JT Southern

He eventually got his big break with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 1992 – with long blond locks and good guitar-playing skills, he was given a rock-star wrestler gimmick and was brought in to start a feud with fellow rocker Van Hammer. He made his WCW debut on the March 28 edition WCW Power Hour against Chris Sullivan.

In March 1992, he brought his friend Scotty Flamingo (who had a similar flamboyant spoiled rich-boy gimmick) to WCW as a sidekick to help regenerate interest in his feud with Van Hammer, but before long Flamingo’s popularity had surpassed Southern’s and his talent had made him into one of WCW’s most marketable stars. With Southern unable to compete with him, he was demoted to the role of being Flamingo’s groupie – he would do the ring-entry with Flamingo and remain at ringside for his fights, sometimes interfering if Scotty was struggling.

However, Southern’s actual wrestling matches became more and more infrequent – he suffered a few losses to his arch rival Van Hammer (including an embarrassing loss within 40 seconds) but these matches did not get any screen time as other matches were chosen for the TV shows instead. In one of Flamingo’s matches against Johnny B. Badd, ring-commentator Tony Schiavone cheekily asked co-commentator Jesse Ventura whether Southern was Flamingo’s manager. His lack of prowess in the ring led to insiders cheekily suggesting that ‘JT’ stood for “Just Terrible”. Southern was released by WCW in the summer of 1992.

In June 1991, Southern traveled to Japan to try his hand at UWF International (a hybrid of wrestling and kickboxing). He made his debut against Nobuhiko Takada but was dismissed by one commentator as “pretty but ineffective” as he lost badly – it was the first time in UWFi history that a fighter had failed to take a single point off his opponent.

He next turned up in Windy City Wrestling appearing for its debut show “Battle of the Belts” in Chicago on January 30, 1988. He wrestled on the undercard with Big Bubba in a tag team match against “Playboy” Buddy Rose and Doug Somers. After spending time working the indy circuits (particularly the Continental Wrestling Association, which later evolved into United States Wrestling Association in Memphis, where he first came to prominence), Southern had a brief appearance as Wolfe Wilde, the drummer of “The Tough Guys” band at Clash of the Champions X where he fought Cactus Jack Manson after Jack lost to Mil Máscaras and confronted the band who were playing during the commercial break.

After debuting in the AWA-affiliated Continental Wrestling Association in Memphis in 1986, Southern joined the American Wrestling Association (AWA) where he received a push early on in 1987, forming a tag team with D.J. Peterson. He also teamed with Jimmy Snuka and won the International Tag Team Championship. The title belts were later taken from Southern and awarded to The Mercenaries when Snuka left the territory. After a few appearances with the short-lived Oregon Wrestling Federation, Southern then disappeared from the area as well.

JT Southern (born July 4, 1964) is a retired American professional wrestler. Though he achieved most notoriety during his 1992 feud with Van Hammer in World Championship Wrestling, Southern also competed for Verne Gagne’s American Wrestling Association, Continental Wrestling Association (CWA) in Memphis, Tennessee, and in UWF International in Japan.