Bob Smedley

Robert Smedley is an American retired professional wrestler and author, better known by his ring name Bobby Blaze. Robert "Bob" Smedley made his professional wrestling debut on September 11, 1988 after training under Boris and Dean Malenko. In 1991 and 1992, he would wrestle as enhancement talent for WWE. In 1993 he began working for the newly formed Smoky Mountain Wrestling under the ring name Bobby Blaze. On June 7, 1993 he won the SMW Beat the Champ Television Championship by defeating The Dirty White Boy in a tournament final, 21 days later Blaze faced an unknown, masked wrestler known as "The Mighty Yankee", which turned out to be the Dirty White Boy pulling a trick on Blaze to win the championship from him. Blaze was one of eight wrestlers competing in SMW's "King of Kentucky" tournament, defeating Killer Kyle in the first round before losing to Brian Lee in the semi-finals. In September he won a tournament to become the first ever holder of the SMW United States Junior Heavyweight Championship, a title he held for 21 days before Chris Candido won it from him. The title change with Candido led to a series of matches between the two, including trading the title back and forth between them. The two also faced off in a series of matches where the loser would be tarred and feathered after the match as part of SMW's Thanksgiving Thunder series. On February 26, 1995 in the main event of SMW's "Sunday, Bloody Sunday II" show Blaze defeated Jerry Lawler to win the SMW Heavyweight Championship. He lost the title to Buddy Landel on April 8. He would end up holding the SMW Beat the Champ Television Championship one last time before SMW closed down. He would also had a couple shots at the NWA World Heavyweight Championship against Dan Severn on May 20 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and on August 4 in Knoxville, Tennessee. After SMW closed, Blaze wrestled the independent circuit throughout the American East Coast, as well as touring Japan for Michinoku Pro Wrestling. In September 1997, Blaze joined World Championship Wrestling. He appeared in the 60 man battle royal in the main event of the World War 3 in 1997 and 1998. He'd remain with the company until 1999. After leaving WCW, Blaze returned to the American independent scene, where he would remain active for five years, before retiring in 2004. Since June of 2018 Bobby has been hosting a podcast called Bell to Bell with Bobby Blaze .