Tracy Smothers, a former WWE, WCW and ECW wrestler, has died, WWE announced on Wednesday. He was 58 years old. According to Timothy Dension on Facebook, Smothers died early Wednesday morning after battling cancer.
“A native of Springfield, Tennessee, Smothers teamed with Steve Armstrong, as his career began in Florida Championship Wrestling,” WWE said in a statement when talking about his Smothers’ career. “The duo competed in WCW as The Southern Boys and The Young Pistols and were engaged in a long rivalry with The Fabulous Freebirds tandem of Michael Hayes & Jimmy Garvin.”
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In November 2019, Smothers announced he was battling lymphoma. The Eat Sleep Wrestling website also noted that Smothers suffered heart damage from the chemotherapy during his first bout with cancer, which led to him being hospitalized a few times. “Tracy’s ready to fight this cancer as hard as he did last fall, but the heart problems have delayed the cancer treatments and the hernia issue has delayed doctors from treating the heart issues. He’s in a real battle,” Eat Sleep Wrestling wrote. Once the news of Smothers’ death spread through the wrestling world, several WWE stars paid tribute to him on social media.
“I just heard the news about Tracy Smothers,” WWE Superstar Ricochet wrote. “In my early years as a wrestler, myself and [Chuck Taylor] got to spend a lot of time with Tracy. He always knew how to put a smile on peoples faces.” Other current and former WWE stars that remembered Smothers on social media were CM Punk, Mustafa Ali, Eric Bischoff and Edge.
“Tracy Smothers took two young kids from Canada trying to ‘tour’ the southern United States, with $1.50 a day to spend on food, saw a dilemma we put ourselves in to try and get experience and took us under his wing. He knew we wanted it. Because of that, and his huge heart,” Edge wrote on Twitter. “He drove us to make the next town so we could eat our next meal. He found floors, couches or other talent who had spare space in their hotel rooms for us to sleep. On those drives he dispensed his knowledge. Always with a laugh and a twinkle in his eye. And we soaked it up.”
Smothers competed in WCW from 1990-92 and won the United States Tag Team Championship with Armstrong twice. He was in WWE from 1996-97 and competed under the name Freddie Joe Floyd. He then moved on to ECW before spending the rest of his wrestling career on the independent circuit.
