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"Clash" Reunites Demolition At The Cove

Posted: Aug 11th 2008 By: CMBurnham

Barry Darsow is waiting on a delivery of hard hats, which is a bit ironic considering the former professional wrestler once made up half of the fearsome tag team known as Demolition.

These days, however, the man whose ring persona Smash was prone to face painting and sticking out his tongue owns Added Value Printing, a company that specializes in hard hats and medical supplies in Maple Grove, Minn.

?I?m 48 years old and not quite in the shape I used to be,? Darsow admits. That still won?t stop him from reuniting with partner Bill Eadie, better known as Ax, Saturday during the 10th anniversary of ?Clash at The Cove? at Coveleski Stadium in South Bend.

The International Association of Wrestling?s main event features the three-time WWE tag-team champions vs. WWE Hall of Famer Greg ?The Hammer? Valentine and Mishawaka?s own, IAW champion Brian ?The Crippler? Costello. Former Indiana governor and current South Bend Silver Hawks owner Joe Kernan will be the guest referee.

?Demolition was one of the most popular tag teams throughout the late ?80s and early ?90s,? Costello says. ?They had a bump in the road and went their separate ways and haven?t been together in 15, 16 years, but we?re excited about reuniting those guys.?

Darsow ? who also may be remembered as Krusher Khrushchev, The Repo Man and the Blacktop Bully ? and Eadie ? who also wrestled as the Masked Superstar and Bolo Mongo ? reached the top of the wrestling pyramid as the rough and tumble duo Ax and Smash.

Together, they used their brawling style to earn the WWE World Tag Team Championship on three separate occasions, including one title run that lasted 478 days, a record that still stands.

Perhaps the pinnacle of that success came during 1990?s WrestleMania VI at the SkyDome in Toronto when Demolition defeated the legendary Andre the Giant and Haku in front of nearly 70,000 fans for the tag-team title.

?It was unbelievable,? Darsow says. ?We would go to different countries and everybody knew who we were. All your life you want to be a wrestler and you start for $50 a match and now you?re getting $20,000 in some cases in front of 70,000 people. It doesn?t get any better than that.?

A third member of Demolition, Crush (Brian Adams) joined the team later that year. Adams began to take a more active role and Eadie left Demolition and the WWE in 1991.

Darsow and Eadie went their separate ways until last year.

?We did an autograph session in Canada,? Darsow says. ?The response was so great we said, ?Heck, our kids are grown up now, let?s get back in the ring and tear some people up.? ?

In the past year they?ve had about five matches and are planning more weekend gigs around Darsow?s printing business and Eadie?s teaching job in Roswell, Ga.

?When we do get together, we get a chance to sit, sign autographs and talk to the fans,? Darsow says. ?For so long, it wasn?t really like our characters to talk to the fans, so we just didn?t.?

At ?Clash at The Cove,? Darsow also will have the rare chance of being on the same card as his son, Dakota Darsow, who will square off against The Ripper.

?He?s going to be a heck of a wrestler,? the elder Darsow says. ?He?s about 200 pounds now and he does more of the high flying stuff. He?s kind of a cross between Curt Hennig and Ric Flair. His style?s a bit different than his old man.?

The remainder of the IAW card features WWE Hall of Famer Cowboy Bob Orton vs. Andy Chene, William Stud vs. Halloween, Adam Evans vs. Sgt. Jay Peterson and Bobo Brazil Jr. vs. Sicko The Clown.

?I think we get bigger and better each year,? Costello says. ?This is our 10th year and fans around Michiana are still responding to this event, so we must be doing something right.?