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Wrestling Great “Hacksaw” Butch Reed Was A True “Natural”

Posted: Feb 16th 2021 By: Mike Mooneyham

There was a reason Butch Reed was nicknamed “The Natural.”

Whether as “Hacksaw” Butch Reed, “The “Natural” Butch Reed, or one half of Doom with Ron Simmons, Bruce Franklin Reed was a force to be reckoned with in the world of professional wrestling.

Reed, who had suffered two massive heart attacks earlier this year, passed away Feb. 5 at the age of 66. Reed’s family initially announced that he had died due to heart complications. His family told the local Fox affiliate in Kansas City this past week that he had tested positive for COVID-19 around Jan. 12.

“He’s going to be missed. He’s much-loved. I’m just glad I had him as long as I did,” Reed’s son, Bryan Reed said.

“I had recently reconnected with Butch a little over a month ago (and) he was in good spirits as well as health,” WWE Hall of Famer Don Muraco posted on social media. “Life so fragile … a delicate yet ever-enduring spirit.”

Equipped with the athletic tools that enabled him to succeed in any sport he chose, the massively muscled Reed was a rare talent who stumbled into the wrestling profession when a veteran grappler spotted the impressive physical specimen in a Kansas City, Mo., bar and recruited him for a career in the ring.

Reed, who played football at Central Missouri State from 1973-75, had excelled in basketball, track and field, and power lifting. Pro wrestling would pose a different challenge.

Ronnie Etchison, a seasoned vet and longtime Central States champion, saw Reed’s potential and sent him to the training school of longtime midget wrestling star Lord Littlebrook (Eric Tovey) in St. Joseph, Mo., where Littlebrook served as booker and, along with Little Tokyo (Shigeri Akabane), trained a mostly midget wrestling troupe.

“It took me over a year to show him I could make it in the business,” Reed told the Kansas City Kansan in 2004. “It was hard. I trained over a year. I dedicated myself to being a professional athlete.”

Oozing charisma and swag along with a combination of power, speed and agility, Reed enjoyed a period in which he was considered one of the top wrestlers in the business, posing a serious threat to Ric Flair’s NWA world title in territories from Florida to New Orleans to St. Louis.

Reed fought to a number of hour broadways with Flair and even scored several non-title wins. His talent wasn’t lost on some industry insiders who believed he should have been given a run with the NWA strap.

“I was fortunate enough to be one of the guys that could compete with Flair,” Reed said in a 2019 interview on the Illegal Foreign Object website. “With my athleticism and his athleticism, we clicked.”

“So sorry to hear about the passing of my friend Butch Reed! We spent ‘hours’ in the ring together. Rest in peace!” Flair posted on Twitter.

Mid-South glory

It was in Cowboy Bill Watts’ Oklahoma-based Mid-South Wrestling promotion where “Hacksaw” Butch Reed would emerge as a legitimate drawing card as both a babyface and heel during the early 1980s, headlining New Orleans’ Superdome against Flair and Junkyard Dog, with whom he engaged in a series of brutal “Ghetto Street Fight” matches.

Uber-talented with a great presence and legitimately tough, Reed was Watts’ cup of tea in a territory made up of believable bruisers.

Reed and JYD, Mid-South’s biggest star at the time, also formed a top babyface duo, doing battle with The Rat Pack trio of Ted DiBiase, Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Matt Borne. Reed was clearly a natural heel, though, which would lead to the eventual turn and big-money feud with his former partner.

At Mid-South, Reed won the North American heavyweight championship, the Mid-South tag-team championship and the Mid-South TV championship. At one point he was North American heavyweight champion and Mid-South tag-team champs with Jim Neidhart. He would also enjoy lucrative programs with the likes of Ted DiBiase, Steve Williams, Dick Murdoch, Buddy Landel, Terry Taylor and Magnum TA.

When Vince McMahon swooped up JYD as part of his national expansion, Watts cast Reed in the top babyface spot, but the magic was never replicated.

Reed had also enjoyed great success in Florida, where he and Sweet Brown Sugar (Skip Young) were booked as the top tag team in the territory, capturing the North American tag-team title, and in Georgia where he and partner Pez Whatley won the 1983 Thanksgiving night tag-team tournament.

A WWE stint from 1986-88 as “The Natural” Butch Reed, a bleached-blond copy of Sweet Daddy Siki from an earlier generation, would see him compete in the main event of the first Survivor Series (Reed, Andre The Giant, One Man Gang, King Kong Brody and Rick Rude vs. Hulk Hogan, Paul Orndorff, Don Muraco, Ken Patera and Bam Bam Bigelow), the first Royal Rumble and WrestleMania III. Reed made history as the first-ever wrestler to be eliminated from a Royal Rumble when he was tossed in the inaugural event by Jake “The Snake” Roberts.

Considered a potential successor to Ricky Steamboat as Intercontinental champion, the nod would instead go to Honky Tonk Man when Reed, worn down by the travel schedule, blew off a series of dates. With his time coming to a close in the WWF, there would be one more big run in Reed’s future.

Record tag reign

Reed may have enjoyed his greatest national success teaming with Ron Simmons as “Doom.” The monster duo held the NWA/WCW tag-team title for 281 days – the longest reign in the title’s history – after winning the belts from Rick and Scott Steiner at the 1990 Capital Combat pay-per-view in Washington, D.C.

The two initially had worn masks and were managed by Woman (Nancy Sullivan), who dropped the team to manage The Four Horsemen and was replaced by “The Godfather” Teddy Long.

Their hard-hitting, smash-mouth style earned the team strong reviews, and their run was highlighted by a series of bloody brawls with Ric Flair and Arn Anderson.

Simmons, a college All-American football player at Florida State, had been in the business less than three years when he hooked up with Reed.

“I followed his lead on most everything, and from my standpoint, I think it went on to be pretty successful,” Simmons said of the team.

The duo would split with Simmons turning face shortly before Reed left WCW in 1992. A short feud between the two culminated at Super Brawl I where Simmons defeated Reed in a steel cage match. Reed would leave the company after the match, enjoying one final run with a major title when he won the USWA Unified world heavyweight championship in 1992.

Reed, who would compete sparingly on the independents until 2011, worked as a rodeo cowboy out of the Kansas City area following his wrestling career.

Reed “was prototype athlete. Had it all … work skills, promo, body, charisma. One great man outside ring,” tweeted WWE Hall of Famer Jerry Brisco.

“I am extremely saddened to hear of the passing of ‘Hacksaw’ Butch Reed,” posted Michael Hayes. “Butch was a tremendous performer, great talker and good draw. More than that, Butch was a great guy, and funny son of a gun!”

“The team of Doom with Ron was my favorite team in WCW at a time where WCW was stacked with great teams,” added Shane “Hurricane” Helms.

“One hundred percent badass,” former WWE champion John Layfield said of Reed. “My first night in the wrestling business (almost 30 years ago) was spent with Butch Reed. I asked him about the story about him riding a horse into a bar … it’s true. What a good time.”