Infamous King Of The Road Match at WCW Uncensored ’95

In 1995, "The Natural" Dustin Rhodes and Barry Darsow, portraying Blacktop Bully, competed in one of the most bizarre and unforgettable gimmick matches WCW had ever staged. The King of the Road Match at WCW Uncensored ’95 was designed to be a brutal brawl inside the back of an actual moving 18-wheeler. While the spectacle was meant to turn heads, it ended up sparking controversy that reached far beyond the wrestling ring. A single behind-the-scenes decision would not only overshadow the match itself but also cost both wrestlers their jobs. What was meant to push creative boundaries instead became a cautionary tale in pro wrestling history.

WCW Uncensored 1995: The PPV of Many Gimmick Matches

On March 19, 1995, World Championship Wrestling hosted its inaugural Uncensored pay-per-view at the Tupelo Coliseum in Tupelo, Mississippi.

The event’s main hook was its lineup of wild gimmick matches, marketed as being free from the usual rules and restrictions of traditional pro wrestling.

With its chaotic branding, high-octane intro, and the tagline "Unsanctioned, Unauthorized, Unbelievable!", Uncensored was WCW’s bold attempt to capture the raw, unfiltered energy that had made promotions like ECW a rising force in the wrestling world of the mid-90s.

Uncensored would go on to be an annual event for WCW until the year 2000, serving as the company’s yearly showcase for no-holds-barred chaos and off-the-wall match concepts. While the event was often criticized for its inconsistent quality and over-the-top booking, it became a staple of WCW’s pay-per-view calendar, offering fans a break from the norm and a taste of unfiltered mayhem.

The main event of the inaugural Uncensored was Hulk Hogan vs. Vader in a strap match. The card also featured a martial arts encounter between Jim Duggan and Meng, a boxer-versus-wrestler contest between Arn Anderson and Johnny B. Badd, and a supposed no-rules bout between Randy Savage and The Avalanche (John Tenta, aka Earthquake in WWE), which ended, somewhat ironically, in a disqualification.

The King of the Road Match was a Bizarre Concept

Most bizarrely of all, the WCW Uncensored pay-per-view kicked off with a "King of the Road" match between "The Natural" Dustin Rhodes and Blacktop Bully (Barry Darsow).

Instead of battling in a traditional ring, the two wrestled inside a caged-off flatbed trailer of an 18-wheeler, loaded with hay bales and other props.

As the truck barreled down the highway at a reported 55 miles per hour, supposedly on the backroads of Tupelo, Mississippi, the wrestlers fought for dominance in a setting more reminiscent of a stunt show than a wrestling match.

The objective was simple yet absurd: the first man to incapacitate his opponent, climb to the front of the truck, and honk a horn mounted atop the cage would be declared the winner.

Filmed days before the live broadcast and heavily edited for TV, the match was intended to shock audiences and set the tone for the lawless spirit of Uncensored.

Who Were the Creative Minds Behind the King of the Road Match?

To this day, it isn’t exactly clear who came up with the concept and design of the King of the Road Match at Uncensored.

During a 2019 episode of 83 Weeks With Eric Bischoff and Conrad Johnson, Bischoff, Senior Vice President of WCW at the time of Uncensored ’95, explained how he didn’t know who originally conceived the match. However, it was brought to his attention by Kevin Sullivan, the booker for WCW at the time.

“I didn’t book this. I’m responsible for it; I was a part of it; I would have approved it. But in terms of who came up with that idea, unless I’m gonna lie to you or just make up a story, I can’t tell you! I can tell you that when (Kevin) Sullivan came to me and said, ‘Hey! What do you think about this?’ And when I say ‘this,’ it may have been a version of what ended up being this match at the back of a truck; I dug it! And I’m gonna tell you something else: Watching it back today, I still dig it ’cause it’s different.”

While the King of the Road match receives a less-than-kind summary from fans and critics alike, Eric Bischoff would continue to defend its existence.

“You can’t just constantly do what everybody else is doing and just try to do it a little bit better; ‘A little bit of talent, put some flashy graphics on it,’ and call yourself creative.’ Sometimes when you’re really creative, you take a risk. And sometimes, it works out. And sometimes it doesn’t. But I don’t think this was as bad as its reputation would imply.”

Bischoff continued, “People that are really, really passionate about the product are right when they criticize this. I’m not suggesting they shouldn’t. I’m just saying, in the context of what this pay-per-view was, what the goals were, I’m not ashamed that we took a chance. I’m not embarrassed that we tried something that had never been done before. I’m just not. And I never will be, by the way.”

How Was the King of the Road Match Filmed?

As mentioned earlier, the King of the Road match served as the opening contest for WCW Uncensored 1995, but its debut wasn’t what it seemed.

