RassleTalk with “The Black Label Society – Chapter 3 : The Fire Incident” with “Axeman” Randall Lewis
This segment is composed of bits & pieces of an interview with AJ Bradley & Void, also known as Black Label Society. The interview date was Saturday, June 24, 2006, at the XOW Building in New Albany, MS.
The comments and opinions expressed herein are those of Black Label Society (Void & AJ) only, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of myself or anyone else.
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How about XOW?
Void: Like I said, that was the first tag belts we really wanted to hold. We went through a lot of bad months, SGWA, we had a couple of bad incidents besides the one I know we are going to talk about later on. This is the place that kind of brought us new life. You know, Brody & Cody, you hear horror stories about those guys and then you meet them, and they’re really great guys; and we got to meet and work with Storm, Wraith, & Psycho, and a lot of different people. I’m really happy in XOW. This is the first place that’s really like Columbia. This is the first place I’ve really w
anted to work since CWA in Columbia. Because like I said before, Brody & Cody know that I am passionate and that I am going to do my very best to put on a good show. This is where we want to work. This is the only show either of us is committed to. But we are taking bids, I will put over Tracy Brooks for free.
TFW, formerly known as MUWA….
Void: That was a hell of a lot of fun. When we first started there we were taking out little feud with Crucial Impact, DC & Josh, to different towns. It was a lot of fun. It was a real good place to work. And the money, we had just come from working in a place where if they said they would pay you this amount, they paid you this amount. If they said you are gonna work these guys, we worked these guys. We just got to the point that it didn’t matter who we worked, we were gonna not make them look like crap, we could work with anybody. So, Tony & them at MUWA said we can put them in there with anybody, it really doesn’t matter, which was a real building point for us, the fact that they had faith enough in us that they could put us in there with anybody, and we would go in there and work and give ‘em what we’ve got. And the stuff we did with DC & Josh, I’ve heard it said from more than one source that those were some of the best indy tag matches they’ve seen, because we all had a point we wanted to make, me, AJ, DC, & Josh. WE all got in there, and that 14 year old kid, I don’t give a rat’s ass what anybody says about his age, he can work better back then than a lot of people I have been around who say they’ve been in the business 15 or 20 years and absolutely suck. They need to come in here and watch that kid work, and DC, too. DC just might have saved my life one night. I was allergic to something in the SGWA locker room and I was going to work him that night for the first time, and I can’t breathe, I don’t know to this day what it was that I was allergic to. I was wheezing, I could feel my muscles beginning to tingle because of lack of oxygen. And I’m over there telling him and he says we’ll work with it, we’ll do what we can. I remember getting to the ring and I had nothing, and he took care of my ass, and I got OK toward the end of the match. I finally started breathing again. As soon as I got into the back same thing, I couldn’t breathe. He took care of me again. Anyway, back to MUWA, that’s where we learned to be heels for the first time in real life… well, AJ was guilty by association, but I became the a** hole that everybody knows me as today.
AJ: That’s probably the top feud we had as a team, working DC & Josh.
Void: Poor DC, I’ve thrown him on his head so many times trying to do a certain suplex, it’s because I’m so short and he’s so damn tall, and he folds up, and I’m like, crap, man are you OK, are you OK, and he’s yeah man, come on, come on, he’s got that high pitched voice… and if he wanted to run you, DC could run you all over the damn ring. You couldn’t catch him.
AJ: I remember one night, one of the referees did not know exactly what the finish of the match was, and I ended up taking about four of Josh’s RKOs right in a row. Just one right after the other four of them. We kept having to do it again, and we kept telling the ref, count, count. And he would not do it, so I had to take all those RKOs.
Void: Josh got to learn how to adapt to crappy situations at a very early age. One of these days he is really gonna do something.
OK, let’s talk about the incident in Booneville, the night that Josh got hurt. I wasn’t there, but it was you guys in the ring
with Crucial Impact, correct?
Void: Yep. How much tape do you have left? A whole side, I hope.
I have half a side left.
Void: OK, that’ll have to do.
OK… What happened?
Void: OK… The match is set up for Josh Blaylock to look super fucking human. That was my whole point in the feud, for Josh to look like you couldn’t kill him. You could beat the hell out of him, you could pin him, but you could not stop that guy from coming. That’s all there was to it, that’s what we wanted to do. We took that feud to two different towns, that’s what we wanted to do. And that kid trusted me. What happened was my damn fault. I take full responsibility for it. AJ Bradley and I, riding down from Jackson. We stopped specifically because I have used fire before, with Robbie Ruffin in CWA, as a matter of fact. We stopped to pick up Dino’s Sundrop and some lighter fluid. Later, Gary Woolridge decides to tell me, no man, you gotta use rubbing alcohol. I looked at him and said dude, I’ve worked one fire stunt before, you should use lighter fluid. He said no man, and he starts running off at the mouth about how it will, pow, make this big gold kind of flame and then go out.
So, it was Woolridge who told you to use alcohol?
