Black Bart

In late 1986, Bart went to World Class Championship Wrestling where he feuded with Chris Adams and Kevin Von Erich over the World Class title. When Adams, who held the World Class title, left the promotion in September 1986, Bart was awarded the championship, but not before the promotion explained that Bart won the belt from Adams in a fictitious match held in Los Angeles. Bart lost the championship to Von Erich a month later in Dallas. Bart left soon thereafter.

On January 22, 1990, Black Bart made his debut for the World Wrestling Federation when he defeated Lee Peak in a dark match at a *WWF Superstars* taping in Miami, Florida. Four weeks later, Bart made his first appearance on television, when he was defeated by Tito Santana on *Prime Time Wrestling* on February 19. For the remainder of the year he worked mostly as enhancement talent. Bart appeared in well over one hundred matches and being featured regularly on television. He did however, score victories over enhancement talent such as Jim Powers (a five match winning streak in July), Paul Diamond, Mark Young, Jim Evans, and Pez Whatley, and even managed to get a shot at the WWF World Tag Team Titles and wrestle the then-champions, Demolition alongside Bart's partner for the match, Mark Ming in a losing effort for Bart and Ming.

Bart was the opponent for several wrestlers making their debuts for the WWF. On April 24, 1990, Bart was defeated by Dustin Rhodes in a dark match at a *Wrestling Challenge* taping in San Antonio, Texas. This was the debut for Dustin. On the July 21 episode of *WWF Superstars*, Bart teamed with Tom Stone to face The Legion of Doom in their first match with the company. On July 24, 1990, he defeated Shane Douglas at a house show in Los Angeles, California. Following a series of matches in July against Jim Powers where he emerged victorious in every encounter, he entered a house show series in August with Pez Whatley. Again he was unbeaten, and then moved on a to another house show program – this time with the former Killer Bee Jim Brunzell. Brunzell would win all of these encounters. In October he would enter a house show series with Dustin Rhodes and again would come up winless. That winter he began a series of matches with Saba Simba and Shane Douglas.

On the January 19th, 1991 edition of *WWF Superstars*, Bart went after the WWF Tag Team Championship again when he teamed with WT Jones in an unsuccessful challenge to The Hart Foundation. This would be his final WWF match.

After leaving WWF, he wrestled for World Class Championship Wrestling once again, where he struck up a feud with Sam Houston.

Less than a month after his final televised WWF appearance, Black Bart signed with World Championship Wrestling. He made his first appearance at house show in Jacksonville, Florida on February 15, 1991. Teaming with Dan Spivey and Buddy Landell, the trio mounted an unsuccessful challenge to WCW Six-Man Tag Team Champions Junkyard Dog, Ricky Morton, and Tommy Rich. That spring, he renewed several rivalries, as he faced Sam Houston and Dustin Rhodes on the house show circuit.

WCW soon created a stable known as "the Desperados" consisting of Dutch Mantell, Black Bart, and Deadeye Dick. The Desperados were packaged with the gimmick of being three bumbling cowboys looking to meet up with Stan Hansen to go to WCW and become a team. Over the course of a few months, they were promoted through a series of vignettes by which they would be beaten up in saloons, searching ghost towns, and riding horses. The Desperadoes entered the ring for the first time at house show in Charlotte, North Carolina on May 12, 1991, where they (Bart and Dutch Mantell) were defeated by The Young Pistols.

Bart made his first WCW pay-per-view appearance seven days later at SuperBrawl I, when he substituted for Larry Zbyszko in a match against Big Josh. Later that month, Bart began teaming regularly with Deadeye Dick in house show matches against Ricky Morton and Dustin Rhodes. The full Desperadoes trio entered the ring for the first time on July 3, 1991 in East Rutherford, New Jersey at the start of the 1991 The Great American Bash tour, where they were defeated by The Freebirds and Badstreet Brad Armstrong. On July 14, he wrestled Junkyard Dog in the dark match of the Great American Bash pay-per-view. He later appeared as a lumberjack in a match between Big Josh and Black Blood.

While the Desperadoes angle continued and the trio was shown as late as the June 29 *WCW Power Hour* program still looking for Stan Hansen, Hansen left the promotion. Without Hansen, the group were pushed into service as jobbers and were dissolved as a stable before the end of the year. Bart's final match was on August 24, 1991 on *WCW Power Hour*, when he teamed with Richard Myers against The WCW Patriots.

Bart returned to WCW on November 26, 1995, when he participated in the sixty man, three ring battle royal at World War 3. Wrestling as "**Big Train Bart**", he was eliminated. He next appeared on *WCW Saturday Night* on November 30, where he faced Disco Inferno.