The segment first appeared on the arena’s video screen behind the commentary team of Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, and Mike Tenay, prompting Schiavone to turn to the footage and announce, "The King of the Road Match has begun."

It was presented as a live broadcast, seamlessly blending into the pay-per-view’s chaotic, anything-goes atmosphere.

However, unbeknownst to audiences, the entire segment was filmed days before the pay-per-view on March 14, 1995, and outside of Atlanta, Georgia, rather than the implied location of Tupelo, Mississippi.

The elaborate setup featured a cameraman and assistant positioned in a small compartment atop the rear of the truck’s cab, another camera crew filming from a pickup truck driving alongside, and a helicopter capturing aerial shots.

To ensure safety and control, the 18-wheeler was flanked by a convoy of police vehicles throughout the shoot.

The decision was made to make the match look like a live broadcast, for all intents and purposes, rather than opt for a more cinematic approach whereby it would have been filmed and edited in a movie style.

In his 83 Weeks podcast recap of Uncensored ’95, Eric Bischoff gave reasons for their choice of production style.

“We did everything we could do, given the technology at the time, to shoot something that looked live. We could have gone the other way and shot it like you would shoot a movie, which is an entirely different type of production technique altogether, and equipment, by the way. And then, the blowback would have been, ‘Oh, this looks so fake! There’s no way! They shot it like they’re shooting a movie!’

“So I mean, to make it feel like it was really happening, and it wasn’t taped’ because that was the goal, clearly, and make it feel like ENG (Electronic News Gathering) kind of a style, we did the best we could with what we had at the time. Again, we’re going down a road, for crying out loud! In a truck while they’re wrestling.”

On two separate occasions during the broadcast, the signal from the helicopter camera briefly blacked out, an issue Tony Schiavone attributed on commentary to "microwave interference."

While the explanation added to the illusion of a live, unpredictable transmission, it also highlighted the technical risks WCW took in attempting such an unconventional match.

Despite the signal hiccups, the production crew did an impressive job of capturing the chaotic action from multiple angles, keeping the visuals engaging throughout the segment. With the cameras rolling continuously and the stakes riding on believability, it was ultimately up to Dustin Rhodes and Blacktop Bully to sell the match’s wild concept, and they committed fully, delivering a gritty performance that matched the outrageous setting.

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The Build to King of The Road, and Feud Between Dustin Rhodes and Blacktop Bully

In 1994, Dustin Rhodes had been feuding with heel manager and promoter Col. Robert Parker, who managed a stable that included Meng, Terry Funk, and Arn Anderson.

Parker’s latest acquisition of villainous talent came in December 1994, after he bailed Barry Darsow out of jail for $75,000 as part of the storyline.

At that time, Barry Darsow had been attending WCW shows as an unruly fan. During an episode of WCW Saturday Night on November 26, 1994, he sparked an altercation with Dustin Rhodes, which saw him escorted out of the arena by police.

Once bailed out of jail and under the tutelage of a cigar-chomping Col. Robert Parker, Barry Darsow became ‘The Blacktop Bully,’ a belligerent trucker gimmick proposed to Darsow in real-life by Arn Anderson.

‘The Natural’ Dustin Rhodes and Blacktop Bully then feuded throughout the beginning of 1995 and had a singles match at the February 19th Superbrawl V pay-per-view, where Blacktop scored a victory via pinfall due to interference from Col. Robert Parker.

During the following episode of WCW Saturday Night on February 25, 1995, Blacktop Bully explained to Mean Gene Oakerland that the next stage of his feud with Dustin Rhodes would be to determine ‘The King of the Road’ and that this match would take place on Blacktop Bully’s ‘rig,’ aka, his flatbed 18 wheeler truck.

In the weeks ahead, the build to this match was nothing if not electric.

The Blacktop Bully delivered another highly energetic promo alongside Col. Parker and Meng on the March 11 edition of WCW Saturday Night.

He’d then feature in a vignette showcasing his foreboding 18-wheeler truck on the March 18 edition of WCW Saturday Night, just one night before the Uncensored pay-per-view.

Further hype for the King of the Road Match came during the live edition of WCW Main Event on March 19, which was held directly before the Uncensored pay-per-view. The first segment saw the camera crew filming the interior of the caged-off trailer. The second showed Dustin Rhodes and Blacktop Bully entering individual cages at the rear of the trailer, which would be opened once the truck was outside of ‘Tupelo city limits.’

The King of The Road Match at WCW Uncensored 1995: Moment-by-Moment Breakdown

Once the King of the Road match got underway, Dustin sensibly made an immediate beeline for the front of the truck and began climbing the cage’s livestock wire to reach the top.

