be bleeding from head to toe, which we were, and we’re going to get fired over that? So, Eric says, yeah, but please, Barry, don’t give me a stink. I’ll hire you back. I promise. So I said, all right, and I called up Dustin. I said, Dustin, did you get fired too? So he answered, yeah, I got fired, and then Mike Graham called, and he got fired. So we all got fired.” 

#OnThisDay in 1995: WCW Superbrawl V PPV. Blacktop Bully defeated Dustin Rhodes. pic.twitter.com/AAhh9wK2Gz

— Allan (@allan_cheapshot) February 19, 2017

“That was the one thing I said to Eric. I hope you fire everybody involved. He said, no, it’s just you three. So anyway, we got fired for having one of the best matches. He hired me back after that, about a year later. So he was good with his word.” Barry said.

The Wrestling Perspective Podcast interviewed Darsow’s opponent in the King of Road match, “The Natural,” Dustin Rhodes; Dustin spoke on many topics, including his time in WCW. That interview can be seen or listened to by clicking here.