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Guest Editorial
By PWTorch VIP member Morpheus

Doug Furnas was the first wrestler that I ever met. I was ten or eleven (been a few years) and he was not far removed from his debut in Continental wrestling. Continental ran a ton of shows in Knoxville and Morristown, and since we lived within 30 minutes of both cities, my dad took me to many of them.

I wish that I had some great story to tell, but in truth it was nothing more than him autographing an 8x10 photo for me, smiling, and shaking my dad's hand. But, he was nice to us and that meant a lot to me and it meant a lot to my dad who was (and is) a huge wrestling fan who is now in his 70s. It meant a lot to me because a few weeks later I would meet another of my favorites and that meeting was not as nice - the guy was a huge jerk to both me, my dad, and my little sister. That guy didn't have time for an autograph like Furnas did and if I had met him first it might have really ruined my love of wrestling.

Sappy story aside, Furnas was an easy draw in Knoxville because of his link to the football team. In East Tennessee, babies are dyed in the Tennessee Orange as soon as they are born and Doug's link to the football team, physical appearance, and background as a powerlifter, made up for his lack of great wrestling or promo skills.

Furnas may have lacked technical skills, but my God, that guy could deliver a dropkick. If Wikipedia is correct, Furnas still holds the Tennessee record for the squat, and his leg strength was fully on display every time he jumped up into the air and kicked some heel in the face. I've always believed that Brad Armstrong had the most technically beautiful dropkick of any wrestler that I've seen, but Furnas was a close second, mainly because when he did a dropkick, it looked less like a set-up move and more like a finishing move. That was rare for a move that was so commonplace then and now.

I vaguely remember Doug's WCW run, and I didn't get to see many of his matches in Japan, but I followed him through the Apter mags, and I was happy to see him get a run (albeit a short one) in the WWF. Then, one night, as I was surfing through channels, I ran across my first ECW show and my first ECW match: Doug Furnas vs. Rob Van Dam. Just off that match, I became an ECW fan.

I didn't know that Furnas was sick and when I heard that he had died and that it was from early onset Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, it struck a double chord. As some of you will know, just recently, Tennessee's legendary women's basketball coach Pat Summit was diagnosed with early-onset dementia, so there's been a lot of focus on the disease in this area of the country and it was more than a shame to see another Vol hit with something similar.

It makes me wonder if Furnas's background in football and wrestling, two high-impact sports, had something to with his disease. With all that we've learned about concussions, it seems likely it did, but that's only conjecture. However, I'm glad to see that his family asked that donations be made to the Sports Legacy Institute in his memory.

Wrestlers like Furnas are part of the reason that I miss the territories. Furnas was a little fish in a big pond most of his career, but in Knoxville he was a draw and a star. Unfortunately for him, Continental wrestling went extinct just a couple of years after his debut, just like most of the other territories were doing.

I don't know what the guy was like away from wrestling, although I've heard good things. But, I do know that I always liked the guy and kept up with his career just because he was nice to me, and I hope by writing this, that I was nice to him.

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