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Wrestling Legend Tracy Smothers Passes Away at 58 Years of Age

By John Canton • Published 28th October 2020

There’s sad news to report as a well known, popular wrestler named Tracy Smothers has passed away at age 58. He had been dealing with lymphoma, a form of cancer, in recent years.

It was noted by Timothy Denison on Facebook that Smothers passed away at 4:24am this morning due to his fight against cancer. Smothers also had a hernia operation eleven days earlier. It was mentioned by Denison that Smothers is survived by his mother, sister, two brothers, two sons, and his girlfriend.

There will be a “Celebration of Life” in honor of Tracy Smothers in the near future.

Here’s what WWE wrote in their tribute to him.

WWE is saddened to learn that Tracy Smothers passed away today at the age of 58.

A native of Springfield, Tennessee, Smothers teamed with Steve Armstrong, as his career began in Florida Championship Wrestling. 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.

After another stint on the independent wrestling circuit, Smothers began wrestling in WWE as Freddie Joe Floyd. Smothers shared the ring with icons such as Triple H and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin during his time with WWE. Later, the wrestling veteran had a memorable run with ECW.

Ricochet, Adam Pearce, Eric Bischoff and others around the WWE Universe have shared tributes to Smothers on social media.

There were a lot of tributes from people in the wrestling business as well.

One of the tributes came from former WWE Champion CM Punk, who wrote out five tweets that I’ve shared below.

“Tracy was the first name I ever worked. He taught me so much just that first night, and continued to do so for years. He loved working shows full of young kids and always helped share his knowledge. Always asked if I was swimming and eating cans of tuna.”

“His shadow boxing to warm up is legendary. I can hear it now if I close my eyes. I watched him try to take a guys eye out once, then immediately start brushing his teeth. One time he grabbed nachos from a fan and I was so terrified he was going to dump cheese all over me and I’d have to drive home from kentucky covered in concession stand nacho cheese (no showers in IWA) but he said, ‘block it, hit me with the cheese, kid’. He wrestled bears. He was in the greatest tag match of all time with Brad vs the Midnights. He was a THUG.”

“T is for terrible, H is for hell, U is for ugly and G is for jail because a thug can’t spell! I can recite his SMW promo vs Candido from the coal miners glove match by heart. Most IWA shows he would look out the curtain and say ‘well if they riot, we got em out numbered boys!'”

“Fresh from a shower, covered in soap and barely holding a towel to his body he fought police dogs during a riot in ECW. He was one of a kind.The Wild Eyed Southern Boy, and he left his mark on the wrestling business. I love Tracy Smothers. Rest in power Tracy, watch the cheese.”

On behalf of everybody associated with TJRWrestling, we send our condolences to Tracy’s family, friends and fans all over the world. Rest in peace.