This initial attempt was thwarted by a severe low-blow uppercut from Blacktop Bully, and the brawl began.

Being the consummate professionals Dustin and Darsow were, viewers to this day may find it difficult to tell which of their numerous tumbles were performed in aid of selling the peril of their match or if the two wrestlers were genuinely unable to keep their balance as the truck trundled along the roads of Atlanta, Georgia.

Suffice it to say, the match contained a considerable amount of falling over.

That said, both competitors did their best with what they had, exchanging numerous snaps, pummelings, and beatdowns.

Along with a good amount of hay bales stacked around the cage, the trailer floor was entirely covered in hay. During the brawl, Dustin Rhodes would deliver no less than a piledriver and a belly-to-back suplex to his opponent, if just to keep this fight framed as a pro wrestling match.

The hard steel frame of the cage was also used to great effect, with both wrestlers seizing numerous opportunities to throw their opponents against the steel posts.

Likewise, and appearing to have no hesitation in utilizing his surroundings, Blacktop Bully would frequently climb to the top of the cage, a daring feat given the vehicle’s speed during those moments.

The interior of the trailer’s cage was also separated into sections, and at one point, Blacktop would stand on a horizontal metal bar and tumble into an impressive somersault bump. At another time, Dustin Rhodes held on to the highest crossbar with both hands and delivered a double-swinging kick to Bully.

Later in the match, while halfway over the top, Dustin would grab Blacktop’s leg and yank it down hard enough to imply intense pressure on the genitals. It was a move sold amply by Bully’s audible whimpers of anguish. It was perhaps an interesting foreshadowing of Dustin Rhodes’s future signature ‘Shattered Dreams’ move in his future Goldust gimmick.

And, of course, the match also had its fair share of hardcore weaponry, including a wooden fence post, a small wooden crate, a bucket of liquid (which Bobby Heenan postulated may have been gasoline), a somewhat meager-looking trough, and as one might expect, a bale of hay.

Throughout this, the danger of doing all of the above in a moving vehicle cannot be overstated. The truck would occasionally perform hard right turns, throwing the wrestlers off balance. At one point, the truck even ran a stop sign to do so, and at another, stopping altogether to allow a church bus to go by.

A particularly hair-raising moment came when a large piece of wood fell out of the vehicle. The cameras caught the moment just in time for viewers to see the wood shatter under the moving truck’s wheels.

The contest would culminate when both competitors desperately climbed to the top of the cage to sound the horn. Blacktop Bully performed a spine-tingling display of dangling more than half of his body over the outside of the cage with nothing but the road below, which looked highly unsafe, particularly from the aerial view.

In the closing moments, both wrestlers wrapped their arms and legs around the steel crossbar upon which the horn was fixed. They would exchange a lot of eye-raking before Dustin faltered and plummeted to the hay surface beneath.

Blacktop Bully pulled the cord and repeatedly sounded the horn to signify his victory. As the truck slowed to a stop, Dustin could be seen making one last futile climb to the top, by which point, the triumphant Blacktop Bully was casually strolling to the far side of the trailer, thus closing the match.

King of the Road Match at WCW Uncensored ’95: Reception and Star Ratings

The critical reception for the King of the Road match was hardly favorable, with wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer rating it minus-two stars in The Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

To this day, it is remembered as little more than a failed gimmick match.

However, besides Eric Bischoff, at least one person looks upon the match with extreme fondness, and that’s Barry Darsow himself, as stated in a recent interview with Fightful Wrestling Podcast. Contrary to their in-ring rivalry, Darsow has nothing but kind words for his former pro wrestling colleague, stating amongst all else that Dustin Rhodes is among the best workers in the business.

“We were in a field when the match was done, and I looked at Dustin. I gave him a big hug. I said Dustin, that was the freaking best match. That was the funniest. What a match.”

The Unseen Bleeding Controversy During King of the Road

During the broadcast of Uncensored ’95, not only was the King of the Road Match not even live, but both competitors involved were no longer employed by WCW at the time of its transmission.

While the match lasted in its entirety for a length between 20-30 minutes, the on-screen version was closer to 13 minutes, and eagle-eyed viewers may also have noticed that Dustin and Blacktop Bully had begun bleeding from their foreheads several minutes in. However, this detail was disguised for most of the broadcast.

During 83 Weeks, host Conrad Thompson would read out a detailed report issued at the time of the pay-per-view, which stated:

“According to the story we’ve heard, (Mike) Graham, who was the supervisor of the match not only told the two wrestlers to both ‘juice,’ which is supposedly strictly forbidden under the company’s new policy but brought blades with him for both of them to use.”

Despite this report, Barry Darsow has always put his and Dustin’s bleeding down to “hitting the barbed wire.”

