He became the Masked Superstar in the 70's. Right after the IWA folded, (that was the group that tried to run against the NWA, Most notably the Crcoketts in Mid Atlantic.) As the Masked Superstar he wrestled all over the place and was a big heel and face in the Mid Atlantic, and Georgia territories. great feuds with Blackjack Mulligan, Mr. Wrestling II, Ric Flair,. He formed a team with Big John Studd who under a mask wrestled as Masked Superstar II. He made a trip to the WWF when Backlund wa Champion, feuding with him for the belt, including a great angle where he gave his Spinning Neckbreaker to Eddie Gilbert on the floor. Gilbert has been built up as Backlund's charge, , and had recently returned from a legit car wreck that almost killed him. The feud with Superstar set up the match with The Iron Sheik, where Backlund would lose the title. He continued as the Masked Supersatr wrestling in the AWA, Mid South/UWF, Japan and everywhere else until joining the WWF in the mid 80. In the WWF his first gimmick was a a Machine, he teamed with old rival Blackjack Mullian and under the masks they were Big Machine and Super Machine. Of course they were joined by the Giant Machine, and we all know who that was.
After the Machine deal he became a memeber of Demolition, but at first Barry Darsow wasn't Smash. The first Smash was Randy Colley who had wrestled as Moondog Rex for years. But the fans recognized him as a Moondog, and they WWF got rid of him. Colley would call himself Detroit Demolition in the Continental Area as well as ggetting a chance with WCW years later as a hapless cowboy looking for Stan Hansen, Colley was know as Deadeye Dick at the time. Anyway, Barry Darsow was working as Krusher Krushev for Crockett and was brought in as Smash. One of the reasons Darsow wore that pad so high on his arm was to hide a tattoo that would have shown he was Krushev. Demolition had great success, until Eadie got sick. The WWF has claimed he had a heart attack, Bill says he had a reaction to shell fish. What ever it was the WWF had brought in Crush, the original idea was for Ax to be the manager as he had been promised a job with the office. But as always in the world of wrestling things didn't work out like he thought they would.
Ax found himself let go, whileSmash was repackaged as The Repo Man and Crush became the blode good guy Crush. Ax continued to wrestle as Ax on the Independents, including the GWF. He formed a team with Demolition Blast but the WWF hit him with one of those stop orders. He wrestled then as Axis The Demolisher and Masked Superstar while he went to court with the WWF. Whate ever happened in the case, Mr. Eadie was then able to appear as Ax at conventions and on wrestling shows.
Greta Interview with him can be found here:
http://www.midatlanticgateway.com/Resou ... star01.htm
