Tommy Rich Says He And Buzz Saywer Inspired Hell In A Cell Concept

Former NWA World Champion, “Wildfire” Tommy Rich recently appeared on The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling and discussed moments and matches from his long storied career. In the following excerpt, Rich discusses how the famed “Last Battle of Atlanta” became the inspiration for what would later become the WWE’s Hell In A Cell. The full episode can be downloaded at this link.

Last Battle of Atlanta being aired on the WWE Network:

“It shocked and amazed me for a film to be gone that long and never seen and I had no clue about it. To see it brought back a bunch of memories.”

The match with Buzz Sawyer being the inspiration for Hell in a Cell:

“Well Buzz was challenging. I wrestled him all over the country for two years in what is the longest feud in wrestling history I’m sure. If a feud would last 8-10 weeks than you had a good run, Buzz and me traveled around the country from Michigan to Ohio and everywhere like Georgia and all over the South and sold out everywhere we went. Columbus, Ohio had them hanging from the rafters, cage matches all around the country and we ended up in that “Last Battle of Atlanta” in that Hell in a Cell and it is funny to look back because I never really related that to Hell in a Cell that they have now because the cage situation but I look back at that cage and it was definitely a raw cage match.”

“It was kind of scary. It’s not built like the ones they have today and it was kind of shaky and Paul Ellering was on top in that little cage he was in and you thought that he was on top of that cage and was going to fall in and you didn’t really know. I guess we wrestled for over twenty minutes in that thing too.”

Intensity of Buzz Sawyer:

“I think the fans knew how intense he was. You had to be on your toes with Buzz and even though you have to be on your toes with everyone with Buzz it was different every night. You didn’t know where he was coming from or what he was doing and he was like half-crazy and he was like a rabies dog sometimes. I’ve seen him foam at the mouth and it scared me to death.”

For this and every other episode of The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling and The Triple Threat Podcast featuring “The Franchise” Shane Douglas please subscribe to them on iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Podomatic, and Player FM. Also follow them on Twitter @TwoManPowerTrip & @rasslinpal. Credit to them for the transcript.