Either way, in 1995, the ‘use of blood’ was against company policy. This was a result of pressure imposed on WCW by Turner Enterprises during a damning and somewhat hypocritical campaign against WCW’s standards of practice from Vince McMahon and the WWF.

Not only did Rhodes and Bully appear to disobey this rule, but they were actively encouraged to do so by Mike Graham, who, in addition to being a road agent for WCW and trainer at the WCW Power Plant, was also a supervisor for the King of the Road match.

In a Fightful interview, Barry Darsow recalled the response to the bleeding depicted in the match.

The next day, I got a call from Eric Bischoff, and Eric said, ‘Barry, what a match,’ and said, ‘I got good news and bad news for you.’ I said, ‘Well, what is the good news?’ He informed me, ‘It’s one of the better matches I’ve ever seen.’ I said, ‘Well, what’s the bad news?’ He goes, ‘You’re fired.’ I said, ‘Fired? It was one of the best matches ever.’ He says, ‘You weren’t supposed to have any blood on TV.’ It was an ‘uncensored’ match.”

During an interview with Inside the Ropes, Dustin Rhodes gave his version of events.

“We have a hell of a match. What you see of the match is all edited and the s****. But we both, all three of us, Mike Graham included, got fired for getting juice. And we had that okayed by the office. That’s the thing. We had it okayed because I’m the type of person that’s always asking to make sure that if I’m gonna do something, I’m not gonna get in trouble for it. It was okay to do it, and suddenly, I got a call the next day….”

Dustin would also infer that political reasons regarding hiring Hulk Hogan and other former WWF talent motivated the decision to terminate his employment.

Hulk Hogan’s coming in, the Nasty Boys, Brutus the Barber Beefcake; His (Hogan’s) boys. So I think they were maneuvering some money around. So it was very political, I think, what happened to me. And that same night for the Uncensored pay-per-view, you had Hogan and Flair, and they were getting juice. And I’m like, ‘What the f**k, man? I did the same f**king thing, but I asked, and here they are; just because it’s Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair, it’s okay.’ So it p**ed me off, and I almost took them to court but decided on not doing that.

Contrary to Rhodes’s testimony, no blood can be seen from either Flair or Hogan during their Uncensored ’95 match.

However, Hogan did bleed during a match against Vader in Chicago two weeks earlier and incurred no penalty from management.

During 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff quickly dismissed any speculation that internal politics was down to his decision to fire Rhodes Darsow and Graham. Alongside Vince McMahon’s ongoing effort to scrutinize WCW at every turn, Eric put the decision mainly down to pressure from Turner Enterprises and their Vice President at the time, Bill Shaw.

“There was a policy in place. I was angry. The only time I ever heard from the North Tower or Bill Shaw was with regard to blood. In this particular case, because there was a mandate, not just from Bill Shaw, but from Turner corporate, I felt I had to do something, and rather than single any one person out, I just kind of cleared the room.

Life After King of The Road for Blacktop Bully and Dustin Rhodes

This was not the final chapter for either wrestler as it pertains to their WCW career.

During the fateful phone call to Blacktop Bully after the King of the Road match, Eric Bischoff promised to rehire Barry Darsow and remained true to his word. In 1997, Barry Darsow found himself again on the WCW payroll, though the Blacktop Bully gimmick was no more. He remained employed in WCW until 1999.

In August 1995, Dustin Rhodes returned to the WWF for the first time since 1991, where he debuted his infamous Goldust gimmick. He was rehired in WCW in 1999, where he was initially repackaged as the equally infamous Seven, and remained with the company until its end in 2001.

Professional wrestling has never seen another King of the Road match. Many would argue that’s probably for the best. Still, there’s something uniquely compelling about the Uncensored ’95 bout that warrants at least one viewing. Love it or hate it, the match is undeniably memorable, and the sheer enthusiasm that Barry Darsow and Dustin Rhodes brought to the bizarre concept shines through in every hay-filled, high-speed moment.

During commentary, Bobby Heenan remarked, "I’ve never seen anything like this." He wasn’t exaggerating.

What’s even more endearing about the King of the Road bout is Barry Darsow’s enduring positivity toward the match, despite its controversial aftermath. Reflecting on it years later, he quipped, "We had so much fun in that match and got fired. It was incredible." That spirit of wild creativity, however ill-advised, captures a moment in wrestling history where anything really did go.

Watch the Infamous King of the Road Match between Dustin Rhodes and Blacktop Bully at WCW Uncensored ’95 in full below:

These stories may also interest you:

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• Dustin Rhodes: His Secret Life Behind the Paint
• 11 Strangest WCW Fantasy Gimmicks That Baffled Fans

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