Void: No, he suggested it, because Woolridge ain’t gonna tell me shit. He didn’t tell me to do a damn thing. The reason it is my fault is because I allowed it to happen. I allowed it to happen. I take full responsibility for that. When I picked that kid up, and I put him through that fucking table, I remember I looked down, and I can still shut my eyes and I can still see him and hear him scream. I’m looking down on him, and it just felt like it took me so long to get to him, and I hear that high pitched scream, and I remember jumping on him, telling him to roll, roll, roll…. Then his dad comes up and hits us with the fire extinguisher, and I’m like, oh my God, oh my God! I can’t fathom, I start blanking, remembering bits and pieces, and I’m like shut the show off, shut it off, I’ve got to go to the back and see about him… and we were doing this finish, we had set up for it, I’m on a table and DC is going to jump off that balcony onto me, and I’m sitting there watching him climb up there and I said please, God, let him put me the fuck out, I don’t want to be conscious any more. I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to wrestle again, I don’t want to be living, I wanted DC to put my ass out, just knock me out. It didn’t happen. I remember we did the finish, and after Josh got burned it must have taken three or four more minutes, we rushed it, but it seemed like it took 30 minutes. I remember I took the pin, and stumbled to the back, you know, and everyone is telling me, don’t go back there. And all of a sudden, Chris Styles, Koolaid, said, “Boy, get your fucking ass out of here right now!” And I said you think I did that on purpose? Are you a fucking idiot? And Josh is over there cussing everyone and telling everybody, “Look, man, y’all leave him alone!” Josh is threatening to call the cops on everybody if they didn’t settle their asses down. So, here comes Wayne & Koolaid, and AJ gets between me and everyone else, everybody is coming at me, and I’m trying to grab arms, I’m fixing to snap somebody’s damn arm. I don’t give a damn about what everybody else thought, Bill Dundee, Gary Woolridge, Bonecrusher, or anybody else that was there, I didn’t give a shit about what they thought. I wanted 
to get to Josh. I did not care what they thought. Then, after they got us separated, and took Josh, I looked at AJ and I sat down, and I said this is a pile of shit, I quit. I quit. That kid trusted me, so for two weeks they said how did you get him in a hardcore match? So what that meant was that boy trusted me, and I fucking let him down. And it took me months before I could even talk someone talking about it, smiling about it, making jokes about it, Josh jokes about it more than anybody else, and to this day I can shut my eyes, and I can see him rolling, and when that fire came up around him, I see his body going up in flames, and I feel the fucking heat, from jumping on him, and I’m hoping like hell that something could happen to where I could be in some sort of pain, I felt so guilty about what I had inflicted on Josh. We went to the hospital, and, I could be mistaken, but I think the first people Josh asked to see were us. And I remember, we walked in, and they opened the door, and I saw him laying there, on his stomach, face down. And his back is blood red, burnt up, the skin is off his back, and I’m looking at him, and I couldn’t breathe, my heart just shot down into my stomach, and I started crying again. Make no mistake about it, I cried for two or three months, and AJ did too, we cried, the whole ride home. I called my wife and told her I can’t do this, I can’t do it any more. Any way, what I was getting to, I walk in to the room, and I saw him laying there, and for lack of a better term, his back looked like a damn steak, like a piece of raw meat, and I remember standing at the door, and Denise pulled me in, and I’m shaking, and I’m thinking, oh my God, no, and I didn’t know what to do or say, I mean who prepares for a situation like that? Everybody came to us and said it was an accident, they were real supportive, Tony and DC and Denise was the first person who came to me, and she said, “Baby, I know you didn’t do that on purpose, I know it wasn’t on purpose, everything’s gonna cool down and everyone’s gonna have cooler heads about this. And Josh calls me over, and he says, Void.” I mean, the kid’s on morphine, he’s 14 years old and weighs about 85 pounds, and the kid is on morphine, and he has third degree burns on his back, I don’t really know if he even knows what the hell he’s saying, so I go over there and said yeah, man, what is it? He says, “Cup check,” and hits me in the nuts. I mean, cup check, boom, he hits me in the balls. I remember the whole ride home, and we were working MUWA at the time, too, and that’s something else I have a fucking bone to pick with fucking Gary Woolridge about, I don’t think either of us said a word. I think we got a 12-pack, but there was no amount of alcohol, no drug that was going to change the way I felt. I looked at AJ, and Anita was riding with us, she was still training, and I remember saying I could have fuckin’ killed him. He trusted me and I could have killed him. We made national news and this and that, a lot of Athletic Commission crap happened, all my fault. And I’m not blaming anybody. I am blaming me. Gary Woolridge couldn’t whip my ass to begin with, and he wasn’t gonna whip my ass enough to make me use rubbing alcohol. It was my decision. I don’t want to say what the lesson I learned is, because that kind of demeans the situation that happened. There is nothing I will ever be able to do relieve any of the pain I feel because of what I did to Josh. Now Josh calls himself The Human Torch. Josh has a My Space profile and a lot of times he calls himself “Toast.” He can laugh about it, and I should be able to, but I can’t. I won’t be able to laugh about it, I can’t joke about it, I hurt. And I’m not saying he shouldn’t joke about it around me, it happened to him, but I hope nobody expects me to laugh or joke about it, because I can’t. I wish there was something I could do for Josh, I wish there was some way I could make up for it. I don’t give a shit about anybody understanding how I feel, except for Josh. It hurts me
every day. I will always see him in that fire. I will always hear that scream. If there’s one thing that ever fucked me up in my life, it was that. Even though it doesn’t bother him any more, and it didn’t bother him in the first place, I will never get over it.
