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Spotlight on Butch Reed

Posted: Jul 10th 2026 By: Unknown

Seven months before he died, Butch Reed was still showing up on the independent scene, a guy who had quietly competed in rodeos between bookings and never needed a spotlight to keep going.

That tells you everything about who Bruce Franklin Reed was.

He passed on February 5, 2021, after suffering two heart attacks in January. His family said he tested positive for COVID-19 around January 12. He was 66 years old. And honestly, the wrestling world did not make nearly enough noise about it.

Here is what most people forget about Butch Reed: before he ever dyed his hair blond and became "The Natural" in the WWF, before he put on a mask and helped build one of WCW's most legitimate tag teams, he was one of the most complete workers in the entire country. A legitimate college football player at the University of Central Missouri. A guy who signed as a rookie free agent linebacker with the Kansas City Chiefs in 1976 before getting cut. He took that same relentless physicality and carried it straight into a wrestling ring.

And on April 7, 1982, in Miami, Florida, Butch Reed had what Dave Meltzer would later recognize as the first five-star match he ever rated. A match against Ric Flair for the NWA championship. Think about that for a second. The very first five-star match in the history of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter involved Butch Reed. Most fans today have never even heard that.

His run in Bill Watts' Mid-South Wrestling from 1983 through 1986 might be the most underappreciated extended run of that entire era. He came in as a babyface tag partner for the Junkyard Dog and immediately got into a real, legitimate dispute with Jim Duggan over who had the rights to the "Hacksaw" nickname. He held the Mid-South North American Heavyweight Championship three separate times. He feuded with Terry Taylor in a program that genuinely helped make Taylor a star in that territory. He carried a double championship reign at one point and had a famous one-hour time-limit draw with Ric Flair. On the independent scene in that region, Butch Reed was money.

When he finally landed in the WWF alongside manager Slick, he debuted at WrestleMania III, appeared in the main event of the very first Survivor Series, and competed in both the first Royal Rumble and a WrestleMania IV tournament match against Randy Savage. That WrestleMania IV loss is one of those moments that sticks with you if you watched it live. Reed dominated Savage for most of the match, then stopped to jaw at Miss Elizabeth while standing on the top rope. Savage caught him, threw him off, hit the elbow. Done. One moment of arrogance, and just like that, the WWF chapter was over.

Then came Doom.

If you grew up watching WCW in 1989 and 1990, you remember when two massive masked men showed up at Halloween Havoc and absolutely dismantled the Steiner Brothers. Everybody in the building knew it was Ron Simmons and Butch Reed under those masks, including, apparently, Jim Ross, who accidentally said Reed's name on commentary during Starrcade 89. The team was managed by Woman, they were built like wrecking crews, and they eventually beat the Steiners cleanly at Capital Combat to win the WCW World Tag Team Championship. In a division loaded with talent, Doom held their own against the Steiners, the Four Horsemen, and Sting and Lex Luger. They were legitimate.

What ended it was the same thing that tends to end great teams. Miscommunication, frustration, and a loss neither man could walk away from cleanly. Reed turned on Simmons after a loss to the Fabulous Freebirds at WrestleWar 1991. Their feud ended with Simmons pinning Reed inside a steel cage at SuperBrawl I. A brutal, honest finish to one of the better tag team stories of that era.

Here is the human beat that most people never knew. While Reed was still working occasional matches in his later years, he was also competing on the rodeo circuit in Kansas City. A former NFL hopeful, a man who had wrestled Ric Flair to a five-star match and held championship gold across a dozen different territories, was out on the rodeo grounds between bookings because that was who he was. A competitor in every single arena available to him. He never stopped moving.

Wrestling lost a quiet legend on February 5, 2021. Not the loudest name from his era, but one of the most capable men who ever laced up boots.

The first five-star match. The first Survivor Series main event. Doom. Three decades of grinding. That is a career worth remembering out loud.

What is your favorite Butch Reed memory — his Mid-South run, his time as "The Natural" in the WWF, or what he built alongside Ron Simmons as Doom?