Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.

Dismiss

Aurelian "Jake" Smith, 77, wrestler "Grizzly Smith," father of Jake "The Snake" Roberts, Sam Houston, and Rockin’ Robin Smith

349 views

Skip to first unread message

Hoodoo

unread,

Jun 13, 2010, 7:03:06 PM6/13/10

He is shown onscreen, at home, for several minutes within the film,
Beyond the Mat (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_mat> -
<http://www.beyondthematdvd.com/> -
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218043/>), which I just happened to watch
last week.

---

Grizzly Smith dies at 77

By STEVEN JOHNSON & GREG OLIVER -- SLAM! Wrestling
http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2010/06/12/14368776.html

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2010/06/12/KENTUCKIANS265.jpg
The Kentuckians -- Grizzly Smith and Luke Brown.

Modern-day fans probably think of Grizzly Smith, who died today at the
age of 78, mostly because of his children -- Jake "The Snake" Roberts,
Sam Houston, and Rockin’ Robin Smith, accomplished wrestlers all. But in
his day, Smith was one-half of the country’s most-beloved and
well-traveled tag teams, the Kentuckians.

Through the 1960s, the pair sold out everywhere they wrestled with a
down-to-earth, simple folk appeal. "These boys are admittedly 'a-feared
of nuthin,'" wrestling writer Steven Tischler explained in 1964, calling
them "by far one of the most colorful tag teams."

He was born Aurelian "Jake" Smith in August 6, 1932 in Whitesboro,
Grayson County, Texas, to Maurice and Grace Smith, and, at about 6-8 and
350 pounds, he was a giant by the standards of his era.

When he moved from Gainesville, Texas to Amarillo, Texas, in 1958, he
took employment as an oil business trainee, though he told people at the
time that his goal was to be a pro wrestler. In those Texas oilfields,
he got to know another big guy, Luke Brown, a.k.a. Carl Dennis Campbell Sr.

Later, when Smith headed to Oklahoma, Brown called him, looking for
bookings, and Smith got the idea for a team. "We hit it off real good,"
the soft-spoken Smith said in The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Tag
Teams. "My brother died when he was four years old and I had two
sisters. Luke was the closest thing I had to a brother."

Using a bearhug finisher, Smith wrestled as Tiny Anderson in the
Mid-Atlantic since promoters said strong memories of "brothers" John and
Al Smith from the 1950s might perplex fans. But he soon became more
known as Tiny Smith or Grizzly Smith. And don’t forget one of his great
innovations -- a cowhorn that one of the team members would sound to
rally the audience to the cause.

"They used to bring a bugle and they'd blow it when they made their
comeback," said Tinker Todd in a Whatever Happened To ...? interview.
"When you had one of them down, the other one would pick up the horn and
blow it. The guy would throw you off and tag out."

"Beautiful" Bruce Swayze, one of his foes from the
Texas-Louisiana-Oklahoma territory, recalled Smith's in-ring tactics.
"He used the big club, the big boot," said Swayze. "He wasn’t a big
bump-taker, but he got over. The people liked him because he had that
hillbilly gimmick."

The Kentuckians’ greatest feud was with Bolo and the Great Bolo, later
known as the Assassins, a battle they carried from the Carolinas to
Florida to California. Joe Hamilton of the Assassins, who first got to
know Smith on the Oklahoma circuit, was instrumental in the
multi-territory war.

According to Hamilton, the Kentuckians hadn’t made much of an impact in
a swing through the Carolinas in the early ‘60s because they were being
employed as typical, run-of-the-mill mat wrestlers. Hamilton and partner
Tom Renesto turned their opponents into veritable Paul Bunyans.

"We never took them off their feet. Never!" Hamilton explained in his
2006 autobiography. "They were the hottest team of babyfaces in the
entire country at the time. That was the biggest, consistent business
the Carolinas had ever done -- has ever done." In fact, a reported 3,500
fans were turned away from one sellout in Charlotte.

