JT Southern

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

JT Southern (Date of birth unknown, approximately 1964, born in Tennessee, USA) is an American former professional wrestler.

[edit] Career history

After spending time working the indy circuits (particularly the Continental Wrestling Association in Memphis, where he first came to prominence), he got his big break with WCW in 1991 - with long blonde 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 was known for his garishly camp outfits and flamboyant persona - he would typically come to the ring playing an electric guitar and wearing a tiger-striped jacket and fluorescent shredded tights. His interviews and out-of-ring promotional work were all well-received, but his wrestling skills were widely regarded as below-par and the crowds were not entertained, as Southern made hard work of defeating "jobber" (non-superstar) and mid-card wrestlers like Joey Maggs and Firebreaker Chip. In March 1992 he brought his friend Scotty Flamingo (who had a similar flamboyant spolit 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 didn't 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 JT Southern was Flamingo's manager or valet? On national TV, Ventura laughed and started insinuating that Southern was possibly gay and that the duo’s relationship was more than just good friends. However, such speculation looks unlikely given Flamingo's comments on Southern in later years in his "Shoot Interview" - he blasted him as "useless" and moaned that he was another of the bad ideas he got stuck with.

JT Southern was released by WCW in the summer of 1992. He travelled to Japan to try his hand at UWFI (a hybrid of wrestling and kickboxing) but was dismissed by one commentator as "pretty but ineffective" as he lost badly in every one of his fights there against Japanese martial-arts fighters (Nobuhiko Takada, Kazuo Yamazaki, Tatsuo Nakano & Masahito Kakihara) who ruthlessly exploited his weak defense against their explosive kicks. His legs suffered severe bruising in a particularly one-sided fight, and JT decided enough was enough and he quit the UWFI after suffering 4 straight defeats.

It is believed he wrestled in a few obscure indy promotions on his return to the US, but little is known about this stage of his wrestling career.

He is now retired from wrestling altogether, but has instead made a successful career in racing bikes. He writes for VMX Magazine and runs Jake's Garage in Nashville, Tennessee where he has gained widespread acclaim on the local biking circuit for his innovative designs. He also finds time to compete in some of the races competitively himself.