Would you ever be involved in another fire stunt?
Void: Yeah, But I’d take it. I will never give it. I’ll take it. Because if it’s gonna happen, if there is going to ever be an accident, it will happen to me. I remember I told Josh, this was before the match, I told Josh that if he did not want to use fire, let’s not use it. If you want me to go through the table, I’ll do it. This was right before the match. He said, “No, man. I want to do it!” I fucked it up. It was right after that that we stopped getting paid at SGWA. The only reason we ever went back is because I was told that there was going to be a way I was going to get to put Josh over, somehow. I wouldn’t have gone back to that damn place otherwise, are you kidding me? The next week when we come back, if there is a tape of that week’s show, you look at the look on our faces when they put the belts back on us by default, because we took the pin. Nathan Lee, acting as Commissioner or whatever the hell he was, he put the belts back on us. We were long-faced, we did not even want to be there, at that time we were done. We did not care anymore. Nothing good is going on. The only reason we even came back was I was hoping there would be a way I could put Josh over, that I would lose a loser leave town match against Josh or something. That’s the only reason.
anted to work since CWA in 
with Crucial Impact, correct?
to get to Josh. I did not care what they thought. Then, after they got us separated, and took Josh, I looked at AJ and I sat down, and I said this is a pile of shit, I quit. I quit. That kid trusted me, so for two weeks they said how did you get him in a hardcore match? So what that meant was that boy trusted me, and I fucking let him down. And it took me months before I could even talk someone talking about it, smiling about it, making jokes about it, Josh jokes about it more than anybody else, and to this day I can shut my eyes, and I can see him rolling, and when that fire came up around him, I see his body going up in flames, and I feel the fucking heat, from jumping on him, and I’m hoping like hell that something could happen to where I could be in some sort of pain, I felt so guilty about what I had inflicted on Josh. We went to the hospital, and, I could be mistaken, but I think the first people Josh asked to see were us. And I remember, we walked in, and they opened the door, and I saw him laying there, on his stomach, face down. And his back is blood red, burnt up, the skin is off his back, and I’m looking at him, and I couldn’t breathe, my heart just shot down into my stomach, and I started crying again. Make no mistake about it, I cried for two or three months, and AJ did too, we cried, the whole ride home. I called my wife and told her I can’t do this, I can’t do it any more. Any way, what I was getting to, I walk in to the room, and I saw him laying there, and for lack of a better term, his back looked like a damn steak, like a piece of raw meat, and I remember standing at the door, and Denise pulled me in, and I’m shaking, and I’m thinking, oh my God, no, and I didn’t know what to do or say, I mean who prepares for a situation like that? Everybody came to us and said it was an accident, they were real supportive, Tony and DC and Denise was the first person who came to me, and she said, “Baby, I know you didn’t do that on purpose, I know it wasn’t on purpose, everything’s gonna cool down and everyone’s gonna have cooler heads about this. And Josh calls me over, and he says, Void.” I mean, the kid’s on morphine, he’s 14 years old and weighs about 85 pounds, and the kid is on morphine, and he has third degree burns on his back, I don’t really know if he even knows what the hell he’s saying, so I go over there and said yeah, man, what is it? He says, “Cup check,” and hits me in the nuts. I mean, cup check, boom, he hits me in the balls. I remember the whole ride home, and we were working MUWA at the time, too, and that’s something else I have a fucking bone to pick with fucking Gary Woolridge about, I don’t think either of us said a word. I think we got a 12-pack, but there was no amount of alcohol, no drug that was going to change the way I felt. I looked at AJ, and Anita was riding with us, she was still training, and I remember saying I could have fuckin’ killed him. He trusted me and I could have killed him. We made national news and this and that, a lot of Athletic Commission crap happened, all my fault. And I’m not blaming anybody. I am blaming me. Gary Woolridge couldn’t whip my ass to begin with, and he wasn’t gonna whip my ass enough to make me use rubbing alcohol. It was my decision. I don’t want to say what the lesson I learned is, because that kind of demeans the situation that happened. There is nothing I will ever be able to do relieve any of the pain I feel because of what I did to Josh. Now Josh calls himself The Human Torch. Josh has a My Space profile and a lot of times he calls himself “Toast.” He can laugh about it, and I should be able to, but I can’t. I won’t be able to laugh about it, I can’t joke about it, I hurt. And I’m not saying he shouldn’t joke about it around me, it happened to him, but I hope nobody expects me to laugh or joke about it, because I can’t. I wish there was something I could do for Josh, I wish there was some way I could make up for it. I don’t give a shit about anybody understanding how I feel, except for Josh. It hurts me
every day. I will always see him in that fire. I will always hear that scream. If there’s one thing that ever fucked me up in my life, it was that. Even though it doesn’t bother him any more, and it didn’t bother him in the first place, I will never get over it. 