One of those that believed in the rivalry between the Assasins and the
Kentuckians was Smith's oldest son, Aurelian Smith Jr., or Jake "The
Snake" Roberts.

"The Assassins to me were the fucking ultimate. They scared me to
death," Roberts recalled. "I just knew those guys were chasing my dad
down. They went from territory to territory with each other."

"'Dad, you've got to quit wrestling! Those guys aren't going to give
up!'" he remembered begging, and confessed that the feud brought him
nightmares.

A major part of the issue, said Roberts, was that his father never
smartened him up to the inner workings of the business.

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2010/06/12/kentuckians250.JPG
The Kentuckians dwarf a fan.

"Mine never told me that, he worked it all the way, and then some. It's
sickening. How can you do that to your own child?" Roberts asked.

Yet Grizzly Smith regularly acknowledged to his legion of followers that
his roots were in Texas, not the Bluegrass State. "They’d say, ‘No,
you’re not. You’re from Kentucky.’ What could I do?" he shrugged.

Smith, known as "Pops" to colleagues, also demonstrated a good ear for
the audience as a singles star.

One night in Dallas, he improvised in the ring by turning his planned
squash of Dusty Rhodes into an unexpected victory for the "Dream," based
on the crowd was reacting to Rhodes. "That’s why Pops, to this day what
he did for me ... anything that I ever did for me couldn’t pay him
back," Rhodes recalled.

Smith eventually moved behind the curtain as a promoter. He was a booker
for Bill Watts’ Louisiana promotion, and followed that up working for
George Culkin in Mississippi. For a short while, he had a backstage job
with World Wrestling Federation, and later was a road agent for World
Championship Wrestling.

He had a lot of influence on the NWA and WCW stars. At the 2008 NWA
Legends Fanfest Hall of Heroes induction, Magnum T.A. (Terry Allen)
talked about Smith. "He ended up being a mentor of mine in many ways as
I started my career," Magnum said.

Smith, who was in declining health and living with relatives in
Amarillo, Texas, could not make the trip. His son Mike said his dad
would be pleased with the honor. "My dad really wanted to be here but it
wasn't one of his better days," Houston said. "My dad's got fond
memories of you all, all the boys."

He had a complicated relationship with his four children, to say the least.

There were two children from his marriage with Paula Lorene Smith,
Roberts and a daughter, JoLynn.

"I was always scared to death I was going to lose my father, I was never
around him anyway. I saw him twice a year for fifteen minutes, but it
didn't matter, every child still wants that father," Roberts told IGN
Sports. He has often claimed that he became a pro wrestler just to stick
his success in his dad's face.

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2010/06/12/KENTUCKIANS2.jpg
The Kentuckians.

JoLynn was kidnapped and murdered. Former promoter Howard Brody writes
about her in his book, Swimming With Piranhas. "[O]ver the years there's
been suspicion that Grizzly was actually the culprit. The incident hit
the family hard, and although it never went away, it was rarely
discussed by family members."

Smith's second two children were with a woman he never married, Michael
(Sam Houston) and Robin (Rockin' Robin).

In Brody's book, Robin Smith's years of sexual abuse at the hands of her
father are detailed, as are his penchant for young girls.

"Robin was lucky that her mother got her out of the situation when she
finally discovered what her daughter was going through," wrote Brody.

A second, brief marriage, came in 1992, to Michelle D. Hyde, who was 34
years Smith's junior, lasting a little over a year.

All three of Smith's living children have had significant, public
battles with alcohol and drug addiction, according to a variety of news
accounts.

Over the last few years, a number of challenges arose in Smith's life.

He was living with his son, Michael, when high waters struck their home
near New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina made landfall. They lost most of
what they owned.

Later, Alzheimer's took over, and Smith declined in size to 165 pounds.
He never recovered and died on Saturday, June 12, 2010.

"Wrestling was his life for a long, long time," Robin explained in 2008.